It has now been just over a week since we arrived in America and so far it has been amazing. We arrived on a Saturday and spent the weekend in Los Angeles checking out all the tourist spots. We went to Hollywood, Beverly Hills and spent a day at Six Flags Magic Mountain theme park. It was good fun to check out but definitely not the sort of place I could handle living.
Sunday night we headed south to where we are now based in Murrieta which is an hour or so from LA. Bilkos house is in a gated neighbourhood and it’s pretty nice and new. We spent the first few days of the week driving around organising everything needed to start riding, I am borrowing Cam Sinclairs Dodge Ram while I’m here and it’s perfect for going riding. My first day on the bike was at a track called Starwest, I went out there with Bilko and Cam Sinclair and a few other riders they hang out with. It was a fun track to run in my new practice bike and get into the groove again, loads of jumps and berms but basically smooth as.
My next day and my first real day of hammering it out and riding hard was at Glen Helen for Thursday practice. There were hundreds of riders out on the track the whole time which made it a bit sketchy at times, they basically let anyone go for it whenever they like all day long. Apart from that it is really well organised and the track is consistently watered, the dirt is a lot like Taupo just with huge steep hills and big jumps. There were a few top pros there like Villopoto and Broc Hepler, I felt better and better all day and by the end of it I was about one to two seconds a lap off Villopoto.
We went and picked up Justin McDonald from the airport the next day and helped him get a few things sorted out. The next morning we woke up super early and got on the road out to Las Vegas to spend a night and Watch the final round of the AMA Supercross series. We met up with a few kiwis guys up there and Shayne King hooked us up with VIP passes which was sick, we basically cruised around wherever we liked all day. It was the first supercross race ive seen over there and it was impressive, the top guys ride with so much confidence and intensity. James Stewart was crazy to watch and regularly did things that you wouldn’t think possible on a bike. The lites race was particularly good to watch with Pourcel, Dungey and Canard going at it for the whole race.
The next day we took some time to check out the sights of Vegas and take loads of photos, we drove back to Murrieta that night and started planning for a big week of riding ahead.
As I write this we have just come back from another day out at Glen Helen. I am getting a lot of help over here from Craig Behl who normally works for Ben Townley, he has helped me with loads of parts and things that definitely help keep the costs down. He invited us out to come ride with the Factory Honda team as they had hired out the whole track for the day, it was basically just Millsaps, Short, Tedesco, Justin McDonald and me out there riding all day. It is crazy how beneficial it is for me to be out riding with those guys and I already feel like I have picked up speed from them. By the end of the day we were all out doing a moto and I was consistently within half a second a lap of Tedesco and Millsaps. I know that when racing starts its going to be different and the intensity will go up another level but it has really helped my confidence for the upcoming races.
For the rest of the week we will be riding every day at different tracks around Southern California and hopefully have many more days ahead like today.
It’s now two and a half weeks until round one and I feel like I am on track and getting faster.
I have attached a few photos for you to check out of a bit of what we have been up to so far.
Over and out from California
Burga
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