Listen guys, as a former racer who did pretty well on the amateur scene, you need to learn all kinds of riding to make it to the top. For us northern Ohio racers, sand is a foreign concept so you have to learn how to ride sand for when you need to race in it. Ruts are also hard to deal with, but they do create differences in riding speed by who can navigate them and who can’t and you need to learn to ride in them as well, dry hardpack marbles and dust are also part of the journey and that is a staple of Northern Ohio riding unfortunately so we actually are pretty good at that as a group. In my chase for the top of the amateur scene, I spent time in District 5 Western PA circuit to learn from the best - well the Coombs run D5 and the racers there are damn good as well as the tracks back in the day. Went from getting my ass kicked to running at the front of the pack there. But I still couldn’t ride sand worth a s**t and my original PitRacer Posse moved to riding in Michigan and racing at Baja, Log Road, and Red Bud (after the sand was added) as part of our regular racing program. Again started by getting our a***s kicked but improved to be proficient in sand too over some seasons, and this included the infancy of D12 and the original soil we grew up with and Scenic Highlands taught about high speed racing, Dirtworld taught us rut turns and scrubbing, Beans Rd taught us big jumps and bad ass riding when BJ was pleasing Brock Sellardd and the KTM team in those early days. And guess what, it all added up to becoming pretty good riders and racers back then, so the PitRacer.com Posse was a group that was known back then and we had a lot of fun too. Red Bid Vet Fests became a party weekend with awesome riding, and some off track events that are only safe to talk about in the Vet Forums! Young kids like Meister and Kaiser878 looked up to us and came around to see what we were up to and asked questions and learned how to race too! No one has all the answers or what is right and what is wrong on how to do it. But I can tell you this, if you can’t ride sand, ruts, dry hardpack, narrow, slow, fast, mud, or rainout conditions as part of your riding skill set……. You aren’t going to make it to the top!!!!! And isn’t that what you are all shooting for????? I have my preference on what I like the best but I learned to ride them all because I had to in order to compete with the best of the best.