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Crashes:
-I've had lots of bad crashes over the years, a few of them involving being run over and landed on. The worst I've ever injured my self is spraining my shoulder, getting a concussion and chipping my teeth. Luckily every time I crash hard I walk away with only cuts and bruises which I'd take any day over a broken bone. The wipeouts I hate the most are just little tip overs in corners or sliding out. Nothing is more frustrating than loosing valuable time in a race due to a stupid little mistake like that. But crashing is a part of motocross, it's how we learn to become better racers.
This year has been my first year racing in the pro classes so i thought i might as well test my skills at a couple of the Canadian Monster Energy Motocross Pro Nationals and see how i make out. Wild rose mx (Calgary, AB) was my first national so I was pretty pumped on qualifying and finishing 30th overall in the MX 1 Pro class even though it ended up being a mud race which is not my favourite track condition.
Calgary built up my confidence for nationals and I figured I would head to Shadow Valley Raceway (Morden, MB) to push for a top 25 overall finish. The track was perfect the night before the race, but there ended up being a down pour over night which turned the track into an even more muddy track than Calgary was. I was not happy about the mud, but I jumped on my bike and rode a lap of practice and pulled off to go wash my bike and prep it for the qualifier which was not too long after. I headed out again to ride my qualifier and found out the track was even worse than practice and ended up crashing hard twice. The mud was so deep it was hard to even lift my bike up and when I finally got it up again i rode about 10 feet and fell over again because my bike was so heavy and I had no traction. I managed to get on my bike and ride it back to my pit. I was really upset because I knew i didn't even get a full lap in which ment I had no qualifying time, but I was put through to the heat races due to lack of riders in my class. After finally getting my bike washed up I decided that I wasnt going to ride the heat races because after seeing all of the caked mud in my radiator, chain/sprockets ect, that it would end up costing me a fortune and possibly a whole motor just to race the first moto. Im glad I decided to sit it out because in the first MX2 moto I seen about 10 bikes blow up and about 5 bikes blow up in MX1. It was really bad, bikes were even on fire. In those first motos there were 21 DNF's in the MX2 class and 13 in the MX1 class. I learned that day how much of an advantage the factory racers have over us privateers. They had extra motors and extra bikes if they cooked a motor in the first race. They had mechanics doing all of the bike washing and preping for them and they didnt have to pay a cent. It ended up being a very expensive weekend for me driving all that way just to end up watching, but it was worth it because at least I had a chance to try it out and gain more mud riding skill. I feel like I gained speed from the nationals so im excited to come back to race provincials and keep in the top 3 in all of my classes.
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Blake's 2011 results so far this year.
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I would just like to thank the Thunder City Kawasaki team for all of their help and support throughout the 2010 race season. In the Saskatchewan provincial series I ended up winning the championship in GP Pro Am and finished 2nd overall in MX1 – Intermediate.
It was a big help having such a great team of people behind me, helping me every step of the way. For me, this year of racing was lots of fun but it also had its ups and downs. Starting the year off with a totally different bike and suspension took a bit of getting used to, but with plenty of practice, riding the KX450 came naturally to me. I had my fair share of wins and top three finishes, but also had a few bad crashes which resulted in some bad finishes. All in all, this season was the best I’ve ever had.
Thunder City and Kawasaki made it all happen for me and my experience with them was amazing. I look forward to running in thePro class during the 2011 season – Blake Osatchuk #20
 
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