I’m in the City of Champions, Edmonton, Canada. Home of the Edmonton Oilers. The hockey team that “The Great One” went to after spending some of his junior years on none other than the Indianapolis Racers while attending Broad Ripple High School. Wayne Gretzky would go on to win four Stanley Cups with the Oilers.
I’m in Edmonton for the IndyCar Series and Firestone Indy Lights races this weekend. The city is complete jacked up about the race this weekend. Everywhere you go there are billboards, advertisements, fan guides and displays highlighting the Rexall Edmonton Indy. It’s a great atmosphere.
Likewise in Indianapolis, Indy is putting on the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard. Then, Indy will be turning the track over for the two-wheeled animals that participate in MotoGP’s three championship levels during the Red Bull Indianapolis GP on Aug. 28-30.
Not sure if everyone saw the announcement or not, but former 500cc World Champion Kevin Schwantz is putting on a two-day clinic on the IMS MotoGP circuit.
You can find out more at http://www.schwantzschool.com/
Enjoy the weekend and be careful on the bikes if you are traveling around Indy for the Brickyard.
See you in a couple of weeks.
Jarrod
Here is my excuse for not writing last week: I was completely unplugged from the Internet and cell service for FOUR WHOLE DAYS!
In today’s modern world, that’s nearly impossible! I enjoyed it very much and took the opportunity to recharge my batteries on one of the few off weekends of the IndyCar Series.
If you are new to the blog, I typically spend my summer weekends on the road working for the Indy Racing League. Racing is exciting, especially the IndyCar Series, but for me, it’s tough to miss out on my favorite time of the year – the summer and quality time with the fam.
About a week ago, I went out “camping” for a few days with a bunch of friends. It’s the best way to go “camping.” For the most part, everyone else sleeps in tents, and I snag a couple of 60-year old bunk beds that have nearly crippled my back.
For much of the first two days, my little guy, dog and two buddies were alone on the farm. We spent most of the time getting everything prepped and ready for “the others” and played on the four-wheelers and motos.
My little guy, Van, is only 22 months or so old, but he looooves machinery. I purchased him a small bit of moto gear – helmet, googles and a chest protector – so that he could learn to wear protection and feel like he was a big boy. The two of us spent most of the time riding around, at a slow pace, watching my buddies Phil and Jeff tear up the farm on the four-wheelers.
It was quite a good time with Van on the four-wheeler.
When everyone else showed up, including my wifey, the moto antics picked up a bit more. With a newbie on the farm, a sport quad and a few dirt bikes and a “baby sitter,” things got a little dirtier! We have video of most of it which I will share as soon as Phil gets the time to upload them somewhere.
Jeff flipped hard and managed to drive up a tree, and Greg flipped even harder on “the widow maker” turn during a five-quad race on the long course. Luckily for him, the quad didn’t squash him like a bug.
Then we went off to the woods…where I did my fair share of falling. If anyone can recall last weekend in Indiana, it was awfully muddy. Can you imagine how swampy it was in the woods?
We were tearing through creeks, mud plains, hopping trees, etc, all on an uncut or groomed trail. It was a lot of fun until I hit the wrong branch at the wrong time that completely took the bike out from underneath me.
Thank you to Aceberis for the excellent handguards!
I did, however, impress myself and do something that I’d never done before. We were all weaving through the woods, and we came across a fallen tree. I’d say that the trunk of the tree was about 2 feet or so high. I’d never truly jumped a tree without a take-off and landing area before. Typically I pop the front wheel off the ground, high-center the bike and then rock it off the other side. To be honest, that was what I was going to try to do.
Instead, I popped the front wheel over the trunk and carried enough speed that my rear wheel hit the trunk and catapulted me over the tree. I pretty much bunny-hopped it!
This trip was also a good time to test out the new pit bike. Not much action on it, but Van and I did spend time cruising around slowly. I did take the pit bike out to the flat track when some of the other guys where on the quads. I nearly got the hole-shot, but I had no chance of survival once we got into the corners. One, it was terrible slick with packed mud, which felt like ice, and two, those guys are crazy on the quads. I wasn’t about to get steamrolled. Finally, three, I was helmet-less. Not smart, so I “pulled up.”
All in all, it was a great weekend. Dirt Days with Van, the Wifey and my friends was a much-needed vacation.
P.S.: I did ride my bike on Monday for National Ride Your Bike to Work Day. The company rolled out to the 500 Grill at the Indianapolis International Airport for lunch. I’d honestly never ridden in a group that large before.
Jarrod
We are there, hours into the start of the “fastest” month of the year.
Most people think that the Month of May is busy. In reality, it’s one of the most relaxing months of the year. For me, working at IMS Productions, I spend a lot of my time on the road and preparing for 16 other races during the season.
May is relaxing for several reasons:
1) When it’s not raining, the weather is improved.
2) IndyCars are on the track for most of the month.
3) The race weekend extends over 25 days rather than three!
4) I get to sleep in my own bed!!!!!
Even though the month is “relaxing,” there isn’t much time to ride the motos.
One cool part about May, though, is that there are a lot of IndyCar team members that ride their bikes to the Speedway during May. If you’ve been there, you’ll notice that in “Gasoline Alley” a row of bikes lines the chain-link fence. Last year, there were an awful lot of bikes on the nice days.
I remember when the Ducati Hypermotard first came out. Within days there were three parked along the fence. The racing community is a serious group of people!
There’s not a whole lot going on right now besides getting ready for May. May, May May, May, IndyCars, IndyCars, blah, blah, blah …
Jarrod
We are just a week away from the first IMS event of the Centennial Era. Next week, 33 hot air balloons will be set up for fans and locals during a unique “Glow” event and races taking place during the Centennial Era Balloon Festival presented by AT&T Real Yellow Pages. What a pagen-tistic (my own word) way to kick off a month of ethanol-burning IndyCars!
The IndyCar Series is off to Kansas this weekend, which is the last race before the grueling month of May. Unlike most, I’ll be driving to KC, rather than flying. It’s not important why, but I am.
Some interesting news for me: My dryer broke. Perfect timing, really! On Tuesday I was attempting to clean all of my track gear when I noticed that the dryer wasn’t working properly. It actually wouldn’t run. Do you know when get that feeling when you can’t move? At the end of an attempt, you make a small little grunt/sigh. That’s the noise that my dryer was making!
Luckily for me, my brother lives close by so I was able to do a load late on Wednesday before I headed out for Kansas. While I was borrowing my brother’s equipment, a good friend of our showed up on his new Ducati 696 Monster.
I’d say that Ducati did a phenomenal job on the aesthetic updates on the new Monster. Some may argue that it’s “too Japanese-looking,” but I disagree. Perhaps the one element I don’t care for is the two-tiered round headlight. Personally the original single-round headlight has a powerful design element that is fairly iconic for the Monster. I did get a chance to take it for a spin around the complex, and I thought the riding position was also improved over the previous models. I didn’t feel like I had too much weight on my hands nor did my feet feel like they were touching the back of my head. All good things.
The weather is getting nicer, and I can’t wait to get back on my bikes. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like I’ll have any free weekends to take dirt bike or road bike out, but I’m sure a few nice days in May will permit me to cruise to Gasoline Alley at Indy.
This weekend, IndyCars are in Kansas, MotoGP is in Motegi, and NASCAR is at ‘Dega. It’s a big racing weekend. Remember, while you are jumping from IndyCar to MotoGP to NASCAR, there’s only one place to buy tickets for each IMS event! www.imstix.com!
I hope that Nicky is feeling better. He took a wicked ride in Qatar. I am personally worried that he’ll never be as good as Stoner. It’s unbelievable how fast Stoner is!
Jarrod
I’ve been a terrible blogger lately. To be honest, I hope that I still have an audience! Funny enough, the last couple of weeks have been very busy, and I’ve still had the chance to ride my bikes. I even have pictures and videos to prove it!
My only excuse has been time; the lack of it and my inability to include this blog into time left over. So here is my Shorty version of what you’ve missed.
Last week I went on a moto ride with a few friends and a few others that I hadn’t ridden with before. It was my first time down at Lawrence County Recreation Park, and I didn’t know what to expect. After the “Man Trip 2009,” I had thought that nothing could be as fun as that trip. Slightly overconfident, I was mumbling on the car ride down to Bloomington (about one hour from Indianapolis), the mumbling was something like this … “I’m glad I cut my teeth in the mountains. I can’t imagine the riding down here being near as difficult!”
I was wrong, and I ate my words. It was tough, rainy, slick, muddy and fun. Here are Facebook links to my videos from the trip:
As I’m typing, I am sitting in the Atlanta airport. I’m on my way to St. Petersburg for the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. It’s the first race of the IndyCar Series season, and I’m excited. The last two years, my wife has gone down to this event, and my son is making his second trip, as well.
Now that the little guy is an animal, I didn’t exactly know how he would react on the plane. It could have been assumed that he wouldn’t like to be contained in a row of two seats. At 6 in the morning, I could have only imagined what the other passengers were thinking. I know that I couldn’t have taken it if it wasn’t my kid. Lucky for all of us, he fell asleep when we took off! So here we are, on our journey to Tampa, en route to St. Pete.
Be sure to check out all the action this weekend on indycar.com!!
Jarrod
I missed everyone last week! With the weekends filling up, I forgot to file my blog. Last weekend, I left the office and set sail with my family down to Homestead-Miami Speedway for the opening weekend of the 2008 IndyCar Series season. It was quite the adventure!
Megan and Van are with me for this trip because I decided to stay in Florida between the first two events
. My cousin Ed, his wife, Heather, and baby girl, Makenna (who is a month younger than Van), are spending the week with us in Sanibel. While I am trying to chill out as much as I can and get quality, family time, I still find myself on this friggin’ laptop, working. I guess that is what to expect in the first couple of races of the season.
The beginning of my trip was fun. Megan woke up at 4 a.m. last Friday, March 28 for our 6:30 plane flight. Our hotel didn’t have a room for us when we arrived. Cousin Ed looked like he was going to get the pole but he was penalized for (can’t really say what it was, but it wasn’t a big deal), and he charged to a fifth-place finish. Go Ed!
Sunday morning we started early and hit the road. We didn’t have any tunes because our rental car radio only got 88.5? Weird. The Ford mini-SUV even has a special-edition Hertz Sirius radio unit that doesn’t seem to work, either. So we traveled across Alligator Alley in our packed SUV. I had no idea what it really took to pack for a 20-pound infant. His bag was bigger than Megan’s and mine put together.
We
made it to the hotel before the Carpenters. They had a late start, so we spent time out at the pool until they got to the “resort.” As we were setting up, the babies were hanging out, and Ed and I were trying to figure out what we were going to do about the Wii situation. Apparently the hotel doesn’t allow visitors to be gamers, as well. So what to do in this situation? We rolled down to Wal-Mart so that the parents could enjoy Wii time once the little ones went to sleep.
It’s been relaxing, and it will continue to be a good time. We all headed to St. Pete on Thursday morning to get back into race mode.
Since last week, I’ve had my bike out a couple of times and have loved it!
This week was fairly hectic. The IndyCar Series season is right around the corner, indycar.com had its preview party on Wednesday, deadlines are creeping, and “Up To SPEED” debuts this week at indycar.com. It was one of those weeks where I felt that I had to run to the bathroom, run to the studio, run between offices just to get everything in.
With the little guy at home, it’s harder to stay at the office and finish out the day, so I had to take work home with me a couple of days. Luckily, the indycar.com preview party forced me to relax a little bit, hang out with IndyCar fans and polish up the first episode of “Up To SPEED.” Check out indycar.com for the first episode this weekend.
The most exciting thing that happened this week was my venture to 96th Street Steakburger, which is not located on 96th Street. I went with my cousin, who felt that since he hit the treadmill for 30 minutes that he was granted a loaded double cheeseburger, fries and a large chocolate shake.
You would think that after a meal like that, one would have no problem running out of gas! Well, about 10 minutes later, he did run out of gas – or should I say his car ran out of gas! Luckily for us, it was in one of the busiest areas of I-465, with one of the smallest shoulders. As semis and cars whished by, his Chevy Tahoe felt like it was going to tip over.
I spent about 30 minutes starring out the back of the Tahoe watching drivers come to consciousness as they nearly ran into the back of us. I even texted a co-worker, “We ran out of gas, I am really scared!”
Lucky for us, help provided a can of gas, and we were on our way. If your car has one of those mile counters that tell you how many miles you have left, be sure that when it hits 30 that you get some octane.
The weekend looks rainy, and we have a lot to do around the house to get prepared for little man’s first Easter, so I probably won’t get on my bike. But the ride to work on Monday looks good!
Have a Happy Easter!
Jarrod