Stephane Roncada Writes In

The first east coast race in Indianapolis was very exciting for everyone, fansand riders! I had another good race placing 3rd on the podium again, this istwice in a row for me ( I place 2nd last week at Anaheim ). I was really happyabout that since Indy was a totally different track with soft dirt and I was alittle worried about it....what I wasn't happy about was my riding.

My heat race went great, I got the holeshot, with RC (Carmichael - ed) right behind me in secondplace...

RC and I were going at it, when he finally made the pass on lap four. Istayed with him until I tried to take different lines....well that didn't workout too good since I lost time and he pulled away, but then we stayed the sameand I got 2nd, wich gave me a great pick on the gate for the main event. I rodegood in my heat, I was a little tense but I was riding smooth.

Onto the main event.....I got another good start, but got pushed to the outsideby McGrath and didn't really have anywhere to go. I came out of the second turnin 5th place, right behind Ernesto Fonseca. I started charging hard and passedhim right away, then I was all over David Vuillemin. I was very close frompassing him a couple times, but it didn't happen. I was starting to ride tightbecause I was loosing lots of time in the whoops, and I had to work hard therest of the lap to catch up....I was getting pissed, which didn't help becauseI started to get arm pump ( that happens when you right tight and getnervous...).

Fonseca was right behind and riding good. Around lap 10, Pastrana,RC, DV and I were right behind each other, that was a great race! Anyway, Itried to make another pass on DV in the corner after the whoops, I went for ablock pass but stayed too low and he was able to rail the berm on the edge andstayed in front of me....I should have stuffed him nicely...hahahaha.

In the following triple, I took a bad line that threw me very high, whileFonseca stayed low....in the next turn, I tried to protect my inside line but it wasn'tenough. Fonseca came in pretty fast and I had to go high in the berm because hewas gonna take me into the bails ( I won't forget that....).

He made thepass....the best thing for me after that was to calm down, which is what I did.I decided to take it easy and regroup. Two laps later, I was starting to ridesmooth again and was getting ready to move up. Well, Fonseca crashed hard rightin front of me ( I think he hit neutral in the rhythm section and went over thebars really fast ). I was already committed for the triple when I saw himcrashing, so i had to let go of the gas and I cased it really hard, bouncingoff to the next three-footer.....I am just glad I didn't land on him!

Then, almostat the same time, Pastrana crashed.....I was like, OK, what's going onhere. It was weird, but I was in 3rd place! I kept charging hard butI was too far from RC and DV even though I was riding the same speed. Ramseyand Larocco where both behind me, so i couldn't relax at all because they werelike 4 seconds away. I had arm pump pretty bad and it was hard to ride likethat, it was a tuff race for me.

The track was hard and rutted, everybody had ahard time I think. Anyway, I charged hard until the end and finished 3rd, mysecond podium in a row. Can't wait for Minneapolis now.

I better stop typing or I am gonna miss my plane.....see you guys atMinneapolis!