By Jamie Routley
If you’re from Canada, you can agree how much it sucks to not to be able to ride your dirt bike 12 months of the year. Once the short moto season ends, I already start to daydream of the sound of my bike and the adrenaline I get when hitting big jumps. When I’m sleeping, it doesn’t change much, as most of my dreams consist solely of dirt biking. It is a constant routine that strings my desire even more to be on my bike. To compensate for that, I save up my money and fly out for a few of the Monster Energy Supercross races where I live it up and go on crazy moto adventures with people in the industry. Usually I go with my best friend and partner in crime, Ami Houde, to film Ami and Jamie Moto Adventures (http://www.youtube.com/user/AmiJamieMX) but she couldn’t make it this time. I really needed a female sidekick that was just as crazy as me, so I invited my friend, racecar driver, Amber Balcaen. So this is our little story of what went down behind the scenes before and during the greatest race of the season. Anaheim 1 and all it’s epicness.
The week right before A1 was full of adventures. I had to pinch myself here and there to see if I was dreaming. I spent some time in Beaumont, California watching riders like Billy Laninovich, Austin Prida, Blake Wilkey, Brotocross, and Shaun Miller throw down in the hills. I had an awesome time snowboarding at Mt.High with friends. Amber and I hung out with X-Game bronze medalist FMX rider Sara Price, and even got a private tour of her new house. If that wasn’t enough, I spent New Years hanging out with the Vurbmoto crew at the #vurbranch, staying up all night so we could go shoot Twitch, Hanny, Bereman and Parsons hit this huge side kicker in the morning.
Finally press day rolled around. I cruised down to Angel Stadium to see what the “Big 5” had to say, but mostly to check out the track and see the racers ride it for the first time. The track looked unreal and so did the racers. I could already tell that this season of Supercross would be an amazing one, as everyone brought their A-game this year.
The day I had been looking forward to the whole trip had finally come. The first round of the Monster Energy Supercross series, Anaheim 1. What an epic day and night this was. Started out pretty normal, walking around the pits, saying hi to everyone while drinking RedBulls and having a great time. It’s when the night show started that things got a little crazy. I was doing work in the press box when I got invited to the Volcom – New Era – Villopoto release party, that was going down in one of the box suites while the race went on. Picture this – Hawaiian themed box suite, the shirts, music, drinks… everything was Hawaiian. Even Barry Weiss from Storage Wars stopped in to enjoy the night! (You’ll definitely want to check these pictures out to get the whole vibe of how the night unraveled – http://www.volcom.com/news/article.asp?articleID=6388).
Although this was an epic time I still had a job to do and media work to get done. In between every short break, I would run back to the press box. As I was running back and forth (which I did several times) I would have to change out of my Hawaiian swag to look more professional in the press box. It was probably a hilarious site to watch, I was even laughing at myself. If you asked me at the beginning of the day how I thought the night would unravel I never would have guessed I’d be watching the best race of the year under these ridiculous but awesome circumstances. I told you, it’s an adventure. As for the racing – WOW. The vibe in the building was incredible. Everyone was standing on their feet, while the battle of Dave Millsaps and Trey Canard went down for first place. It was the best race I had ever watched live and I was so stoked to be there for it all. It was the best way to end my 10 day EPIC trip in California.
If I could give any advice it would be to make a goal or dream that you are truly passionate about, start chasing it and don’t ever stop. If you live in the moment and let things fall into place, I guarantee that your life will take you on YOUR own crazy adventure that you will cherish forever.
Now back to the real world…of work, school and being a 19 year old motocross girl 🙂
Stay tuned for the next adventure, this time with my sidekick – Ami Houde!
Thanks MXP for everything.
-Jamie Routley xoxo
To end this great report from Jaimie here is a photo blast from photographer Rich Shepherd at A1
Big thanks to both Jamie and Rich. Phoenix here we come