2003 BMXpros.com Summer Tour

For 2003, As you may know, I am the Team Manager for the Hyundai/GT and Hyundai/Mongoose BMX teams, so I have been going to a lot more BMX races than in the past few seasons. Lucky for me, I was able to link up 2 races, ABA Rockford and NBL South Park, and in between I would have a mini summer tour. I would be hanging out with Jason Carnes, Todd Lyons, and Kamakazi for the week, as well as with the GT and Mongoose Pros over the race weekend. Here are some of the highlights of the trip.

June 19th- Thursday before rockford, I flew into Chicago to pick up a GT/Hyundai team car at the Pacific headquarters. Vernon Hills, Il is not know for a lot of BMX, but I was amazed at the many Jumping spots, as well as all the kids riding BMX bikes in the area.

Big Daddy on his way to a win, while Carnes get a helmet full of elbow.

June 20th - I drove out to Rockford, and lucky for the teams, Eric Rupe had secured a great spot in the grass for the pits to be set up. One luck at the track, and all who attended the race were stoked. Rockford has know to be a great track, but I will go as far as saying that it was the best BMX race track I have been to in many years. A smooth surface of the straitaway, challenging and fast, asphalt berms, a equally width track throughout the track, and no dust, made Rockford a treat.

Take a look at the awesome Rockford first turn.

Racing action was fast and action packed, and John Purse won all the Pro Classes for the weekend. Other fast Pros were Jason Richardson, Christophe Leveque, Greg Romero, Jan Balterson, and Donny Robinson.

Meanwhile, my tourmates were discussing the weeks activities and what day they were going to shave their heads.

When all was said and done, Rockford was a great race, with a lot of great action on and off the track. After Sundays mains were over, we all packed up and headed off to Tinley Park, IL to get ready for a good nights sleep and t get ready for some summer fun.

June 23- We awake and get ready to go for a ride in downtown Chicago, or at least we thought we were ready. Seems like the redline guys need special bikes to ride near the beach and TL and I waited and waited..

Finally we are off into the Chi-Town, but Carnes is all business as a shipment is lost and he is tracking it down, Then his girlfriend calls, then he checks on his stocks, then,, well you get the picture, this guy is on the phone a lot.

He had time to chat though, as the Chicago traffic and signs had us all stopped in a typical traffic jam.

We finally got to the beach and had a fun 2 hour ride to see all kinds of freaks, geek's, and dodge out of control road cooks.

After the downtown tour, we headed off to the Money Trails, local jumps for Super Star "Dr Smooth" Craig Reynolds. Craig recently broke his collar bone, so he came down and hung with the pros.

The trails were awesome, as they were covered with tress to keep it cool, tons of jumps and lines, and some dedicated locals to keep it up. A lot different than West Coast trails.

Kamakazi was so into the Chicago scene, he got his handlebars Chicago style for the trails.

Then after a fun hour of the trails, we headed off back to the hotel to get ready for the drive to Columbus, Ohio, to hang with the wildman's family and hit up the Flow Skatepark.

The flow skatepark was huge and had everything. Jamie Bestwick just held a contest here a few months ago, and we were lucky enough to have the hole place to ourselves, as TL is buddies with the owner, and he kept the place open for the 4 of us.

TL with a huge wall ride.

Carnes with a huge gap jump, with Kama in tow.

It was a great time at the skatepark, and brought my racer style to it with a full face helmet.

Wednesday June 25th- We drove to Southpark and got to the track around 6pm. They were having practice and a local race tonight, so we got a few laps in before setting up the Pit area, and heading off to the hotel. Ill keep you updated on what is going on here is South Park in the next few days.