It's Monday morning after Miller and I didn't sleep well last night. No, it didn't have anything to do with the results on the weekend, as I was pretty happy with the weekend in general. It could have been better, but the points-chase is alive and well.

The reason for my crappy sleep is because, after a good weekend, I finished it off with the worst landing I have ever made after arriving home. It was a short two-hour flight, and we were having a good time and looking forward to a few weeks off.

After congratulating Jake on his win, I said to him it must feel good to get your traction control working. I mean, there is no way anybody could ever win without traction control. Either that or he is in another league as a racer to what he was just last week. You see, all the whining when you are losing is not worth it. Eventually, you have to be the one to listen to it. Not to say Jake was doing the whining, but the same can't be said about some others in the camp.

So, are the tabloids going to read, "Honda and Zemke use their new traction control system to great effect in Utah"? Do I believe it? No. Jake and his team done things better than everybody on Sunday, and that's it! If it weren't for me running out of talent on Saturday and doing my best impression of a scud missile, he probably would have won that race, too.

I wonder what would happen if there were no sporting performances to critique. What would the world talk about?

I awoke this morning to a fresh cup of brew and sat down for five minutes to catch up with the news on the box. After those five minutes, I felt like throwing a freaking brick at the damn thing and hoping it would continue through and take the reporters out. CNN Headline News, ESPN, you name it, it all sounded the same. As most sporting buffs would know, the U.S. Open of golf was played over the weekend. To cut a long story short, Phil Mickelson, who has been known for his risky, yet brilliant, play, stuck it in the woods on the last hole and ended up losing the Open by a shot. Now, I agree that it wasn't the smartest way to play the hole, but the way that guy thinks and played for the previous 71 holes got him to where he was: to the 72nd hole with a one-shot lead.

He should have done this, he should have done that, mostly told by people who think pressure is when they sit on their asses on the couch. I find it difficult to listen to people of this nature.

The same goes for people who make things up out of nothing. I watched the coverage of the weekend on Speed. I was accused of being the one rider critical of the track's surface. I was asked in a press conference what I thought about Miller. I said that I like the place, etc., etc., and was then told that some of the riders have said that the surface was a little bumpy, etc. I replied to this question that I thought, in the middle of some of the turns, the surface seemed like it had done a lot of miles since the last test and especially since the first test a couple of months ago. I continued that it was disappointing that they filled a lot of the seams where the asphalt is joined with a cement type of material that, in places, is very slippery. Amazing how people put their own spin on stuff and, in the end, it is not even close to the truth. People like this should be held accountable by the network with a pay cut for misleading information.

Miller Motorsports Park is the best facility we go to, bar none. From a safety standpoint, it is the best. They tried hard to get it right over the course of the weekend. Can some things be better? Sure. Is it the best racetrack in our series? Not for me, I prefer some others. Do I like the track? Yes, most notably because of the safety aspect. The staff at Miller deserves big congrats for such a successful weekend the first time out.

Now, to the conspiracy theory. I have to bring up the comical newspaper piece from the part of the world that uses "state-of the-art airfence." The article attached is amusing . It makes sense. If you knew these people, you would understand that it makes sense. It seems that good old boy Ron Meade thinks that hitting a wall and ruining your career or killing yourself makes you tough. Mr. Meade talks of me being worried about Harley winning in the rain, blah, blah. He never mentioned that it was his track that cost one of the Harley guys his career. It was Thomas Wilson's last race after he collided with the unprotected wall in turn one (Read a 200 interview with Wilson here). It almost ended Miguel's career also after a light shower at the start of qualifying sent him into the unprotected turn one concrete wall. He walked with a stick for two years afterward. And please, Mr. Meade, don't try and tell me that Miguel DuHamel is not tough. His little finger is tougher than you will ever be.

Trust me, there are many other stories like this. I remember seeing, with my own eyes, a racer named Brett Metzger who high-sided coming onto the front straight and got caught up with the tire barriers and concrete wall with a very bad outcome. I have heard it first-hand myself. I have been called everything in the book by the good old boys that own and run Loudon but, when I collected a rider who was exiting the pits and ended up head-first into a concrete wall protected by old car tires, Jerry Wood (who is the king of the kids up there) had the best thing to say. It was something to the effect of, "I told you those tires are soft."

I remember, maybe the last time we went there, Anthony Gobert was going on about how much safer the track was. Everybody looked at each other and sort of thought, "Where is he looking?" The very next session, he crashed at the top of the hill, missed the pack of trees but launched off a mound of dirt and ended another of his seasons short with broken bones.

Racing is supposed to be a show for the fans to enjoy and the manufacturers to show their stuff, not watch multi-million dollar investments carted away in meat wagons.

If the Bahres don't want to spend some of their money to fix their racetrack, then it is their fault that the best riders they get there are club racers. It is their fault that the race is nothing any more.

Did anybody catch the GP on the weekend? Can you imagine if that first-turn incident happened in the first turn at Loudon? Rossi and company complained about Laguna Seca. If he went to Loudon, he would turn up and turn around. I think it was the last year I was there, I said to Jerry Wood on another of the famous Loudon weekends that I would pay Mick Doohan to come and inspect the track, and if he said "good", then we will be back. I don't think he even knew who Mick Doohan was.

For everybody's information, while I'm on the subject, Miller is the only track that we go to, that is safe for racing in the rain. The cement patches that join the asphalt should be taken out, but other than that, they got it right.

We just tested the new surface at Ohio. It is great. Plenty of grip and lap times are 1.5 to 2 seconds faster. Unfortunately, with all that grip, comes much faster corner speed, effectively bringing the walls closer. Tommy (Hayden) crashed and impacted a wall, re-fracturing his wrist. Hodgson crashed and stopped a foot short of the wall. He was lucky he went down late in the turn where the wall is 30-50 feet further away than the closest area. At last year's race, the people at Ohio were told that if it is resurfaced, it will become even more dangerous than it is. If it is resurfaced, the impact zones need to be moved back along way, not that they didn't need moving anyway. I spoke to Ron Barrick about it while I was at the test and was told that the old surface caused a lot of crashes. I guess that means that a 20% less chance of crashing outweighs the fact that, when you crash, you are going to impact a wall harder. Go figure.

After Ohio, we go to Atlanta. Atlanta has five sections on the track that scare me...a lot. In the dry, they are scary and in the wet, they are downright ridiculous. Should we be racing at these places in the rain? NO. Finally, it seems that some of the riders are starting to understand that their lives are important. And, while we all put it on the line come race day, it doesn't mean we should have to put ourselves in ridiculously dangerous situations.
VIR is after Atlanta. This is probably the second-best track in the series for safety, but there are issues, and the issues that were there the first time we raced there are still there. Nothing has been done. Remember as I talk about this, that the second-best track is far from good with at least three impact zones that could potentially end a rider's career. So imagine what the worst places are like.

As you can see from the above few paragraphs, I get touchy when it comes to safety. For a lot of years, some of the other riders were too scared to say anything, but fortunately, that is changing. "AMA. Rights. Riding. Racing." is what they promote on their homepage. They are about keeping riders safe. It is just a shame that it seems this is not taken into consideration before they sign the contracts to go back to these places. All of these racetracks are making money. It is time they spend some and stop holding it against the riders for worrying about their own safety.

To all the racetrack owners out there that call us whiners, etc., I extend the invitation to you to get on the back of my bike, and I will push you off at a buck-eighty into a concrete wall, and if you survive, didn't piss your pants, and can still look me in the eye and say "no big deal", then I will never complain about the safety of your tracks again.

I almost forgot. I can't finish off the column without talking about Road America. I had a lot of congrats after the race, and it almost got me to thinking that these people truly believed that I was done. Trust me, I am far from done. I have the desire to do what it takes to get the most out of me.

Racing is sort of like the stock market. If a stock gets a bad rap in the press or misses Wall Street estimates by a penny, it will take a dive the next day, with the people who are selling the stock not even looking at past results, company earnings, or fundamentals.

Well, I could go on forever, but I have to get back out to the airport and smooth a few.

Ride smart and stay safe...

Mat