After an overall win last weekend at Hangtown, Levi Kitchen had a focus for Thunder Valley:

“My eyes were set to leave here with the red plate,” he said.

It wasn’t a perfect weekend, but Kitchen accomplished his goal with a first moto win and a huge comeback from a first-turn crash to get to the overall podium and move into a tie with his teammate, Seth Hammaker, for the points lead.

“I was just doing what I could and I have trust in my fitness,” said Kitchen. “If I want to be in it for this title, those are the kinds of rides I got to keep doing. So, a little disappointed with the day, but I did what I could. So, uh, just would like to get two good starts next weekend and then see what I can do.”

Hammaker was at the start of that crash, too. That’s two weekends in a row of speed but also first-turn crashes for the 10.

“I never got touched,” said Kitchen. “Somebody must've hit Seth or Seth got stood up because when I started going right with the turn, unfortunately, Seth, I could see it in his shoulders and stuff. I was done as soon as his rear wheel caught my front. So, yeah, that's just a racing incident two weekends in a row though, with first turn crashes, but there's just a lot of guys trying to get up there. So, I don't blame anybody. Who cares, you know? It just happens.”

“It’s definitely challenging,” said Hammaker of dealing with the first-turn crashes. “I’ve been getting better about controlling my emotions. Letting it go and not dwelling on it. Now you’re frustrated maybe ten minutes after the moto and then you have to move on and take the positives out of the day.”

The positives are that Kitchen and Hammaker have been ripping. They’re ready and the bikes look quick.

“It's been unreal,” says Kitchen of his team. “I mean, they've been working their butts off and so have I. And so are my teammates, obviously. So, you know, I think we're just all growing together and we're all getting a lot of confidence. Bikes are up front and it's a great feeling.”

The success includes Nick Romano, a fill-in who has started up front in most of the motos and is getting closer to holding that pace until the end. Romano missed a lot of racing with injuries over the last few years and this Pro Circuit shot is likely his last, best chance. He’s trying to make the most of it, and landing on the overall podium at Thunder Valley is exactly that.

“At one point I old myself and my family and my parents that I was quitting," Romano said. "Like I was done. It was just kind of a dark road there for a couple of years at the end of my stint with Yamaha.  And then when I went privateer, it just was one after another. I told myself about six, eight months ago, if I can't get back on a factory bike, you know, this is it. I just hounded Mitch [Payton, of Pro Circuit] for a long, long time. I truly can't thank him enough for the opportunity. It's just a blessing and yeah, I guess on paper I'm the fill-in guy, but I'm trying to establish myself to be a full-time guy. So, you know, every weekend has been good and the bike is amazing. The team is great.  We have really good banter going with Levi Seth and now Drew is back and Enzo. So, like just fun times. It really is."

“It’s the most fun I've ever had,” he says. “Like I do feel like a little kid again. Like an amateur. I was a very good B and A class guy my final years and I won a lot and, you know, I'm not winning yet but it's just fun. Like I said with Levi, he's basically my older brother at this point. So, we have fun times on and off the track and with the group and the team and Mitch and the mechanics.”

There should be pressure for a rider like Romano to go prove his worth every weekend, but he doesn’t see it that way.

“I just have a different mentality going into everything now,” he says. “It's not even about the fill in or the this or that. I'm just taking it literally race by race, day by day. And, yes, at the end of the day, I do want the contract and I do want to establish myself to be on a factory team, but you know, if that's meant to be, it's meant to be. I’ve got to focus on myself and in the moment and results. I finally got this third. I want to get it again. I want to get a podium and I want to get a win. So uh we'll keep working at it.”

Romano had speed but couldn’t hold it the whole way at round one. He’s getting better every weekend.

“It's really just been trusting the work I do,” he explains. “Like, I'm a very self-motivated athlete and you can ask anyone around me. I work my absolute butt off to the point where maybe it's too much, right? That's kind of something I've learned getting Epstein Barr in the past. And now there's just a fine line on everything, right? So, I know I've always had the fitness and I've always had the speed, but it's kind of just been putting everything together. I was telling my dad just now, like every weekend feel like I'm getting another half a lap to a lap each moto, you know, and I still need to find, you know, whether it's 10 to 15 seconds overall time at the end of the 35 minutes, but that that'll come with confidence and good starts and just everything I'm doing. So, I don't want to get too ahead of myself yet.”

Romano isn’t going to change his program, he’s going to rely on using each moto to build himself back into a rider who can go the distance. At that point, maybe a win will come. And with it, that factory contract.

“I've been really trying to get the moto podium,” he says. “You know, that was kind of my big goal, but to get the overall podium, it's awesome, dude. Like, I don't even know what else to say besides it's a dream come true.”