Friday, October 24, 2008

2008 US Open

Greg and I took our boys to the 2008 Rockstar US Open of Supercross at the MGM Grand a couple of weeks ago. Of course, I could not blog much about it then, because I would spoil the fun for the one person who reads this blog and also watches the races on TV, and of course it takes an entire week to edit the show, so we had to wait. Then I forgot.

Anyway, the US Open is a great time, there really isn't a bad seat and you can see two nights of racing for about $30/night which is not bad at all. Since Rockstar sponsors it they also bring their Rockstar Girls, which I don't personally care about, but some might, and if it gets you supporting the sport, then hey.

We stayed at the Travelodge on Koval street.
It has the advantage of being within easy walking distance of MGM Grand. But other than that, it was a complete dive. I would also say it had the advantage of being cheap, but they actually hit me with $40 of hidden "additional occupancy" charges that they didn't tell me about beforehand, making it so it wasn't even a better value than some other more upscale places. Avoid.
Also you'll note the Badda Bing girl on the billboard in the background, pixelated. Yes, they really have a new gentleman's club in Vegas called Badda Bing, of all the dumb names. The girl on the billboard has clothes on, but she is not wearing them, if that makes any sense.

At the start of the race the Rockstar girl (lower right) would hold up the 30-second board and do the requisite booty-shake. You might not be able to tell in this picture, but trust me, she's shaking that thing.

Here's a shot of the start of a race. Yes, there are actually guys racing in this photo. See that blur in the first corner? That's them. I realize now that my camera phone is just not cut out for this kind of stuff.

On the way home, in compliance with custom, we stopped at Applebee's to eat, in Cedar City, near the lighthouse. Because of the extensive rocky coastline and high sea traffic around Cedar City, it is a good thing they have this lighthouse.

It was a great time. I got to meet Supercross Lites and Motocross champion Grant Langston, and he is really cool. Chad Reed sported Grant's number 8 for the weekend. We saw Reed on his new Suzuki and Stewart on his new Yamaha. Stewart mostly dominated the weekend, but Reed holeshot the main event on Saturday, spoiling Stewart's run at the trifecta in awesome fashion. Then those two ran an awesome race for 16 laps before Reed made a mistake and crashed. It bodes well for the upcoming Supercross season, and I can hardly wait.




By the way, Greg said I should mention that, other than spending money on gasoline, tickets, hotel, and food, we gave a lot of money to Charity while we were down there. Faith and Hope were also options, but Charity is the greatest of them all and never faileth. So we gave loads of money to Charity. Besides, she was the hottest by far.

Just kidding. Her name wasn't Charity.