“Winning in Nashville was a must for me. I was on a mission since my 4th place finish in Scottsdale AZ. I knew Nashville was my last chance. If I didn’t win, my chance for the 2011 XDL Title, and hopes of becoming the first person to ever win three straight championships would have been over.  I owe my victory to a very simple yet effective guideline. A Guideline that has proved to work out for me in the past. ‘The Five P's’. Short and simple, I Know. It stands for Proper Preparation, Prevents Poor Performance. ‘The Five P's.’

I knew the Nashville venue would offer the largest competition in the XDL Championship series, so I needed to GO BIG here. So I began to build a big bore engine for my competition R6. Thanks to Millennium Technologies and Wiseco Pistons I had all the parts needed to put the engine together. Once the engine was together and installed back in my R6, I was off to see Chuck, at Graves Motorsports to dyno tune it to perfection.  A few short dyno runs later, Chuck had the R6 making twelve more ponies. I was excited to say the least. I could not wait to ‘clutch it up’, So, after a short riding session out back of the Graves Motorsports shop,  I knew this was the ticket to my success at Nashville.

Once I arrived at XDL, with my freshly painted Blue/White Graves Yamaha R6, I could not wait to unleash the beast on the rest of the boys. It was time to turn and burn those Dunlop tires. I came out of qualifying, struggling a little at first, with a 3rd place qualifying spot. Really, it felt good setting in third going into the first round. I knew what I had to do, and I was the only person who could lose this event.  Positive Thinking equals?  Positive Results.  I was in first after the first round with a 4 point lead.
 
Going into the second round I felt great. The Graves Yamaha R6 was sounding crisp and powerful, and the Dunlop D616 was creating the perfect combination of power and traction. So for this round I just threw all my best tricks, and there were some epic moments within my two minute round.  I rode well enough for the judges to score me ten points higher than the rest of the field. You could tell I was happy with the recent R6 modifications.

With a thirteen point lead going into the 3rd round, I felt confident this run could be a throw away and I could still have first place. But with the built up momentum from the previous rounds, I overcame my first round score and took 1st Place at the third stop of the series leaving me clearly in contention for the XDL title. 

Look for a full review on all the recent modifications in Throttle Nation Magazine SOON!

See ya at Laguna for Round 4 of the XDL Championship Series!”