Houston and San Diego 
By: Scott Cram

"This is a wise, sane Christian faith: that a man commit himself, his life, and his hopes to God; that God undertakes the special protection of that man; that therefore that man ought not to be afraid of anything." •  George MacDonald

After A3 my head was hanging really low. I really started second guessing just about everything I've been doing lately since the suspension deal didn't work out too well for me. Mainly I was wondering why I even signed up for Supercross again this year. Basically the 3 Anaheim races I was the same Scott Cram I have been the last 3 years. After getting my physical problems figured out I had high expectations and a lot of motivation to do good this year, but after the first 5 races all the momentum and confidence I had was gone.

I think A3 has been the worst race for me this year. I know my suspension was way too soft, but it is super discouraging to do the best I can to get things set up right just to figure out that I have a setup problem 5 races into it. Now the West Coast rounds are pretty much over with just one more in San Diego . I don't have a way to get my bike to the east coast, money to do it, or justification to do it since I've pretty much been the slowest guy on the track every race. But I am just going to have faith that where God leads God provides, lets just see if He leads me to the East Coast rounds some how. It was one thing to have asthma and be thankful just to be in Supercross the first three years, but with all that I've figured out and over come, not making it for a fourth year in a row is just frustrating! If I were given the opportunity to race Supercross just to do it, I would have thought it would have been over and done with after last year.

"Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man. " Proverbs 3:3-4

I got my suspension back in time to be able to ride a few short motos on it before having to leave to get everything ready to leave for Houston . I could definitely tell a big improvement. Enzo ended up doing my suspension since my other suspension wasn't going to be ready, so in a last minute decision I called up Enzo to see if they could help me out. I dropped a set of suspension off to them Monday night and it was done by Wednesday morning thankfully. They changed the SX practice track and it wasn't as good as I had hoped it would be, but good enough to get a feel for the new setup. By this time my confidence was pretty low after not doing well at the Anaheim races. I really wanted to do well at those races! It definitely feels a lot like last year when I had a problem with a bike part and didn't figure it out until after the 3 rd round at A2 in 2006. Again, I tried to do really simple modifications to my bike to make it better, but suspension setup is one of the most important things in Supercross and it has to be at least in the ballpark of working good.

The whole week before Houston I barley got to ride, I rode my stationary bike an hour, and went on one run. Not a full weeks worth of training by any means, but I did get my suspension changed, I rested a bit, and I am trying to set myself up for success.

"True faith is never found alone; it is accompanied by expectation. " •  C. S. Lewis

I expect to qualify for the night event. I expect to be able to run with some of the best riders in the world. I expect to overcome arm pump, soft suspension, asthmas, triples, and whatever else is thrown in my way. Why? I just expect that God will give me the ability to over come anything that is thrown in my way since I've been given the opportunity to live my dream.

"We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves to be like other people. " •  Arthur Schopenhauer

The race in Houston didn't go as well as I had hoped. I just didn't feel comfortable on with the new suspension settings. I did the best I could, but my bike handled and just felt a lot different. So, Houston was more of the same. At first I was a little mad, but I got over it really quick and enjoyed the fact that I was in Houston racing. At least I am trying to do what I've always wanted to do with my life. Maybe I am coming up really short in making it, but is failing to beat some of the world's top athletes, in one of the world's hardest sports, at the sports top level really failing? At Houston I realized that I accomplished the very thing I set out to accomplish when I moved to Califonia as a Novice at 19 years old, which was to race supercross.

"The Inspiration Of Spiritual Initiative “Arise from the dead.” Ephesians 5:14

All initiative is not inspired. A man may say to you - "Buck up, take your disinclination by the throat, throw it overboard, and walk out into the thing!" That is ordinary human initiative. But when the Spirit of God comes in and says, in effect, "Buck up," we find that the initiative is inspired.

We all have any number of visions and ideals when we are young, but sooner or later we find that we have no power to make them real. We cannot do the things we long to do, and we are apt to settle down to the visions and ideals as dead, and God has to come and say - "Arise from the dead." When the inspiration of God does come, it comes with such miraculous power that we are able to arise from the dead and do the impossible thing. The remarkable thing about spiritual initiative is that the life comes after we do the "bucking up." God does not give us overcoming life; He gives us life as we overcome. When the inspiration of God comes, and He says - "Arise from the dead," we have to get up; God does not lift us up. Our Lord said to the man with the withered hand - "Stretch forth thy hand," and as soon as the man did so, his hand was healed, but he had to take the initiative. If we will do the overcoming, we shall find we are inspired of God because He gives life immediately.

With Houston being the 6 th round that I've done pretty bad at, I had serious thought of not even going to San Diego . I have been thinking about moving on and doing something else, accepting the fact that I gave it 100% and I just couldn't get to the level of qualifying for night events in Supercross. I checked the track map of San Diego and the layout looked like a lot of fun, so I just decided to go ride and at least have fun. I was completely expecting San Diego to be my last Supercross race. In fact, I told my parents that it was going to be my last race as I didn't have anyway to get my bike to the east coast rounds. I even took my other set of suspension into Enzo to be setup for outdoors in preparation of riding local tracks again after San Diego .

Then I got a message from Scott Saunders of Tallon Management asking what I had going on for SX and MX this year. I told him that I didn't have a way to get my bike to the east coast and that at most I was going to do San Diego , Dallas , and Vegas since those are the only rounds left that I would be able to do. Scott offered his services and got to work trying to set something up to get my bike to the east coast. On Friday night Scott called me and told me that he had talked to the All American KTM/ FirePoliceMX.com team and they might be able to take my bike for me. I talked to the team manager at the stadium pretty much expecting it not to work out, but then he told me that they are going to take my bike. All of this just got thrown together at the last minute and with my current attitude I still thought about just throwing in the towel and being done with Supercross even though I had a way to the east coast. But in all honesty some of the doors that have opened in my life are because I have been out racing Supercross. I had a few contacts I could have tired to get my bike to the east coast with, but I was tired of trying to make it happen. The whole week before San Diego I told God that if He want me to go to the east coast then He would have to make it happen because I wasn't going to do it. I guess He was really listening that day, with Tallon Management contacting me at the exact right time to make it all happen.

Regardless of how I am doing in racing, things are happening in my life that I never thought would happen because I've had enough faith to step out and do what I've always dreamed of doing. It doesn't come with out a lot of criticism from a lot of different places, but I am the one that ultimately knows what God is telling me to do and where I felt lead to go. The bottom line is this, I've accomplished what I set out to accomplish, I am doing the triples and all the other jumps well enough to at least get around the track. I know the areas I need to work on, but to come this far and to give up now especially with the opportunity to go to the east coast would just be stupid. I am having the time of my life right now, I am learning more about myself then I ever have because I am giving it 100% on a daily basis, and doors continue to open for me because I am racing Supercross. So, in short I am going to continue on this path and finish a full year of racing Supercross. I might end up in the night event or I might not, but at least I can say that I've put myself out there and I am giving it all that I have. I am a racer and I don't like getting beat, but at the same time I am not ashamed or embarrassed to not be able to qualify on the toughest tracks in the world against the toughest competition in the world all the while doing it pretty much by myself.

I am reading a new book by John Eldridge called The Way of the Wild Heart, which is the sequal to Wild at Heart. After reading about half of it I am realizing that for me racing Supercross has to do with a lot more then qualifying for night events, getting a ride, or becoming some superstar millionaire. Racing is where all my insecurities and demons lay, this where the battle is that I need to fight and face my inner demons to overcome them to become a complete and finished person. So, the next stop is in Atlanta , Ga and I am going to dig deeper then I eve r have and get out there again!

Scott Cram
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