I was having trouble finding work in the greater Tidewater area, but was offered a job up in Fredericksburg. This was about a three hour drive from Norfolk towards DC and home to one of my favorite Virginia tracks at the time, White Oak MX Park. I didn't know anyone up there, but figured that I barely ever saw any of my friends in Norfolk anymore anyways, so life wouldn't be that much different. Besides, for the first time since I got my expensive Electronics degree, my job title would be Electronic Technician.

After selling my car (still the only non-truck or van vehicle I've ever owned) ,buying what would turn out to be a very unreliable van, finding a storage space, and saving up a bit of money, I went looking for a bike. I can't really remember why I got a 125. It must have been a good deal. I bought this bike from someone I worked with. It was in really good shape and I convinced myself that the 87s weren't that much of an improvement.

I hadn't ridden a 125 since 1981 and they were much better now. It felt light and easy to handle over the jumps and bumps, and handled really good, but it was tough to break my short shifting habit. I also missed the power of a big bike in sand or loose dirt. When I kept it in the powerband, the thing really hauled. I got to practice a few times during the early part of the winter and then they had a freakishly large amount of snow late in the winter. Their average is something like two inches a year and the winter that I spent there, they had over twenty inches all together, including twelve inches in three days.

Even with the snow, it looked like I was ready for a season on the 125, but again, trouble brewed off the track. My new job paid a bit better than my previous one, but my van was bleeding me dry. I had to replace something after nearly every time I drove it. This job was not going well either. Despite my title of Electronic Technician (the first one they ever hired. That should have been a warning sign.), I was basically an apprentice mechanic, a job that I didn't end up being too good at, especially since I knew nothing about printing presses. As far as my electronics work, the company didn't want to invest in expensive things like oscilloscopes, multi-meters, or schematics, so I didn't fix too many circuit boards. I knew I wouldn't be able to draw my salary for much longer. It was just a matter of when.

That March, I raced the first White Oak. It was great living less than 15 miles from the track. I raced in 125B and was about mid-pack. I thought that with more time on the bike, I'd could probably get to trophy range. It really had a fast motor, even stock. Off the track, racing just didn't seem the same as it was back in my glory days, 5 years earlier. Five years may have well as been 15. I didn't have a lot of racing friends anymore. Where the mini storage used to be a place filled with other people working on their cars and motorcycles, now I was there by myself, concerned that I would get kicked out for working on my bike there. It all seemed like such a solitary endeavor and for what? Mid pack and hoping to trophy in B class? After being a moderately competitive A rider, the thought that I couldn't win B class anymore was pretty disheartening.

A few days after that race, my boss called in me in to his office. I knew the news wasn't going to be good when I saw his boss and an HR person in there with him. After they told me that I was being let go, in an odd way, it was almost a relief. I packed everything I could fit into my van and was headed back towards Minnesota the next day. Once again, I was driving a van back from Virginia with a lightly used CR packed in with all my other earthly possessions.

A few weeks later, I raced at Cambridge. I did quite poorly, didn't know a single person, and didn't really have much fun. The money was also running dry. I didn't race again and practiced maybe once or twice. In my mind, my racing career was done until I got a decent job and could afford to live somewhere with a garage. I sold the bike for (what had become all too predictable) quite a loss. I knew I had to go cold turkey as far as racing goes. After that day at Cambridge, I would not go to another amateur motocross race until I arrived with a race bike in the back of my pickup. At the time when I sold the bike, I couldn't have imagined that it would take me 12 years to get back.