Lake County Fair Mx Day 2

Hey everybody! Yesterday was the second and last day of the motocross racing at the Lake County Fair for this year. And what a day it was. We didn't actually know that we were going until the afternoon. We thought it was going to pour rain and be horrible. It ended up being quite different! It stayed pretty cloudy all day, but the rain missed us. So we ended up getting ready a little bit later than we would've liked. But we got it done!

Before we left I was trying to figure out if any of my friends wanted to come with. Marc ended up wanting to tag along! :D We were already kind of in a hurry when we left to pick him up and go to the fair. Oh man, we thought we were cutting it close! We got there at 5 pm, and that's when practice was supposed to start! But we ended up being fine. All my practices went pretty good. No crashes! It was kind of muddy in my first practice, though. I guess it might have rained there... or they just watered it that much.

I was pretty excited for racing! I knew how well I did the day before in the heats (at least the first one) so I was thinking about doing the same thing. What do you know? I got the holeshot and finished in 3rd. Yeah! Next up was my 450 heat race. The day before I didn't get a real good start in that race. But we put on a holeshot device yesterday. Umm, again, holeshot! I ended up finishing in 4th in that one. Not bad. At that time I dropped Marc off in the stands to fend for himself and got ready for my 450 LCQ, since pretty much everyone in that class had to race it, even though everyone was going to the main anyway. And, *ahem*, holeshot! I was enjoying getting my name said at the start of every race. It made me feel good. I was in the lead for 3 out of 4 laps. 2nd place was not that bad of a place for me. :D Over the finish I threw a pretty good whip, I thought. I hope someone got a picture. :P

At that time intermission started. And along with that, the autograph signing! I thought that the pro's were only going to sign autographs. But then they said, "all riders to the autograph signing." Sweet. So I got to sit there for 10 minutes and sign stuff for people. I found out that shirts are actually pretty difficult to sign. I guess you learn that skill with experience! Then it was time for my mains.

Guess what. I got the holeshot once again in the 250 main! I was in 3rd place for most of the race and was hoping to stay there. But then I got into some lappers... I ended up not jumping the triple and the guy in 4th did. So he passed me. That sucked. So I ended up in 4th place. My 450 main went similarly. I didn't get the holeshot in the last race, though. I wheelied off the start a little bit. I still got a 2nd place start, though. But then I was 4th or 5th going into the triple. I ended up being 4th the whole race. I was pretty close to 3rd place the whole race. It was hard to pass on this track, though. I got pretty close on the second to last lap when he rolled some section. But he then almost pushed me into a hay bail! So I got 4th once again. No podium. It would have been cool to be on the podium.

Overall the Lake County Fair was a cool experience for me! Afterward I talked to some of my mom's friends who came to cheer me on. Thanks for coming Sammie and everyone else! I also checked out a trials bike and decided that I want to get one someday. It just seems like it would be a mountain bike, except with an engine. I feel like I would enjoy that. :D That was pretty much all that happened from my experience yesterday. Not a bad day!

Thanks for reading! -Greg

P.S. Check out B.C. Productions on Facebook to see some sick pictures!

Lake County Fair Mx

Hola! So far this week I have pretty much been only thinking about the Lake County Fair Mx. A nice 2 days of thinking about it. I raced the 250 and 450 Amateur classes there last night. Before we got there I was worried about how difficult the track was going to be. It ended up not being too bad at all! I knocked out pretty much every jump in my first practice. I just had to get my corner speed up then. My second 250 practice was going well up until one of the last laps. I tried jumping past someone on the back triple on their left side. I ended up not going fast enough into the jump... Yeah, I cased it and flew over the handlebars. It wasn't too fun. I'm happy that I was all right. My chain did get a little rattled, though.

At 7 p.m. the racing began! My 250 heat race went really well. I got the holeshot and got 3rd. The 2 guys in front of me were a little bit faster. My 450 heat didn't go as well. I spun in the start and was near the back. Doh! I think I got 6th or something in that one. I think my cheerleaders Elis, Lexi, and Shauna helped me out! Almost everyone then had to do the 450 LCQ race because they wanted a show. I got a not so good start and was once again near the back. I couldn't pass this guy in front of me very well, either. So I think I got 10th or something.

My mains then started getting closer and closer. I was hoping to do well in the 250's. I ended up being top 3 going into the first turn. But that didn't end very well. The 2 guys in front of me started turning while I was going straight. I almost t-boned them! Instead I lost my balance and slid out. Bad mistake. I couldn't get my bike started for a while after that. By the time I did get going, everyone had lapped me. After that I just tried riding good and passed some people, even though they were a lap ahead. So that race wasn't too good for me.

My last race of the night was the 450 main. In that one I got a pretty good start. I was 4th going into the second turn. Sweet! I stayed there pretty much the whole race. On the second to last lap Brandon Pope, passed me, though. So I got 5th. I felt pretty good about that race.

Thanks to anyone that came out to support me yesterday! I tried doing some whips over the finish for you guys. :P I don't know if I'm gonna go race there tonight. If it rains a lot, I won't go. But if it doesn't rain much then I probably will go. Should be sweet! Bye! -Greg

Remember-ade

Hey you all! I'm kind of having trouble remembering what I did this weekend- must be because of that party... just kidding! I'm going to drink some of my remember-ade now... there we go! How did I forget that? tsk tsk.

Friday I had my day cut a little short with a visit from some relatives of Matu. But no problems or anything. I went with them to their house actually! That was because I felt like eating really, really good food that night. And also partly because I went with them to the Museum of Science and Industry on Saturday. Yeah! (That's for Kerr) There were a ton of cool things to see in there. The German u-boat from World War II. The worlds fastest machines- one from the 1800's and one from the 1900's. There was quite a bit of difference in speed. A couple hundred miles per hour, not to be exact. The machine made tornado, wave machine, avalanche show: so many interactive exhibits! And what a better way to end off the day at the Museum than with a movie about the Hubble telescope in the massive, 5-story omnimax theater. Wow! (Kerr) It was awesome!

Then I had a more unknown part of my day. I took the train home from Chicago for the first time by myself. I had to do it. I had a party to get to! My train ride went really smoothly. So I'm happy about that.

And now to the par-tay. It was Jordan Jackson's graduation party. Whoo-pee! Most of the adults drank on the porch while us not so adult's played volleyball. It was pretty fun and tiring! I couldn't put my shirt on for a while afterward because it was still sweaty. Oh well. :P It was fun playing a little ping pong and watching others play games that involved a ping pong ball. We then ended off the party with some midnight volleyball games.

Today, Sunday, was a day of motocross for me. I went to a track in Wisconsin that I hadn't been to before. Kimball's track. It was a pretty technical track, I thought. At least that's what those whoops whispered in my ear... After we left we payed a visit to one of my favorite babies, Brie! And Dan, Shane, and Sylvia too of course. :D

It looks like that remember-ade sure helped me out on this one! Thanks for reading! -Greg

P.S. It looks like I'm gonna race the Lake County Fair this Tuesday and Wednesday. Sweet!

geo-what?

Hey everybody! The last couple days have been flying by pretty quickly. It's already Friday! Some pretty fun stuff has been happening this week. Wednesday morning I earned some money working out in the hot sun. It wasn't bad at all, though. I think I'm used to the heat pretty well right now. That afternoon I also went shredding at Kody Kamm's house. Ok, it was more like puttsing in the beginning. It was pretty slick on the freshly watered track with a 450. It became better later on. That was good! I felt all right, but not super good. Oh well. I think it was pretty good practice.

That same day I just happened to find 2 geocaches. Ok, I lied; I looked for them. The first one was by the Costco in Lake Zurich in a parking lot. I felt like an idiot standing pretty much in the middle of the parking lot. I was having trouble finding it... But then some guy waved me over and acted like he was telling me top secret information. He pretty much told me exactly how to get it. Thanks man! :D The second one was coming back home from dirtbiking. I convinced my dad to stop somewhere near home. It was kind of tough looking for it in the dark and mosquito infested place, but Matu spotted it! Nice!

Yesterday (Thursday) actually had a lot of stuff for us to do. In the morning I went on a run with Matu biking next to me. It was going extraordinarily well until it started pouring on us. We stopped for a little by a beach because we saw that it was closed. What?! I called the number on the sign and asked why. They said the county closed it because it has a high bacteria count or something. I guess no more swimming for now. Continuing with the run... it started raining harder when we got closer to home. It was actually pretty fun and made me run faster. We were soaking wet by the time we got home. Woah!

It was geocaching time for a couple hours in the afternoon. Yeah! Stephanie (my neighbor) took me, Elis, and Matu geocaching with her. I got 4 more additions to my findings. It would've been 5, but we couldn't find one. We were looking all around and a little girl came up to us. She asked, "Are you geocaching?" Steph said, "yeah." The girl then informed us that it was no longer there. :P

When we got back home we decided that we should make our own geocache. I think we did a pretty good job. I just hope no animal or anything will steal it! It'll be fine, I think. Thanks for taking us geocaching Steph!

For our night activity my dad, Elis, Matu, and I went to see Inception at the movie theater. What a great movie! We missed a little bit of the beginning, but I don't think we missed too much (I hope!). It turns out the whole movie could be totally different than I thought was actually happening... or not. It really makes you think! If you are wondering whether to see this movie, go for it! Don't blame me if your brain hurts afterward, though. :D

Have a nice day! -Greg

Two fun days

So I was listening to the pulp mx show and I thought, what's a better thing to do right now than update my millions of fans on my blog! So here I am. Listening. I had two awesome days. Yesterday, Sunday, I went to Kody Kamm's house to ride. It was the first time I had been there and man, the track was sweet! It was groomed and watered, so it formed some ruts as well. There weren't very many jumps, but I think that actually made it better. I think there were like 8 total guys riding there in the beginning of the day. One of the jumps sections looked more like a bunch of singles! It was cool seeing Kody Kamm do it all the time. I didn't think I would be able to do it. But then my dad said I should and I eventually did! I thought it was pretty sketchy, but I guess it wasn't that bad. I'll be going back there on Wednesday. :D

Today was a much more do nothing type day. I went with Matu to find a geocach that was somewhat near my house, which was pretty cool. My phone wasn't working as a gps, so we just had to guess a little and look at a map online. Once we did find it, we were surprised. It was so fricken small! And to make it better there was a wasp nest right above it. Great. So there we were, looking like some lady scared of a mouse. But sticks on the ground really helped us out! After signing our names, we had the problem of putting it back. The paper was hard enough to put back in the mini container. Then I just thought some happy thoughts and slid the geocach back to its hiding spot. Man, we were pretty happy to get it back to the right spot without any stings!

After washing my bikes, Matu and I went swimming in the lake. It looked like it might rain so we wanted to swim before then. We left when it started to rain. That worked out well!

Towards the night we went to watch my mom's volleyball games. It looked like they were close games. They lost the first 2 games but won the last 1. During the last game Matu and I learned that women need emotional support a lot. That was from a lady named Brenda on my mom's team. She told us that because the other team had just gotten 10 straight points. So Matu and I cheered a little to help them out. I believe that helped them win that last one! :D

So there you go. Life lessons, dramatic treasure hunting, and extreme action. I hope your heart didn't start pumping too hard! Until next time. -Greg

Wowza

Wowza, it has already been almost a week since I've been back from Georgia. Time is flying at home. On one of the days this week I went mountain biking at kettle morraine in Wisconsin with Chris Favro, also known as Shenzi. Man, it's feeling almost as hot as Georgia was this week! It's just sapping the energy out of me. The mountain bike ride was fun. The trail was nice for sure! That same day my family went to Chris's birthday party dinner at a Mexican restaurant. There I got to practice some of my Spanish. :P. Chris turned 43, which my dad decided is a very important year for him, or something like that.

The day after that I went riding at Lukas's house. Oh man, the track was so dusty and hardpacked! But it was ok since I was the only one riding. After I finished riding I noticed my 450 had exactly 43 hours on it. I almost decided never to ride it again so the hours could stay on that number forever! But it was not to be...

We also have had a guest over for the past 3 or so days. He's a 14 year old kid named Mattias (I don't really know how to spell his name). He's visiting from Estonia. With him I went swimming twice and biking. It's been pretty fun. Today he came with me and my dad to Motoland, too. My sister and her friends were up all night, I think, last night. But they seemed to have more energy than me this morning! Freaky!

Riding at Motoland today was sooooo tiring. Every 20 minutes we had a 20 minute ride. 5 total. I feel dead right now. The track got really bumpy, but it was sweet battling a little bit with some guys.

Now we're driving somewhere to see some auto show and have dinner with the relatives of Mattias. Bye! -Greg

Built Lusk Tough: Day 12

Hey everybody! Today was the last official day of my trip to Georgia. I went there with Shane and Dan Cobb, rode for a week and a half, and then came back home with my family. It really couldn’t have gone much better. Today was just a long driving day back home. It was so humid and warm in the van! Man, it isn’t too comfortable to sit in the back because of that! But we got through it.

We left pretty early in the morning; a little before 6 am. We’ve been driving for 16 or so hours now. Ok, we took a couple pit stops too. For breakfast we went to a Waffle House in Alabama. The first day I wrote about this adventure I kind of threw Alabama under the bus by saying that they’re really slow! But the Waffle House helped redeem its state. Our food was done pretty quickly and it didn’t taste bad either. Nice! That meal held us up until dinner. For all the hours in between we slept, read books, watched movies, and just kind of sat there. Not too exciting. But the day went by pretty well for me.

For dinner we stopped by a Chinese restaurant in Rossville, Indiana. A couple months ago my dad and I went there with Cody and John VanBuskirk when we had some races near there. It tasted pretty good. But the bill was quite a surprise!

Now we are almost home. Yessss! Only 5 minutes left. And what a better way to end the trip than with my blog? I’m feeling like I’m at home already. Dan and Shane’s house was starting to feel homey before I left. But it’s not the same as my real home. I hope I get to do another trip like this again some time. It was fun! I guess I won’t be writing my blog every day now, but I’ll still keep you all updated on my happenings! Bye! –Greg