I was really excited for this weekend, as it's an historic race and one of the top mile tracks in the country. Indy is one of the biggest races of the year with all of the media attention and MotoGP stars there to watch. Gulp!

The track looked awesome with some cushion which really fits my riding style. After our first qualifying session I was mired down in 11th place. I definitely was not happy and we changed the gearing dramatically. After the last session of qualifying I dropped 3 tenths on my lap time and I was fastest in the last session. I just missed out on pole by a tenth. In any event, I was really confident with the handling and power of the bike. We had the package!

In my heat race I had the pole position due to my fast qualifying time. I got a good jump on the start and led the pack out of turn two. I maintained the lead for two laps before being drafted by James Rispoli and Zack Palmer. The three of us battled for a couple of laps, passing, drafting and dicing. We were riding wide open through the corners, going as fast as we could, and then Carver came out of nowhere, originally starting from the fourth row and he motored around all of us. I noticed that his line was a lot higher up on the track and his corner speed was a lot faster which translated into a faster top speed at the end of the straightaway.

Coming down the home stretch I was in fourth and I tried to use the draft to my advantage and got a killer drive off of turn four. We were three wide at the finish but I came up short for third place by four thousands of a second. It was an exciting race but the fourth place in the second heat meant I would have the 8th pick on the line of for the main, which meant I was starting from the second row.

After running all of the heats and semis, the track lost the cushion. It had slicked off and had a tiny little groove on the bottom near the guardrail. Since our heat was the fastest, Carver had the first pick on the front row and he chose to invert the pole from the inside to the outside so that meant I was going to have to start from the outside second row.

I didn't have much of an advantage off of the line and it was pretty equal going into turn one. I ran the high line and carried a lot more momentum through the corner and passed about three or four riders coming out of two. I was behind Carver for most of the race and we were the only two running the high line.

I was wide open around the bales for five or so laps, and Carver and I were slowly picking off riders one by one. At the halfway mark Carver passed Rispoli for 3rd and I also attempted to make a pass on him coming out of two. However, James squared off the corner and pinched me down low off the exit and I had to back off or else I'd have hit the guardrail. Rolling off for that split second killed my momentum. I finally got past Rispoli and pulled a 2 second lead on him but the top three had pulled away and I wasn’t close enough to catch the draft to reel them in.

In the end, I was racing by myself, watching them slowly pull away. It was tough knowing that I had the fastest lap of the main and I had a good chance to win the race, but had made one little mistake which cost me the race win.

It was a great weekend for MDR and me and it’s definitely my favorite track of the year. Now I'm getting things ready for the double header at Springfield this weekend, and looking for another great result for the team.

Mikey Avila