Tonight, Cloud Toda, his wife and his baby daughter paid us a visit in Ginza. As I have written before, bac k in 2006 Cloudy and his mechanic at the time, Hide, stayed with my family at our home in California for a couple months while he trained and competed in the Washougal MX National. Last July, Cloud was involved in a horrific practice crash and sustained paralyzing injuries. This was the first time I had seen him, and I was stoked to see how well he was doing. Cloud is very positive about the future, and works through six hours of therapy a day in hopes of someday being able to walk again. Of course, the language barrier kept me from getting the 100% accurate story, but as I understand it, he is undergoing some pretty radical Japanese therapy and has high hopes.

It was great to see Cloud, and also to meet his new wife and daughter. We talked a lot about my good friend Ricky James, who continues to ride aboard a modified motocross bike and this year won three truck racing championships in his rookie season. I could see the wheels spinning in Cloud’s head as we talked about RJ’s bike set up…

Stay tuned for a Catching Up With Interview in the next issue of the magazine…

Until then, thanks for driving down to see us, Cloudy! Eileen, Samantha, Megan and I were glad to see how well you’re doing!

- Swap