Whooo sand!

Hey everybody! Today was the first day since the beginning of January that I rode on an outdoor track. My dad and I heard about this track south of Chicago a couple weeks ago. After a little bit of calling we found out that we could go. At first we had no idea how to get there. We drove around quite a bit down there. Luckily we saw Matt Hammond's dad and just followed him there! When we got there I saw quite a bit of people riding. Sweet. The track is all sand with natural rollers everywhere. The first lap around I was going side to side a lot. I was thinking, "uh oh!" Yeah, pretty tough.

I could do a few laps at a time before I got this huge arm pump. I was sometimes worried about my hands coming off the bars in the straights! Luckily I got more used to it in a couple times out. Gnarly track! After a little bit it started POURING rain. But I was pretty happy; the track was pretty much the same before the rain! Ahh, you gotta love sand. I think if I go there to ride often, I'll become a different rider. The guy who owns it is really nice,too. Whew, I'm pretty tired now!

I think this year should go good. Especially if I go riding to that sand track often. Well, have a nice day! -Greg :)

Ray's Helmet Cam

Here's a sweet video I made with my helmet cam and some computer magic. I got footage of the pump track, XC course, and expert jumps. Some of my family members and friends are in it too! You'll just have to watch the video to find out exactly who. Also, I guess there's some copyright issue with one of the songs I used, so I'm suggesting you just put some music on in the background while I try to get this thing figured out! Enjoy. -Greg

Indoor Fun

Hey everybody! Since it's so cold and snowy here, I have been doing quite a bit of indoor riding on my bikes. A couple weeks ago my dad and I decided to go check out Racine Indoor Mx. It must not have been a popular day to ride since almost no one was there! Oh well. I got a lot of riding in and had some fun. The following week I went again one day. That day seemed to be a lot more popular because people were actually there. I then actually got to race some people with lap times. Oh, the second time I rode my 125 (newly a 144). That bike rips around Racine! Anyway, my best time was a 1:02.9.

The day after that my mom got home from Florida and we all decided to go ride bikes at Ray's Mountain Bike Park in Milwaukee. It was the grand opening weekend and we thought it would be sweet. And it was! There were a lot of people there for the grand opening. Some pros were there, too. It felt good to ride in there. They sure make fun stuff! When it was almost time to leave I got the opportunity to stay with the Favro's at their hotel and ride again the next day. So I stayed.

I rented a bike the next day and tried starting to master more sections. Lots of fun for sure.

This week of school has been good. That's because we've barely had any! Tuesday night a huge blizzard rolled through the midwest and we got a lot of snow. From that we got two days of school off. It was pretty bad shoveling the couple feet of snow. Oh man, there was a lot of it. Thank god for our neighbor Andy helping us out with his snow blower!

We didn't want to waste our second snow day on nothing, so guess what we did. We went to Ray's again! This time my sister's friend Jackie came with. Also, there was almost no one at the indoor mountain bike park. The whole park was ours for the shredding. By the end of the day we were all really tired again. I mastered more of the expert jumps and starting doing some cool doubles through the pump track. I felt pretty good. I also got some helmet cam video in there. Hopefully I'll have that up soon.

That's basically all I've done over the past two weeks. It's actually quite a bit. I'm glad we have these indoor tracks around here when it's so cold and snowy outside! Later! -Greg

Sears Centre Arenacross

Hey everybody! This weekend was filled with motocross for me, just like it should be! Thursday night I just kind of decided that I should try out Arenacross. It was a total last minute thing. So I left school a little early and quickly helped load up the bikes. When we got there we had to park quite a bit away from the track. So we got to ride the bikes into the stadium.

The pits were something as well. There was barely room to get through. We put my bikes almost all the way on the other side of the stadium. But that's not that far considering how small a hockey arena really is. Practice started pretty quickly and I had two quick sessions. The track was really basic, but the finish line was really intimidating for me. So intimidating that I didn't do it at all! A little later we had two quick heat races as well to determine our gate positions for the mains. My 250 B heat went pretty well! I got a second place start from the outside and stayed in second the whole 4 laps. I was happy with that. My 450 B heat didn't go as well, though. I got a bad start and was pretty much last halfway through the first lap. Not too good! I didn't get by too many people in the 4 laps either.

It turned out that we had quite a bit of time left then until the mains. So I just went into the stands and watched the pro practices with my mom and dad. It was funny how the pros started jumping the finish within the first few laps and I didn't do it at all. Oh snap! Those guys are pretty fearless!

My 250 B main could have gone better for sure, but it's part of the experience. My start was good with being in second going into the first turn, but it all went downhill from there. I got passed by several people before the second turn. On the third lap when I came out of the whoops I jammed on the rear brake hoping to just make a quick turn and pass the guy in front of me. Uhh, it didn't work out so good. My rear wheel just slid out really fast and I ended up backwards on the track. So much for that pass... Then I had trouble getting back into a rhythm as well. I ended up 10th in that race. Deep breaths. Just part of the experience.

My 450 B main went quite a bit better. I had to start from the second row because of my crappy heat. But because of that I got to start behind the good starters on the inside! So I just stuck right behind them in the first turn and came out in the top 5 on the first lap. Yay! I stayed in 5th throughout the whole race. I did almost get passed by Malachi Messenger on the second to last lap, but I held him off. I was happy with that race. I got a sweet plastic plaque thingy for getting fifth place. :P

Arenacross was a cool experience for sure. The adrenaline rush of the short races were cool. Later watching the pro races were fun too. The mud bog at the end was pretty lame though, I have to admit. Well it depends on who you ask. There were some kids gathering huge mud balls in the stands... I bet they thought the mud bog was awesome!

Photo by Chelsea Sanders

I decided not to race again the next day. I heard that someone broke their neck that night. Not good!

Instead I wrestled in the morning and won both of my matches. Then I slept for a few hours in the afternoon so I could get some energy to stay up to watch the supercross. I thought it was awesome watching that. So awesome that I watched it again in the morning.

Ice riding was the name of the game on Sunday. After packing our stuff my dad and I left to a lake with our friends Ralph and Evan. It was on Lily Lake, I think. There I rode with Brad Jerominski, Cody VanBuskirk, and a few other people. My first session out there I rode for over 40 minutes! The "road" course was awesome. I just got a flow and was trying to not lose too much time to Brad! That was a lot of fun. Later I also rode the oval. I did have one small crash at the end of the day, though. I was just going into a corner just like I always did, but there were some bumps that had developed on the ice now. My front end just washed out and I hit my elbow on the ground pretty good. Luckily my RXR jacket protected me! So ice riding was awesome for sure.

That's it for now. Have an awesome day! -Greg :D

Lakes Are Sweet

Here we go, my first post of 2011! That means that Supercross has started, which is just amazing. I've been waiting a while now, reading the latest tweets, watching videos, just getting excited for Anaheim 1. Last night was that night! And it didn't disappoint. We had a Supercross party at our house with the Lung family. It's always cool to watch this together with other people. At 1 A.M. it all ended and I was pretty happy. So guess what I did? ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

The next (this) morning my dad and I decided to go ice riding. Yeah! The only problem was we didn't have studded tires on yet. But guess what... it wasn't a problem at all! My dad used a new tool that we got from Estonia to easily install the tires on. Well, I thought it looked easy. We then went to a lake where Vaughn Mays was. It was the first time I have gone riding on a lake, so it was a new experience. There was a group of guys with old bikes there riding an oval, which was pretty cool. Vaughn and I rode a turn track on the ice as well. The way the bike handles is definitely a bit different on ice than on dirt. I tried Vaughn's bike once as well and it was good. After a few hours we left happy.

Yes, this was a good weekend. Have a nice day! -Greg

Spray Paint

Hey everybody! Yesterday my family all went to help spray paint our Sprinter. Yes, the results are pretty awesome! "Sassinator" is written on both sides in BIG bubble letters. We also made stencils with all our names on them. My dad used those to put them all over the front and back of the van. I think it kind of looks like a bunch of bugs are on it. But it's something different for sure!

Now we're going back again to work on it some more. I hope it ends up being even more awesome. See ya! -Greg

Ho Ho Ho

Hey everybody! Happy holidays! Christmas time is here and the weather outside is cold and snowy. How exciting. The past week has been pretty eventful for me. Not all in good ways either! My school had finals in the beginning of this week, and those went pretty good for me. I feel good about getting those done. Now it's winter break, so there's no school for two weeks. Yay!

Over the weekend my dad and I started to prepare our motocross van to be repainted. We are thinking about doing some graffiti on the side of the van. I really hope that comes out looking awesome! Anyways, one night my dad and I worked kind of late and it had snowed quite a bit outside. We could barely get out of the driveway at Dan Cobb's house! That's where we are painting the van. Luckily we did get out of there. But it didn't get much better after that. You see, we were with my dad's work van... It's a wonder it even still works. Well that night it decided to stop working about four times when we were in the middle of the road. But thankfully we did get home.

On Christmas Eve my family and I went to a cool Christmas play thing at a big church. It's the one time of the year that I actually go to church. That was pretty cool. Our friends, the Lung family, was also there. We went to their house to hang out and have dessert later that night too. My family is pretty cool in the fact that we open presents on Christmas Eve. Yay! So that's what we did.

Now we're all on our way to spray paint our van. It's all primed and ready to be painted. (after some sanding... Darn.) I'll post some pictures of our van later! See ya! -Greg