Hi fans,

I'm finally getting time to let everyone know about my event in Portugal!  As everyone knows I was injured during the event, but I'm bouncing back!  My mom and I drove the Okla. icy interstate to the airport in OKC only to be delayed for about six hours due to the snowstorm in New York City.  We finally got to New York, but we missed our flight out, so we spent the rest of the night at a motel in New York City.  The next day we were rerouted to Paris, France, but we finally arrived in Porto, Portugal.  We arrived, but our luggage didn't.  (I ended up borrowing riding gear from a supercross rider from Belgium because our luggage never made it to Portugal). 

Saturday night's event was awesome!  The arena was packed.  The fans got their money's worth with the supercross race and the freestyle competition.  Edgar Torronteras from Spain, Rudy Waller from Florida and myself were the top three battling it out for the number one spot.  Edgar ended up taking first, I took a close second and Rudy was right behind us with third.  We gave the crowd a great show!  The fans loved it.

Sunday night's event went somewhat different!!  When it was time for the freestyle competition the promoter told me and the other riders to go out and start the show.  I was the first one out on the track and hit the jump first.  You can only imagine my surprise when I met a compactor head on.  For those of you who aren't sure exactly what a compactor is - it's a big industrial machine used to compact the dirt on the track and on the landings of the jumps, it's about the size of a good-sized bulldozer.  I guess the operator wasn't aware that the freestyle competition was starting and he decided he was going to groom the track and the landings.  I probably surprised him as much as he surprised me!  I never knew the compactor was even on the track; I was just starting my normal routine.  I made the jump and when I was landing, the Compactor was coming up the landing toward me.  I didn't have time to think about getting out of his way, it happened so fast.  Actually, I saw the compactor and hit it immediately.  No time to even think about the fact that "this was really going to hurt"!  I hit the machine and flew over the cab landing behind the compactor.  I thought that he was going to back over me so I crawled out of his way and that's about all I can remember.  My mom had no idea what had just happened.  From where she was standing on the track she did not see the compactor going up the landing.  It's probably a good thing that she didn't. 

At the first hospital the ambulance took me to, the doctors thought from the x-rays that I had a broken shoulder and both my knees were broken.  The doctor sent me to another hospital about thirty minutes away and they took x-rays again.  After waiting for about 2 or 3 hours I got the good news that nothing was broken, just some internal injuries.  The medical staff at the hospital was so good to me.  We had a few problems with our language barrier but there were a few guys that worked there that spoke great English.  I would have preferred to meet all of those guys under different circumstances, but it was good to meet so many friendly people.  A friend of my manager's, Paulo from Portugal, showed up at the hospital and gave my mom and I a ride back to our motel. We had to fly back to the United States in about 4 or 5 hours after we got to the motel.  The flight back was painful, but we made it home and I went to my sports doctor in Okla. City.  With some physical therapy I will be as good as new!!

I appreciate everyone's concern for me and want to thank all of those in Portugal who helped me out.  And a big thanks to Rudy Waller and his friend, Daniel, for all of their help.  Thanks guys!