Preparations

I am in this early stages of preparing for the Madison County Gravity Festival.  I fly out to Boston to stay with my friend Tim on Monday.  I screwed up my intended flight days and will end up staying there for an extra day before and after the race than planned.  That's alright for me as it'll give me a bit more time to explore the city.

There's a whole host of things to do this weekend to prepare: figuring out what wheels to take, tearing down equipment to pack, making sure all my bills get paid on time, making sure I have enough brake soles and my leathers are in decent repair.

This will be the first IGSA race of the year, the previous ones being under the new IDF banner.  I don't really see much of a difference between the two organizations any more.  The Maryhill Festival of Speed went off amazingly well, but that's always been true; John Ozman knows what he's doing and does it well.  The Whistler Longboard Festival was a clusterfuck, the organization was poor and there were no back ups in place just in case something went wrong.  Murphy's Law: if something can go wrong, it will.

One awesome thing that happened at Whistler is Koma Kino, on behalf of the IDF, presented Douglas "Dalua" Silva, Abdil "Fulong" Mahdzan and me with amazing glass trophies for our 2012 IGSA World Cup Series Championships.  This was extremely generous considering the IDF and IGSA rift.  It was disappointing to not get something similar from the IGSA (in fact, I'm still waiting for a promised medal from the 2012 IGSA World Championships at WinSport) and it warmed my heart to feel recognized.  It now sits with my other trophies and medals on my mantel.

So I'm looking forward to racing with a few people I haven't raced with since September of last year, and a few people I saw just a few weeks ago.  I've heard many great things about this road: 70 mph, "Crash Corner", intense racing, etc.  I certainly hope it lives up to it's reputation.