CN III RIDERS WRITE
P118
SLAMMIN'SAMMY
BY SAMMY
HALBERT
A BAD
YEAR
T
he Chinese refer to
2013 as the Year of the
Water Snake. I call it the
Year I Wanna Forget. After
finishing second in the championship last year, followed
by off-season shoulder surgery, I planned to make a run
for the AMA Grand National
Championship this year. But
it just wasn't meant to be.
I should have known it was
going to be a rough year when
I caught my foot on a berm at
a local race in Washington in
February, my first race back
after shoulder surgery, and
tore my ACL. After knee surgery on Valentine's Day, I had
to miss the Daytona Short
Track season-opening doubleheader - one of my favorite
events of the year.
And if that was the only lowlight of the year, I still might
have been in the hunt for the championship.
But things continued to not go my way. First
came a rainout at the Lima, Ohio half-mile in
June - a race I've won the past two years; then
it was the cancellation of the Elma, Washington, half-mile - a Twins race in my home state.
Then came a disappointing eight-place finish
at the Castle Rock, TT, a race I'd won the last
three times it ran.
And if all that wasn't enough I then had a
big crash over the jump at the Peoria TT in August, during which I hit my head pretty hard,
causing me to miss four subsequent races.
And finally there was the rainout at the Santa
Rosa, California mile - a race I won last year.
All of these events turned my dream season
into a snake-bitten one. Ouch! Somehow,
ending things with a crash that sent me into
the hay bales at the Pomona season finale
seemed perfectly fitting for 2013.
To be fair, my year had some awesome moments as well. Well, one awesome moment,
anyhow. In May, I won my first race back after
ACL surgery - the Stockton Half-Mile. To come