Minnesota

Hey everybody! This weekend I went to Minnesota to do a race at Spring Creek Mx Park. The last time I was there it was super rough. So I was kind of surprised when I rode there this weekend. It was still rough, but not that bad. I was hoping that it wouldn't rain there, but it ended up raining both nights before the riding days. That made it pretty muddy! But it dried up pretty well both times. Sunday morning, before the races, I thought it was actually pretty fun to ride in that mud! That was before I got myself all dirty from crashing, though. :P

All my races went pretty similarly. I was top 3 in the first turn in every start. So my starts were pretty good. :D But then I would get passed or I would fall. In the first race I fell on the first lap out of 1st place. When I got up I was in 10th. By the end of the race I almost caught up to 3rd place, but then fell again. So I got 5th. The next race I got passed early on quite a bit and finished in 6th. In my third race I finished 5th again. Nothing good. My last race was going pretty good for 3 laps. I was in 6th right behind a guy, but then I fell in a turn when I accidently went into a deep spot in a berm. I got up and finished 12th. :( So I got 4th overall in Open B and 9th overall in 250 B.

Now I'm back home and not really doing anything. But I do have something coming up. In a couple days I'm going to go to Georgia for a week or two to ride. I have a feeling it'll be really hot! But it should be cool.

I'll write about that later on when I'm there! Bye! -Greg

Baja Video

Baja Regional from lukas cobian on Vimeo.

Here's a sweet video made by Lukas Cobian. It has footage of some local guys racing the Baja Regional. Enjoy!

As for my adventures, this weekend I went riding at a track called Mount Carroll. The track was sweet and fun. I did a 30 minute moto once and did a couple laps at a time the rest of the time. I had two pretty funny crashes, too. :P

Happy late Father's Day to all the dads out there! We didn't do that many things for Father's Day. But that's ok. I got to see Toy Story 3, so that made everything good. :D If you get a chance, you definitely need to see that movie! It's great!

Also, I have been helping my dad paint a shop for Tom Zont Racing. That's been pretty fun, surprisingly.

That's all that has been going on with me lately. See ya! -Greg

Baja Regional

I'm just sitting in my room right now wondering about my weekend... If any of you follow the amateur circuit in the US, then you know Loretta Lynn's is one of the most prestigious races to do. Just qualifying for it is hard. Heck, even qualifying to the regional is difficult! Well I tried to get to Loretta Lynn's this past weekend and this is what happened...

We left late Thursday night after preparing and packing everything up for the weekend. It usually isn't a good idea to start a 6 hour drive at 10:30 at night, but my dad and I decided to do it anyway. My dad seemed like he was going to fall asleep at any moment and was doing really weird things to stay awake. We wanted to get to a rest area to sleep, but none seemed to come up anywhere! That was pretty scary. Once we did get to a rest area, we didn't even sleep. My dad decided to keep sleeping! But it was all ok in the morning when we arrived at the track.

Friday was just a day of practice, but a lot of it! I signed up for two classes so I got in 6 practice sessions. I found out two things that day: the track was going to be really rough that weekend and I was going to have a hard time. Great!

The next day, Saturday, was the day that racing started. My three classes were all split into two divisions. That meant that I had to get top 16 in each of those to qualify for the 2nd and 3rd motos. I got 15th in the first 450 B Mod moto, so I made it to the next ones. But I didn't get top 16 in my 250 B Stock and Mod classes. Uh oh! But it ended up going fine. My 250 B Mod last chance qualifier actually went really well. I got the holeshot and led for 2 out of 3 laps! I ended up getting passed and battling, which resulted in me getting 2nd. But that was still awesome!

My second last chance qualifier was 250 B Stock. I kind of wheelied off the start, so I didn't get the holeshot, but I was still up there. I think I got 3rd in that race. I forgot to mention, both lcq's only had 8 and 7 racers in them, so everyone qualified! A lot of us didn't really see a reason to race that, but we did anyway.

That night we went to a hotel that some of our friends were staying at to pay a visit to the pool and hot tub. That was good for sure. My dad and I just slept in our van in the parking lot. :P

The next morning our van had a dead battery, but we still got it started thanks to good old jumper cables! Whew! And then we were off for our last day at the Baja Acres Mid-East Regional. That was the coldest of the days we were there. I think it was in the mid-70's. It was cloudy all day, but we were pretty sure it wasn't going to rain. There was a chance of rain for all weekend. But barely any came!

That day, Sunday, my motos all went pretty similarly. I would have to start near the outside in every race, and then I would have to battle near the back of the pack. In one of my 250 classes I actually got taken out and ran over on the last lap. I'm pretty sure both of those things were accidents... at least the running me over part was!

The challenging track gave me a 22nd overall in 450 B Mod, 22nd overall in 250 B Mod, and 25th overall in 250 B Stock. Not that bad considering each class had as many as 60 guys in it in the beginning!

So I didn't qualify for Loretta Lynn's, but I think I got some good experience racing with all those super fast guys. That's why Loretta Lynn's is so big...

I guess there's always next year! :D

Nuke Round 3

Hey everybody! This weekend I went riding with Shane Cobb to Mount Carroll and Byron. The week before was just totally miserable with a lot of rain. So I was sure happy when it was perfectly sunny all weekend long! Practicing at Mount Carroll went well for me. I rode the 450 for most of the day. The track got rutty and bumpy, but it didn't get too bad. It was the first time in about two years that I went there. I rode every session I had and even did a 20 minute moto at the end. I mostly just did sprint laps the whole time. So that day was sweet.

The next day we all went to Byron to do Nuclear Series Round 3. If you're wondering what happened to the first two, don't worry about it. I'm not doing the whole series. Anyway, practice went well for me. I felt good on both bikes and didn't get too muddy or anything. My first moto was 250 B. I was in third after the first turn but then fell in the second turn! That wasn't too good. Then I fell again later on in the race. So I finished 13th. Uhhh, not too good. My next race was Open B. In that race I got the holeshot and led for half a lap. I rode good and finished 4th. That was pretty cool! So I was feeling pretty good.

My second motos went all right. In 250 B I was midpack in the start and started battling for more positions. In the third lap or so I accidently took out Mason Flatness. We both fell. I just tried to go faster around the outside of a turn but ended up hitting his rear wheel. After I got up I did a couple more laps and finished 9th. So I got 9th overall. I felt bad about hitting Mason, though. My last race of the day was the second Open B moto. I wheelied off the start and was basically last to the first turn. Then I started picking off people one by one. I ended up getting close but not close enough to Brandon Simes. I finished that one in 8th. So I went 4-8 for 7th overall.

Overall the weekend went all right for me. Not a bad start for my last week of school! :D I'll update you all later on in the week again. I'm planning to go riding on Wednesday again after my finals. See ya! -Greg

Ride

Hola! I hope you didn't miss me too much! This week I got my stitches out, so now I'm ready to ride again. Today I went to dan's house to ride alone. It was raining quite a bit before that, but the track was surprisingly not bad. After I figured pit where the throttle on my steed was, I went and found out where the dry spots of the track were. Then I took a brief break and began a 30 minute moto. There I faced the elements. :P. Yeah, it started raining pretty good, so the track got slick fast. But it wasn't very bad. When I finished there was quite a bit of mud on my bike! But overall it was a pretty good ride. :D

I'll post a few pics from today up a little later, too. That's it for now! Time to watch supercross on tv! -Greg

Not so good...

Hello everybody! This weekend I went to red bud. It didn't go too well. It rained the night before quite a bit (I was told) and the track was wet. But it was surprisingly good! The guys at red bud sure do know how to prepare the track for rain! My first race was 250 B Stock. 41 people!!! I didn't really get that good of a start there because I started on the outside. So I was pretty far in the back the whole race. I could barely see, too. That's because I only had one tear-off. Oh well. So I got 31st in that moto. The second moto went better AND worse. I thought I got a pretty good start. Going into the third turn I hit someones rear tire and fell over. A guy to my right ended up hitting me. I got up and attempted to put my rxr strap back on, but I couldn't find it. Then I started going from dead last out of 27 guys. I charged hard for the four lap race. I ended up getting 18th there. So that was good!

When I got back to the pits, I looked at what happened to my rxr strap. I saw that it was still attached but just ripped in the middle. Then I noticed my shirt was ripped. Uh oh. I finally noticed I had a hole in my chest. I felt like something was missing in my moto! I just didn't know it was my skin. I guess it looked like a shark bite or that I got shot. Haha. After I went to the ambulance, I visited a doctor at his motorhome. His son was racing there, too. So I was lucky that he was there. He stitched me up right there on a foldable chair! It looks crazy! Well I guess the stitching is supposed to look bad when a chunk of flesh is missing.

After that I didn't race anymore. But we still stayed in Michigan to sell my old bike to a guy. Currently we are driving home. What a crazy weekend! We are trying to get home now. So that's it for now! -Greg

Video

Here's the helmet cam from my weekend at Red Bud!