A day in the life at Beaver Creek. The last segment.

I must admit... I'm a little sad that this journey has come to an end. A few weekends ago, we filmed a sport bike practice at Carolina Motorsports Park and I guess you could say that was officially the last portion of riding that we intended to do. As we headed home, I mentioned to Carlo that it would be icing on the cake if we coud sneak in 1 more mx practice. And true to Carol G's pro fashion, he made it happen. And that's mainly the reason why I'm so bummed. No matter what the situation was at hand, Carlo G made it happen. If you really think about it, I was just a tag along with a video camera in hand.

This journey actually started back in May of this year. Carlo sent me an e-mail saying he wanted a profile video sort-of like the teaser I made for Tom Kraft last year. Usually this is just a 1 day event but Carlo had something bigger in mind. Instead of a 2-3 minute video, he decided to have something more like a movie made about himself.

It was sometime around the end of summer when we finally started rolling with everything. And to fire off this journey, we just filmed a play session at Carlo G's shop. That's actually another thing that made this journey so nice. His shop is about 5 minutes from my house. So it was nothing to meet up. He also never required that I drive anywhere. I would either meet him at the shop or at his house (which was around 15 minutes away) and I could ride with him and the fellas in his van. When he really didn't have room, he made room! That spoke volumes to me. He was really putting in a solid effort to make his movie of A day in the life happen.

After the play session at the shop was in the books, the very next week we headed out to Club mx in Chesterfield SC for a day, and a week or so later, Cedar Cairn in Concord for a few sessions. It was during these times when I heard things like, mile long wheelies and backflips. I already knew he could ride a good wheelie but the backflip... I just had to see that for myself.

Around this part of the journey, daylight savings was still in affect. I met Carlo at his house one evening after work and the next thing I know, we're blasting down Albemarle Rd, filming Carlo on 1 wheel. The other wheel was in the air. Now that the adrenaline was pumping pretty good, it was time for the backflip. And he did it twice!

Next up was the big air jump. There is a huge mound of dirt that is ever so gracefully next door to Carlo off Albemarle Rd. It was one of those jumps where you had to make sure the wind wasn't blowing too hard. Cause there was definitely some air time involved with this jump. And don't you know it. Just so I could get several camera angles, Carlo hit that jump numerous times. He even pulled off a heel clicker on 1 of the jumps.

In a nut shell, that pretty much leads us up to these last 2 events. The sport bike practice worked out perfect and to put a ribbion on this whole deal, we filmed our last session at Beaver Creek MX. I must give a big high five to David Root for allowing us to film at his track.

So here we are. The very last segment! Along for the ride was Carlo G's niece and the super fast TJ Snow. One more thing! When we met that morning, Carlo said that he wasn't exactly feeling it and almost called this session off due to some back problems. After a Red Bull and lots of good ole country talk, you'd never know it. To me that's just another thing that makes Carlo Gagliardo a pro!

Here are a few screenshots from my video camera.

Beaver Creek Compound with Austin Root

Now this is what you call striking gold! A couple of months ago, I started hearing and seeing things about a private mx track that involved David Root. If you happen to know David, then you'll know that guy puts his whole heart into everything he does.

At first I thought it was just a place nearby that David Root and David Wollenhaupt were gonna build up over the years to come. But that would totally go against what I just said about David giving his whole heart. Next thing you know, I'm hearing 100 footers.

Lets rewind a bit here...

David puts his whole heart into everything, David has access to a private track, which now has 100 footers and I receive an invitation to go out and take a few pictures. Yep! I struck gold!!!

Austin was a little bummed since his 250F Kawi was down and had to ride the ole faithful 125, but good grief... you'd never know the difference if you watch him ride. And my buddy Hunter had another flat. So he took a few laps on the 125 while Austin was resting.

A few other riders were out jammin too. Blake Hovis and a couple other guys that I didn't know. Mucho thanks to all the guys riding cause they made it really fun for the picture taking guy!

Here are a few of my favorites. After you finish here, head over and check out the entire gallery at: http://brianbunn.smugmug.com/Motocross/Beaver-Creek-MX-112611

Carolina Motorsports Park - A day in the life of Carlo Gagliardo

For the last couple of months, (or so it seems) Carlo and I have been trying to work in a sport bike riding session for the DVD. Several attempts were made but none seemed to work out just right. For a while, I was starting to think a road session was never gonna happen, at least for the sake of the DVD. On the last attempt to make a run at it, everything worked perfectly. On the chilly morning of November 19th; Carlo, myself and Tom, a friend of Carlo, was heading south.

Carolina Motorsports Park is located in Kershaw SC, and all I've ever heard about this track was... no one is allowed on the track for photos or anything else. Not even close! Knowing this ahead of time, I was afraid that our only sport bike sesh wasn't gonna be worth the time. In addition to that, this track was considered a green track (something I learned that day) and there were crashes happening all over the place. Lemme tell ya, it's nothing like motocross practice. If you fall on the mx track, and all of your body parts are still working, you might get roosted by your buddies when they pass. With sport bikes, everything comes to a complete stop. Nobody moves until everyone and everything is clear. I guess it makes good sense with the speed these guys are going.


So, being the professionals that we both are, Carlo and I walked up to the guy and explained what we were doing. And voila! Permission granted! Now... it wasn't the best kind of access, but it was way better than standing behind the gates.

I once heard that Carlo was "the man"  out on the sport bike tracks. All I can say about that is you should've been there to see for yourself. I actually thought his bike was choking cause it wouldn't go fast enough. He is most definitely " the man".



Check out a few of these screenshots from that day.