Hey Everyone! With Daytona behind us, the 2009 season has officially started and what an adventure it was. It all started at 0'dark hundred Wednesday Feb. 25th. I knew the trip was to be epic as soon as I walked through the metal detector at SFO and I set it off. I was escorted to the side of security, searched (no cavity search thank goodness), swiped for bomb making residue and sent on my way.

The terminal was lined with 50's era space toys, ray guns, and robots. Many of the toys brought back memories of my father's childhood. We boarded the plane and I slept all the way to our layover in Denver. All was well in Denver and we boarded another plane to St. Louis. We touched down safely in St. Louis where we were met by Dick Weirbach and Ron Bailey, (Thanks to Wierbach Racing!) after a real quick greeting we loaded into the Sprinter van and were off to Savannah Georgia. We checked into the motel and we were off to the track where we were met by my teammate James Rispolli and ran a practice night on Savannah's beautiful 1/2 mile track.

Unfortunately, the day of the National it rained for hours and the race was cancelled. I normally do well on long tracks and I was really disappointed to see both Barbersville and Savannah cancelled. Trying to find a race we headed to Daytona and raced the Pro race linked with the AMA Amateur South East Regional Nationals. The track was like nothing like I have ever ridden.

I eventually missed the main by one spot but it gave me the chance to watch the Pro and Expert mains with National #60 Sammy Sweet. The next few days were spent relaxing, seeing the sights and preparing bikes, mind, and body for the races. On one of my days off we walked around the pits of the Daytona 200 and also dipped my feet into the Atlantic Ocean for the first time!

The Nationals didn't go as well as I had hoped. I qualified and made the evening program on both days but came up short of making the main events. I learned a lot about riding dry-slick tracks, walking and sighting tracks and much more. One of the most important things I learned was how important it is to qualify well, especially on small tracks. Even though I didn't make the mains I have to give a HUUGE "thank you" to Dick WeirBach for his help and understanding these last two weeks.

I would like to congratulate my friend Brad Baker on his win in the First National and my teammate James Rispoli for his win on the second night. Both were well deserved!

One of the highlights of this trip was meeting some really great people. Ron Bailey is one great person, and fun to travel with. There was never a dull moment. Bob Berry was very helpful and very track savvy. Dick Introduced me to Babe DeMay of Memphis Shades we had a nice conversation. I also had the chance to spend some time and converse with some really great riders, including the "King of Cool" Kenny Coolbeth, The "Aussie" Luke Gough, Kevin "Cupcake" Atherton, Steve "Murmmy" Murray, and many other very fast and freindly people.

I am very excited about the rest of the season. Coming up is the Springfiled TT on May 23 and the renowned Springfield mile the following day, a track where I believe I will be very successful!

I hope to see you all out at the track supporting America's true past time! I am also looking forward to a successful 2009 AMA pro Flattrack season mounted on one of the extremely fast Weirbach Racing 450's!

Special Thanks to WierBach Racing, A&A Racing, Digger Helm 57, Rebel gear, Slideways Racing, Hlebo Bros., Supertrapp, Dainese, MDK Motorsports, T n T Honda, Raceimage, JGPhotowerx, #12, JD Cahill Electric, Calco Fence, Barnett clutches, General Engineering, Wiseco, K&N filters,Motion Pro, Rod Lake, Spectro oil, Engine Ice, Saddlemen, Spider grips, G2 ergonomics, Bob Berry Racing, Firecoat Powder Coating, Boyesen, AGV helmets, VP Midwest fuel, Cycra racing, Foudree graphics, Engine Ice, Regina chain, Pingel Products, Durelle Racing, Performance Machine, Cheney Engineering.

Well, Tony’s Daytona trip didn’t turn out exactly as he would have planned. Thrusday saw him shut out of the main event again. But all the effort was not in vain. Tony learned quite a bit riding the short tracks in addition to the fact that he had a lot of fun. If we thought that the trip east was bad, we had another thing coming when Tony tried to come home.

On Sunday morning, he flew from St. Louis to Chicago and from there was supposed to fly back to San Francisco. It was not to be. His flight from St. Louis was 2 hours late causing them to miss their connecting flight home to San Francisco. From that point things only got worse. They were booked on the next available flight which also ended up being cancelled. They were booked on a later flight again which was cancelled as well. Finally they were booked on the third flight in their effort to get home from Chicago which alas was also cancelled. The first two cancellations were due to weather (an act of God as they called it). The final flight was cancelled because the pilots had logged too many hours for the day. So Tony & Gary had the big adventure of spending the night at O’Hare where Tony amused himself by learning to do wheelies in an unattended wheel chair. Finally, this morning the boy got a flight from Chicago to San Francisco.

Upon arriving home, Tony had just enough time to take a much needed shower before heading off to his afternoon classes. He’s now back at home resting. I think flying to and from the races took far more out of him than actually racing.

Tony’s Daytona experience has taught him a lot and left him more determined than ever to perform well at Sprigfield (and fly Southwest, he adds). He’ll spend the next few months training hard in preparation. He’s fortunate enough to have Johnny Murphree (Former National #20) in his corner and Johnny will be helping to train him for Springfeild.

As always, it is with the help of his sponsors that make living his dream possible: A & A Racing, Weirbach Racing, Motion Pro, Rod Lake Racing, Digger Helm, Top 1 Oil, Slideways Racing, Hlebo Bros. Racing Suspension, AGV Helmets, Dainese Leathers, MDK Motorsports, RaceImage, JG Photowerx, Eddie Mulder, D’s Leathers, JD Cahill Electric, Calco Fence & Reinhard Racing.

03-05-2009 Well, Tony’s first National race didn’t go quite as he planned and he missed the main last night. He’s back at it today though. He improved his qualifying position from 27th to 24th, so we’re taking that as a sign that things are getting better. The track is faster today than yesterday and I think that will bode well for Tony. With Daytona being the crap shoot that it is, anything is possible. Heat races start in about 2 hours and I will keep you updated.

Saturday’s Hot Shoe National at Savannah, GA (what was to be the start of Tony’s Daytona racing experience) was cancelled.  Tony planned on skipping the Pro-Am events as he’s trying to save his knee for the Nationals. But since Savannah was cancelled, he decided to head to Daytona for Sunday’s Pro-Am event and try to get a leg up on set-up for the two Grand National events on Wednesday & Thursday. The Daytona short track is very different from any of the track surfaces that Tony is accustomed to riding, so it was a learning experience. He started off a bit slow but made changes to the bike set-up and continued to make progress all day long. Unfortunately, he missed the main event by one spot.

Tony feels that this was a good learning experience and will make him feel more comfortable and at ease as he participates in his first ever Grand National race. For those of you who don’t know a lot about professional Dirt Track racing, there are basically two levels of professional racer (formerly three): Grand National Expert & Grand National Pro. Tony being a first year professional racer is considered a Grand National Pro. This year, they have changed the format of the Grand National racing program to allow Grand National Pros to participate at every Grand National event on single-cylinder equipment (on the bigger tracks, the Grand National Experts will be riding twin-cylinder equipment). Tony is a first year Grand National Pro and because of the change in the format, they have allowed quite a few riders to hang back a year. This means that Tony will be competing against a number of second year Grand National Pros.  As for today, practice and qualifying is complete. Tony is currently waiting for qualifying results to be posted. They will take the top 38 qualifiers from his class into the evening program.