MikeMason - Yardbarker Blogs

Heartache

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 01:42:05 -0500

Hey guys, the FMX community has takin a big hit for the worse this week. X games gold medalist and a very good friend of mine, Jeremy Lusk went down hard in Costa Rica over the weekend. He was towards the end of his run from what I could see on youtube and went for a seat grab flip, he was a little under rotated and also got sideways as he was getting back onto the bike which left him off balance and heading to the ground head first. He went down and was immediatley unconscious and still is as of right now. I know every one of us on tour in New Zealand had our hearts ripped out when we heard all the possible rumors. They were saying he had flat lined twice on the way to the hospital and his odds of living weren't looking good. I know I have been in the weirdest state of confusion through all this because Lusk is the guy that always gets up and walks away no matter how bad the crash was, so seeing this makes me realize the severity of the situation.

I fully understand the risks we take on a daily basis and at any moment it could be the last time you put your helmet on and throw a leg over your motorcycle, but to hear something like this happen to someone you look up to and respect, it's just the worst feeling in the world. I've watched Jeremy move up these last couple years and turn into one of the most gnarly dudes in FMX. He went from a mid pack guy at Dew tours in 2006 to X games gold medalist and FMX rider of the year in 2008. For him to work so hard to get to the top and then have something like this happen is heartbreaking. This issue though is beyond the world of dirtbikes, his life is at stake right now. Every single person in the FMX community is rallying and trying to set up benefits to get him airlifted back to the states to get the best treatment possible. I feel so helpless here in New Zealand, all I can do is pray and really hope for the best, and know that Jeremy can fight this battle. I am glued to the internet and my sidekick right now, waiting for any info I can get. The last I heard was tonight was going to be a critical night in this process, he wasn't doing the best and they really got to watch him and keep him fighting. I will be sure to post anything I can up as soon as I get info. Please take time out of your day to pray for Jeremy, it will help.

I love football!!

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 03:45:55 -0500

Hey guys!! Now I know I am supposed to sit here and type about how cool freestyle motocross is and how bitchen my life is, but I got to start this thing about with some superbowl talk!! I had the luxury of watching the superbowl from a fine pub in New Zealand, it was the only place in the whole town airing the superbowl and there was 6 people in there watching it, not the usual superbowl crowd I'd be used too, but it was cool to watch the game without a bunch of drunk people yelling at every penalty saying how that call was bullshit. I made some of the riders off the tour come with me and actually got them into the game which is cool, most of them are from Australia so unless it is AFL or Rugby they hate it. Now to the football......I must say I was super pumped to see the Cards do what they did, I bet there's not too many people who picked them to go all the way and those are the type of teams that get me excited when they do make it to the end. They played a hell of a game, they came so close but friggin Ben and Santonio handled the business. Nothing better than a Superbowl that the winner isn't decided until the final drive, I loved it!!

As for my life, right now I am just pluggin away on the Crusty tour, New Zealand has been awesome so far, really nice place to be and the fans have been awesome as usual!! Cam Sinclair has landed all 3 double flip attempts which is awesome, he's a good dude so it's cool to see him pull it off!! I have three more weeks here then I will be back in the states and quickly back to the compound to get to practice for the summer. Damn time flies!! Well I am off to the pub for the afterparty!! Can't be missing a good time so I will be talking to you guys soon!!

Panic Attack!

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 00:37:03 -0500

The last time I left you guys, I had mentioned I had two weeks until New Zealand so I was going to get after it
and ride a bunch and get dialed for the tour. Well I just got a call that Jim Mcneil just broke his thumb and they need me to come over ASAP to fill in for him!! Holy smokes!! In 48 hours I went from chillin in Vegas to driving home to Reno to packing up and now I'm a day away from catching a flight!! I am really bummed for Mcneil. In my last blog I mentioned how much fun we had riding a couple weeks ago and he's just a down to earth guy that seems to constantly have bad luck!! I am happy to go over and ride for the New Zealand fans for sure, but I didn't want it to come at the expense of my buddy getting hurt!!

Other than the rush to be ready I had a good week down in Vegas! Sunday I got to hang on stage and watch the punk legend band Pennywise play which was sooo rad! From the concert we all ventured to the ever dangerous place....Wasted Space!! The band came over and hungout and we did some minor drinking, and then they played Bro Hym up on the stage which then led to Fletcher, the guitarist, breaking a guitar over the Wasted Space drum set!! I thought it was awesome, I'm sure Hart wasn't too pumped though!! I got into the program on Monday and started doing some riding. It was fun because Josh Hansen and Troy Adams, Hart's supercross team riders were out there riding with me. I could watch them pound out laps on the track and then I could go do some riding, usually I was joined by Hansen who can throw some massive whips off a ramp!! I shot some photos on Tuesday with a french photographer. We stayed out there until dark to get some pretty bad ass sunset shots, to this day I am still trying to persuade him to run one on a cover!! You know me, the constant pain in your ass haha!!

I just got into my house up in Carson City now. I am pretty much packed and ready to go. I am going to spend tomorrow with my dad doing some snowboarding before I leave the family for another month. I am a only child so my parents aren't too thrilled with my schedule at times!! Now that I am all settled, I am really looking forward to getting to New Zealand and seeing all my pals over there, if it's anything like the last three tours I've done with them, it's going to be a blast!!

New start!

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 22:22:28 -0500

Hey guys, just got done with a pretty eventful couple weeks. Even though it is our so called "offseason" I am still staying busy. Last week I flew into Dortmund, Germany to ride a demo for a supercross race there. I had done the show in 2006 and 2007, but missed last year due to surgery. It has always been such a fun show, I am a fan of racing so to get to watch some racing and then jump for a bunch of crazy germans is a good time!! This was also my chance to get my career turned around and make something of myself from now on. I decided in 2009 I am going to put a 100% into this stuff and Germany was the perfect start! I felt great on Friday night and had a blast riding with all the European kids. I went to bed early (no drinking haha) woke up Saturday and went to the venue to ride practice, something I had never done at the event before!! I hit the ramp a few times and then started working on some seat grab flips and under flips. I felt good about myself for a change!! The rest of the weekend went well, our other 2 shows went really good and I left Germany on a positive note!

The day after I got home from Germany, I hopped right back into the F-150 and took the 4 hour drive down to Phoenix to ride with Jim Mcneil and film for the new moto video coming out, On the Pipe. This really helped me out with my confidence and getting my head on straight. The first day the set up had a double double, first one being a 75ft ramp second one a 85 ft dirt jump, 5 minutes into riding the section we were flipping both jumps and getting some killer footage with the helicopter!! We then moved over to the 115ft ramp like they use at X games. I was pretty nervous to hit it at first, since we don't get to practice that jump often, luckily Mcneil hit right away and then I followed, 2 jumps later I flipped and then gave myself a high five! I know a lot of guys flip that ramp and do all their hard stuff off it, but I have only flipped it at one event, X games 2007 so to do it again and know that I can do it helped me a ton!! The next day we went and did some free riding, hit some pretty big 4th gear jumps and got more shots for the video. That was also the first time I had been free riding in awhile so that was nice to get out and hit some different jumps!

I am now back at home here in Vegas relaxing for the weekend, and watching hopefully some really good football tomorrow!! Monday I will be back on the bike and riding 5 days a week for the next couple weeks until I leave to New Zealand!! I am excited to ride and learn new stuff so I kind of can't wait for the week to be here!!

What is this world coming to?

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 16:31:43 -0500

Hey everyone, happy new year!! I am pretty glad to have the new year upon us to start fresh and see what I can make of 2009. 2008 was ok, but really nothing to brag about so I am hoping something cool happens this year!! I had a nice couple weeks at home with my family. We spent the day after christmas snowboarding which was awesome. It snowed all day on christmas and then the next day was perfectly sunny!! I got my mom and dad to go as long as all of my best friends so it was a blast!! Two days later I was off to Vegas to start preparing for the year. I also got to check out Robbie Maddison's jump at the Paris on NYE. That guy is crazy!! You can't really understand how serious of a jump this was unless you saw it in person. I was really nervous, it almost felt like I was the one jumping. Whenever you have a friend of yours out there laying himself on the line you feel for him. I was really hoping everything was going to be alright!! Luckily in true Maddo fashion he pulled through, and then had one hell of an afterparty!!

I spent the last couple days recovering from the whole new years festivities and now I have been getting back on the bike. I have actually set some goals with myself this year, and for the first time I feel like if I don't achieve them I will let myself down! They aren't crazy goals like I am going to win every contest or something like that, they are realistic goals starting with some tricks I'd like to learn, then moving into maybe top 5's at the contests. If everything is going good I would for sure like to be on the podium towards the end of summer! Everyone always says I am really hard on myself, but I always think I am realistic. I know where my run stands with the top guys and I honestly don't feel that it's a competitive run. If I could learn a couple flip tricks then my attitude will change, but for now I feel it's an uphill battle, one that I am willing to work at! It's crazy to me right now because I feel like 2009 is already moving way to fast. I am already starting my season this week in Germany, doing a supercross demo, then I have two weeks off then off to New Zealand for the Crusty tour, all of February, couple more Europe shows in March and April then Capital City Crusty tour in Australia May and June then right back into contests!! It's crazy how it all blends together and makes a year fly right by!

I guess I better get to work now, more riding less typing! One last thing I wanted to mention is I will be doing video blogs for EXPN.com starting this month so be sure to check them out if you get a chance!! It's going to be more about my personal life and messing around, not so much actual riding which I think should be pretty cool. Take care everyone!!

Being a spectator

Fri, 26 Dec 2008 02:17:32 -0500

Hey guys, it's been awhile!! I've been meaning to write on here for some time now, but kept getting sidetracked! Between flying overseas and last minute christmas shopping I was slammed. I do have a pretty good story though.....So I fly to Tahiti last week to do a demo there alongside Adam Jones, Dustin Miller, Nate Adams and some others. They were going to have BMX and skateboarding as well so I was pretty excited. So a week before the demo Adam and I were informed that there are no Honda 250's on the island so we would need to ship our bikes. So last minute me and Adam paid my dad to do a Los Angeles trip to drop off our bikes at the shipping yard, 7 days before the event. So we fly over there, 1st class I might add! The promoters really made sure they did it right so that was a good thing. Anyways we get there, check out the scene, do some snorkling and get sunburned. It was a cool first couple days. Well two days before the show me and Adam are informed that our bikes might not make it. I'm not going to lie, I wasn't all that bummed. I mean it sucks not to be able to put on a show for the fans down there, but it would be an actual vacation for once!! Well Friday, the day before the show it is a fact, our bikes will not be there, in fact they never even left LA haha! I guess it was 9,000 bucks one way to get them there and once the promoter found out they probably wouldn't make it he just canceled the shipment. So me and Adam basically got paid to have beers on a island!! It was also fun for once to check out the show minus the stress. I got to watch all my buddies ride and put on a good show and watch some killer BMX and skating!! Not a bad vacation!

I got back from the 85 degree Tahiti weather, right into a crazy snowstorm!! Talk about shock! I loved it though, we even got to have a white christmas today which is something I haven't witnessed in years!! Today was excellent, I love spending time with my family and friends, it's my best method of relaxing!! Tomorrow I am going to hit the mountains to do a little snowboarding and hang with my buds. This is my last weekend up north, Monday I head down to Vegas for a month to get back into the FMX mode and get ready for the New Zealand leg of the Crusty tour! I want to be on point in New Zealand, the Crusty guys have always been cool to me and they've put up with me for 2 years now so I really want to be riding at a 100% when I show up, hopefully even bring some new tricks to the show for the NZ fans!! Well I hope everyone had a merry christmas and got a lot of fun presents!! I'll keep in touch throughout my Vegas trip and let everyone know how the riding is coming along. I will also be doing some video blogs for expn.com starting in January, so keep checking in for those, it could be entertaining!!

Geneva to Tahiti!

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 01:35:18 -0500

Howdy yard, just got off the plane from Switzerland!! I had a blast, the show was really good and the supercross racing was awesome! I got to ride with fellow american's Jeremy Lusk and Lance Coury so that was cool. Lusk is one of my good buddies in this sport so anytime we get to ride for fun together it's.....fun! This was the first time I have got to ride a show with Lance, he's an up and coming kid and proved this weekend that in the next couple years he will be up there with us at the major contests! It was nice to just do a demo at a race, we got to watch the racing and be a fan and then jump during their breaks, a nice change compared to just doing the same thing over and over all night and for two consecutive nights. Geneva was also a memory for me. I went there in 2000 for the same race, but at that time I was racing and doing FMX, it was also my first ever trip overseas, so to come back and see that nothing had changed was nice. We rode in the same venue, stayed at the same hotel, and the crowd was still as crazy as ever!! The only downfall to the trip was missing my connecting flight from LAX to Reno, and the next flight wasn't for 4 hours. Nothing like traveling for 16 hours only to have to wait for 4 more hours before you get to get in your own bed!! I am now home for one more day before I fly to Salt Lake to do some promotional stuff with one of my sponsors, Skullcandy. They make headphones which really has nothing to do with a dirtbike, but just in a year they have been one of my favorite sponsors, so anything I can do to help re-pay them I will. From Salt Lake I head to Tahiti for a week to do a couple demos and have one hell of a vacation!! I never heard of the place or knew where it was at until last week, but now that I've done some research I am pumped!! As you can see my schedule never slows down, but I am ok with that. I believe in busting your ass to have the things you want so I have stuck to that my whole career...seems to be working!!

Bed head

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:48:29 -0500

Hey guys, figured I better get in here and write a quick update and let everyone know I am still alive!! There's not really much to write about. After Russia I spent a week on the couch being sick, so I decided to do a fantasy draft on Madden 09'. I felt I did ok in the draft. I used the Falcons team because I think they have the best looking uniforms!! From there I went on to draft, Jared Allen, Willie Parker, Calvin Johnson, Joe Flacco and other fine athletes. I was 1-0 and not even 2 minutes into my second game Flacco got hit...bad....broke his elbow out for the season, so I was stuck with Kerry Collins.....I haven't played a game since. Once I was feeling better and over Madden, I went out and actually got productive! I rode FMX one day with my buddies Matt Buyten and Brian Foster. It honestly amazes me how much different I feel practicing now and practicing over the summer when you have all the pressure of contests. We rode for probably an hour, and all I did was a couple of flips, a lot of whips, and did some trains with Buyten over our double double section. If this was July I would have done about 900 flips in a hour and said a lot of swear words in my helmet. Sometimes I wish I was a skateboard guy, I could get pissed off and wing my board and throw a fit, but I did that once on my mini bike, I threw my bike down, ripped my helmet off and threw it and looked up and saw my pops who looked like he was a 100 times more pissed off than me so I gathered my belongings and hid in the trailer....lesson learned!! I also took some time and did some mini bike riding with my buddies and then had a very lovely thanksgiving with the family!! I am now getting ready to do a couple more days of FMX and then head to Geneva, Switzerland to ride in a demo with one of my good buddies Jeremy Lusk. I am pretty pumped to get over there and ride a show and hopefully perform well!! I will post everything up on Monday when I get home!! That's all for now....bye bye.

From Russia with love!

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 18:50:24 -0500

Hey guys, sorry it has been so long since I have typed up a most breath taking blog. I was pushing to get ready for a contest in Moscow this past weekend so I didn't get to write anything up before I left. Moscow was a trip, the surroundings, the people, the Vodka...it was all an experience!! I went over with a good friend of mine, Todd Potter which was cool. It is always nice to have people you're familiar with when you go to an unfamiliar area. When we arrived I did the usual jet lag nap, crawled into bed at 4 p.m. and didn't come back to life until 4 a.m.!! I don't know what it is about flying overseas, but I can log some hours in the sack when I arrive every time!! We went to the venue Friday to check everything out and put our bikes together. We were supposed to practice as well, but the course was really soft from all the weather they get so they had to make some adjustments to the course. We took that time to do some sight seeing which was cool, I have never really got to check out anything when I go places so I was pumped to go be a tourist. We went to the Red Square, I think it's called? The place was killer. I have always seen it in the movies and in pictures, but to actually be there and check it out was awesome! The one building, that looks like Candy land was my favorite! After that it was back to the hotel for some dinner and then to bed to get ready for the contest on Saturday. You see that my new attitude is already kicking in, I was in bed at 10 p.m. not out drinking, atta baby!! Practice was basic we just pretty much rode and had some fun because the course was your standard circle course with 2 ramps, which is fine by me when I am overseas! For the contest they broke us up into groups of two and had us go out and do 4 tricks no flips, then 3 tricks 1 flip, and then the finale which was whatever the hell you wanted to do! It was cool because the whole show was a build up. The crowd was pumped even on our first runs with standard tricks so I knew the rest of the show would be awesome! I was paired up with Danny Torres, if you have never heard of him, you will...soon. He's a kid from Spain that is riding probably better than anyone I have seen in awhile. He has great standard tricks, all the hard flip combo's and now 360's so I'd say he is going to be pretty tough to beat in the future! The show went great, pretty much everyone made it out alive, Torres won and I was headed back to the hotel for....you guessed it, more sleep haha!! Sunday was the same show, everyone rode even a little better and the crowd was once again really pumped and into our riding!! Torres again won, I finished second, and a kid from Russia rounded out the top 3. After the show we were all doing burnouts and high fiving the crowd, I rode by Potter doing a wheelie and he stuck his hand out to high five me...I tried to kick his hand and landed right on my ass. I for some reason spaced the fact that the foot I went to kick his hand with was controlling my back brake during the wheelie, so I went to far and went sliding across the cement!! By far the highlight of my trip haha. I am now home for a couple weeks. I can't wait to spend some time with my family and be a normal person before things get crazy again. I leave to Switzerland right after Thanksgiving and then to Tahiti from there, so I got a couple more enjoyable flights ahead of me this year!! I will post back later this week, it has actually been nice at my house so I am going to do some practicing and try to start getting a jump on the crowd for 2009!!

Never long enough

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:53:50 -0500

Is it me or does this life haul ass?? I was soo pumped because I was getting a two week vacation....and that was two weeks ago haha. It seems like I just started relaxing on the couch and playing Madden and now it's already time to get back to the traveling scene. I did enjoy my two weeks here in New Jersey though, watched a lot of football, went to Atlantic City for the first time, it was alright, but I'd say Vegas has it covered haha. I went and stayed at photographer Chris Tedesco's house also while I was here and it just so happens his parents have a full on music studio and do lessons. I mentioned that I'm a fan of guitar and sure enough Tedesco's step dad was cool enough to teach me a thing or two. So I'd say it has been a pretty good trip. I fly home Friday to pretty much do laundry, pay bills, and see my parents play Guitar Hero, then I am off to Salt Lake City Monday to watch Metallica!! I am super excited for this, they have been one of my favorite bands for some time now, and I got lucky enough to get hooked up to see them thanks to my bitchen sponsor Skull Candy. I fly back into Reno Tues am, and hop right in my truck and pin it down to Vegas to do a demo for Kicker audio, at the Palm's hotel. I might try and stay a week in Vegas to get tuned up on the supercross track and get ready for the Dubai X games. It's 50,000.00 to win that bad boy so I am going to take it serious and try not to crash in Speed in Style for the third time haha!! That's about all I have to say for now. I'll be posting right after the concert/demo, I am sure I will be pumped and have a bunch to talk about!! Take care!!

No more pressure for 2008...yesss!!

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 16:22:04 -0500

The 2008 contest season is officially over and I feel great about it!! Not because I did good, because it's nice to have 7 months of no stress and pressure to ride. This season had its highlights for me, Summer X was cool and Mexico X games was cool, but other than that I can't say I was excited to be at the major comp's this year. The Dew tour staff must think we either ride mini bikes or we are all rookies because our course's constantly kept getting more easy. This weekend in Orlando one of our dirt jumps was the cutest little thing I've ever seen. It was built into a tabletop so the actual gap on it seemed like it was 10 feet!! It had me shaking before practice, I was so nervous to go that big!! That was one thing that always kept riding fun for me was wondering what the course was going to be like each week. Back in 2005 and 2006 we had some scary courses which was awesome, when you put a good run down on a crazy course you feel you accomplished something. Now you got guys that aren't all that good at riding a bike at the top of the results because it's all ramps......and ramps are easy as hell to trick. Aside from me complaining I really am excited to get into this off season. I will be going to Russia for the first time ever to ride in a demo there, as well as Mexico City, Switzerland, Dubai, and Tahiti in the next two months. Once 2009 comes around I get to head to New Zealand and Australia for the Crusty tour again and that is always a blast, I can't wait to see all those guys again! I will also be living in Vegas for the most part during the winter so I can ride and train and try not to keep getting beat so bad. Now that I know we will be dealt beginner courses I am going to have to get really gnarly on the tricks. Sucks but that time has come haha. Right now I am spending a couple weeks in New Jersey with some buddies, relaxing and not worrying about anything moto related. I am sure at the end of the two weeks I will be excited again and probably get down to Vegas and ride!! I want to take a quick moment to thank everyone that supports me and what I do. I love writing this blog and doing the TV for Fuel TV, it's stuff that interests me and is cool, so it's nice when I get a good reaction from you guys, the fans, on here, or MySpace, or even at the events, so don't be bashful to leave me a message!!

Fat guy in a little coat

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 00:28:45 -0500

Hey guys, just got back to the house after being in Vegas for the weekend. I went and checked out the US open, supercross at the MGM. The racing was ok, I kind of got bored so I just took some time out to kiss the butt's of my sponsors and make sure they still want to cut me a check in the future. Saturday night I was at my old stomping grounds, Wasted Space in the Hardrock. I don't know what the deal is, but that place is almost better than being at home. There are soo many girls there that no matter how bad I am at talking to girls, the odds are still in my favor to get at least half of a phone number! The highlight for me was watching my roommates band, The Main Event, play. I have watched these guys work from the ground up to become a band so it's always exciting when I get to watch them rock everyones socks off!! The last song they did was Bro Hym, a cover by the punk band Pennywise. They played it for Carey's fallen brother, Tony Hart, and to make it extra cool Carey came up and played bass. It was really an awesome moment to watch the band plus Carey get the crowd going with that song. It was the ultimate tribute to Tony. After the band played we all just had a good time and of course like most moto related after parties some meat head had to start ripping the sleeves off of our shirts. Someone got too aggressive with my sleeves and ripped my whole shirt off!! The bouncers quickly ejected me out of the club, but lucky for me one of the very sexy Rockstar girls came to my rescue and let me wear her kids extra small sweater. I wore it with pride the rest of the night and even cut up the dance floor with it on!! Hope this blog was entertaining!! I'm off to Orlando for the last stop off the AST Dew tour!!

Too much time, too little to do!!

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:55:50 -0500

Suppp dudes!! Well I've had a nice week off so far, I still rode my bike and handled business in the mornings on the course, but it was nice when Thursday came around and I wasn't packing my bags and hopping on a flight for the weekend. Riding has been going pretty good, I have actually been making myself practice tricks that scare me so I can do better in contests, where before I would be so scared of the tricks I would just skip them haha. I also got to get some more tattoo's which is the most fun, but terrible thing ever!! Nothing like sitting there with a needle digging into your arm for 4 hours!! Other than riding, I have been trying to get my personal life and future set up. I just purchased a house in Las Vegas, which is perfect for me. Up here in the Northern NV we get snow and really bad weather in the winter, which I love, but it is impossible to ride in. The house in Vegas gives me a winter type get away and I can ride down at Carey Hart's FMX course and stay on top of my game, instead of sitting in my house for a month watching it snow. I also am digging the backyard up for a pool/hot tub, this I am really excited about!! It's always soo hot here in the summer and after coming home from riding I always just want to go swimming, so I took care of the problem!! Plus for my 2009 Yardbarker edition of cribs, I got to step my game up!! Well that's about all for now, I'm going to get back to some Madden 09 and see if I can keep myself from wanting to throw my controller through the TV when I throw an interception!!

Cry me a river

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 23:23:05 -0500

Another week down, another major contest down, and finally a week off!! I just got done riding the LG action sports contest in Pomona, Ca this weekend. LG is always my favorite contest of the year because the course's have always been super technical, something that helps my riding ability and hurts all the rookie kids that don't know how to ride very well. This years course was pretty damn hard, but very fun. It had lots of options, and dirt jumps which are always more fun and challenging compared to the standard competition ramp. It was also a format very similar to X games which was head to head. I like head to head because you can go up against anyone and have a chance. You're not giving guys 2 runs to sort out everything, you get one chance to ride your best or else you're out! A lot of the guys complain about it, but I think the complaints come from the guys who doubt their ability and need two tries to get the business done. When the brackets came out, of course I was paired up with my best friend and travel mate for the weekend, Dustin Miller. Alls we could do is laugh about it and make little bets with one another. One bet was whoever won had to buy Del Taco on the way home, so in a way I didn't want to beat him, because I didn't want to fork out the whole 5 bucks that Del Taco would cost!! (Joking!!) Dustin actually made it really easy on me and messed up a couple tricks in his run, which I was bummed about. He's been on the comeback trail as of late and to be honest I really wanted him to ride good and show everyone in the industry that he can still compete with the best of them. I put in a decent run, kind of played it safe since Dustin messed up. It worked to my advantage and I moved on to the next round against.......my other good buddy Adam Jones!! Haha go figure! I knew pretty much from the get go that Adam had me covered, but I still went out and gave it a 100% because if I could move on I would have been no worse than 3rd, which I really wanted!! To no surprise though Adam got me and I was done for the night. I quickly loaded up, finished up some TV work with Fuel and was on the road back to Reno at 11:30 P.M. I had to be back in time for football today!! On the drive back me and my mechanic and Dustin got to talking about what our sport had come too. I kind of feel distant from a lot of the riders because they are so competitive they tend to look at you as someone in their way to making it to the top, not a friend anymore. I hate that more than anything. I'm the guy who has always just enjoyed doing what I do. I like going to the contests and seeing everyone and riding with everyone, but now that vibe isn't there. Everyone is constantly bitching about how bad they got judged and thinking they should have won or been top three, and if you luck out and beat them like I usually do they take it personal and seem to be upset at me or anyone else that beat them. It's not our fault, we all go out and give it a 100% but at the end of the day it's 5 judges opinions, whatever their word is, I don't think it's fair to be upset with a rider/friend because he got the better end of the deal. It just bothers me to the point where I don't even like being around anyone at the contests, I don't need to hear everyone talk bad about everyone. This weekend I parked by out by myself and hung out with people that were fun and it kept me a lot less stressed and aggravated. That's just my take on it, but it for sure seems like in the last couple years this sport has taken a turn in the wrong direction, we are too small of a group to be like this.....

Mexico X games...

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:19:32 -0500

Hey guys back again after a little time away from the yard. I have been super busy this month with a major contest every weekend so far, but everything keeps going well! I headed down to Mexico City for the international version of X games this weekend. It was cool, it is for sure a lot more low key than the America version of X, but still a lot of good athletes showed up and were ready to perform, me I wasn't one of them haha. I got off the plane and for some reason me, my buddies thought it would be cool to grab some good mexican food and Corona's. Well 4 taco's and 15 beers later we finally made our way to bed. The bad part about this deal is that the elevation in Mex city is 8,000 ft so you get more wasted than usual, which we didn't know, so I woke up feeling not so good. We had to be at the arena early to put our borrowed bikes together and then get practice going. I slept in, got there late, was the last one to put my bike together and barely got to practice!! So responsible I am!! Practice went good, it was a fairly basic course so there wasn't a whole lot to learn thank god. Being hungover and trying to hit gnarly jumps isn't a good combo! Needless to say I was in bed at 8:30 Friday night which was good because I had best trick and step up the next day. I showed up to the arena actually feeling pretty good, hammered out practice and got ready for the show. I didn't have anything crazy for best trick so this was basically just a mess around event for me. I went out and did a off axis type underflip and then a holy grab which is where I throw the bike out from under me and catch it and get back on it before it lands. The crowd was actually pumped on it, and I think I got one of the loudest cheers all night, so that was awesome. I moved on to step up which still scares the hell out of me. For some reason on this night four of us battled back and forth in what I think was one of the best step up comp's ever. Finally I hit the bar at about 32 ft as did Tommy Clowers. Myles Richmond and Ronnie Renner continued to go at it, with Renner finally coming out on top. Sunday was our last day there, we had FMX and best whip left for competition. I went out did what I had to do in FMX and luckily it was enough for another bronze medal, my second one of the year so I was super pumped!! By the time best whip came around I was beat from the travel, drinking, and hectic schedule so I went out and just had some fun with it. I would team up with some of the other riders and we would do little trains which the crowd really seemed to like. After whip it was right into the mechanics area to tear down the bike, pack it in the golf case and get to the hotel and get to bed since we had to be up at 3:45 am to catch our flight. I got home sat on the couch, watched Brett Favre throw interceptions, got on MySpace for a few then hit the sack. I made myself take today off and went and had a round of golf with my dad which is cool, I don't get to spend as much time with my parents as I'd like to so I try and take anytime I can to see them. Tomorrow it's back out to the course to ride and get ready for my next contest which is the LG action sports contest in Pomona, Ca this Saturday. Well I have typed enough, it's not fun anymore so I'm out of here!!