Looking back at 2006, I often think to myself, Wow. What a crappy year.

The doldrums that northern Nevada motocross hit last year were the result of a few different things, none of which I want to mention again now. We discussed them endlessly in 2006, and who cares now? We might be on the downside of these troubles.

This weekend will mark the first Stead race of 2007. It will also be the first race I do this year, and I will be on the lookout for the signs of health that were missing from last year's events. There has been hopeful talk since our two local sanctioning bodies, Sierra Motocross Association and Silver Peak Motocross, agreed to stagger their race schedules to avoid running against each other. But I won’t believe that everything is back on track until I see it firsthand.

Amid last year’s low turnouts and political infighting, I was surprised to find my own enthusiasm for local racing lacking. I can’t say that I lost it solely because of the relative lameness of last year’s events, but I think it must have been a factor. As the year wore on, I found it hard to go to the same tracks I’ve been racing at for years, especially since I knew that most of the events would be shadows of their former selves.

At one race, after racing the first moto, I decided to just skip the second. I wasn't sick or hurt. My bike was fine. I just didn't care enough to even go through the motions. That was a first for me.

Of course, some of the blame for this surely lies in that I had a daughter in 2005, and she has since been the most interesting thing in the world to me. And one could certainly argue that I, being 25 and having little money and less time, have lost some of my spark as a result of not making much recent progress as a racer. Sure, I still feel great on a bike. But it’s hard to get excited for a race when you’re set to arrive with bald tires and two meager hours of practice in the last month.

So I will be looking for more at Stead than just the health of local racing. I will be looking for my own health as a racer, trying to see whether my downturn in enthusiasm was a passing phase or a sign of the times.

My life won't hinge on what I find within myself. Rest assured I won’t be selling my bike anytime soon. I figure that if I continue to be bored by the local races, I might just visit some new races to freshen things up, or maybe spend more time burning up the practice track to keep my mind and body from descending into uselessness. You don’t need sharp tires to do that.

In the meantime, I will be watching and hoping to see signs of a new era at Stead. No matter how I feel about any of it, all the kids who don’t have daughters and bald tires deserve good races with big turnouts and robust competition. And it’s time they get them.

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