Olly Stone: Austin kicks up a storm
By Olly Stone on 6th Jul 16
So I guess its been a while since I wrote to you guys last.
I have been super busy as we are well into the outdoor championship now but it's been a lot of fun with some good results so far for Austin Forkner.
I have to keep remembering that he is still only a rookie. His speed is insane, and ability to race a dirt bike is always impressive. Every weekend we get a little better.
It's not easy racing against the experienced past champions but he is doing really well and everyone at Kawasaki and the team are impressed.
Hangtown went well with an overall top ten and then our local national at Glen Helen was pretty insane.
A third in Moto one was impressive and Austin was on course to win the second Moto until he tipped over at the top of one of the hills. But still he salvaged a fourth overall.
It's been a while since a rookie showed some speed and potential like that, so I'm just happy to keep working at it and sooner or later it will pay off.
As you know I have mentioned before we build our bikes in the hotel car park on a Wednesday. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago while we were building in High Point we had a close call with a tornado. It got pretty scary as I have never been directly in a storm that big that came in so fast.
At one point I was scrubbing the frame and before I knew it the sky was dark and the wind had picked up significantly. As the rain was falling all us mechanics were scrambling around putting bikes inside and I even had to strap our ezy-ups down to our rental cars to stop them blowing away.
The storm continued for a couple hours so we had to wait it out to be able to finish our bike build. Which led to a late night and by far the worst bike build day I have had in the four years of being here in the US.
With Austin coming out to California for the first three races he went back to Robbie Reynards house just after Thunder Valley to ride in the heat and humidity for the rest of the summer. He has been riding the two bikes which I shipped out to him a few months ago.
Once his motors time-out his dad sends them back to me so I can rebuild them, freshen them up and get them back out to him. Which right now has been every couple of weeks or so. That just goes to show Austin is working hard back home and putting in plenty of bike time.
Right now it feels like I am living out of a suit case as I am only in California for three nights. And this week it is even less.
We are flying out to Southwick a day early for some press day riding so it makes it a even shorter week. But luckily Mitch gave us July 4 off to recharge the batteries and get ready for the next few races.
So my plan is to just hang out and relax - which is normally unheard off. So I'm going to make the most of it.
