Hey everybody, welcome back to the Joe Rockstar channel. With only two weeks between Round 3 and 4, I found myself unable to get in much practice. If work taking up most of my time in the days getting shorter, free time for practice and bike maintenance was at a premium. The weekend prior to the race, I only had a couple hours to get in a quick ride in the backyard. I had been out there in a while, and the trails have changed from the monsoon rains. An unexpected hot hole on a familiar hill time resulted in an twisted leg and a spring knee. With less than a week till the race, it was unlikely to heal at time. Since we set up camp at the venue in Wakey-Up Arizona, the pain was still there, and it was clear that I would be riding the race on a bum right knee. My friend Scott Mike decided to come along on this trip. We had a great camp site, and thanks to Scott, a perfect fire pit to cook over. Now packing all this stuff in my truck was difficult, and as it turns out, I could have done a better job. Unbeknownst to us, the case with my helmet inside tumbled out of the back of my truck at about 40 miles from the race site. Fortunately, a group of amber racers were on the road behind us and stopped to pick it up. I am so grateful that Greg and Ruffin Milliken showed true compassion by pulling over, picking up my helmet, and then later returning it to us. Now the format for this race was a little different than what I was used to. There were two motos to race, and we were expected to make a short run to the bikes in the start. The first moto was a bit of a cluster. There was so little room at the start line, and I ended up having to start with my bike behind another bike. There was brush and other obstacles between the racers and the bikes, and this start was a mess. At the start, I felt like we were in a horrible repeat of the dusty conditions for the previous race over the twist. Sand, which seems to be my Achilles heel, was deep and sucked all the motivation and enjoyment out of this race early on. As if that wasn't enough to break my spirit, the course had deep sandy woops to complete the perfect mix of new paint, blinding visibility, and confidence robbing loss of control in the sandy conditions. Despite all these problems, I was running in fourth place for the first lap. Of course, I was unaware that I was doing so well. To me, it felt slow, and I was certain that I would have to step it up in the second lap to earn a good finish. Unfortunately, I was unprepared for the struggles I would have in the sand. It was so physically exhausting fighting for control of the bike in almost every turn, and I guess myself out. Physically drained and psychologically defeated by the paint in my leg and the sand at the end to make too many mistakes. This time I picked up the bike my knee would surge with paint. One cratch in particular sent me tumble in past the bike. After that I had no motivation left. A spill right at the start of lap 3 was all I could take. I considered toughing it out, but this was the first of the two motos. When the race official told me we only had 15 minutes left, I decided to head back to camp and try to regroup for the second moto. At the least, I would need some time for my knee to recover. At worst, I was considering dropping out of the race.