David Bulmer
Two races down, five more to go and Salt Lake City is becoming a bit more like a home. Sure, it’s a home with nightly riots, looting, and a massive police presence, but hey, that’s just one of the perks of the job and why Wes can feel exceedingly lucky to be living in a hotel room slap-bang in the middle of it all. There’s nothing like heading to the supercross stadium with a whiff of tear-gas in the air.
Wes has been able to leave his room fairly regularly in order to shoot some stuff but while he has to be back before the 7.30 p.m. curfew, apparently he still doesn’t have enough time to bust out MS Word (or whatever the Mac equivalent is) in order to do this article. Instead that duty falls to me, and my vivid imagination.
So, without further ado, here are some quotes from people who we’ve spoken to (or mostly, not) during this week in SLC…
“Normally my buddy and I play the ‘bike color drinking game’ during the broadcast but with races being on Sunday and Wednesday nights, we can’t get to do it as we’d get too drunk to work the next day,” admitted corporate banker Steve. “We thought we’d try ‘altitude mentioning’ instead but that ended horribly and we had to call in sick Monday,” chimed in his buddy Martin.
Marlon from Park City told us: “I was a bit nervous to Airbnb my house to a group of young dudes, but I checked out my hidden webcam and there isn’t a drop of alcohol being consumed, just a load of pasta, chicken, and fake Monster cans being passed around. It’s quite strange really.”
We bumped into Steve-O from Australia again: “I’ve told all my friends back home in Oz and they are so jells, mate! I can’t actually tell what riders I’ve seen around because everyone is wearing masks but I’ve definitely touched the same elevator button as a couple of those geezers. Unfortunately though, I can’t watch the racing as my SupercrossLIVE pass doesn’t work in the USA and I don’t really understand the whole NBC, NBCSN, NBC Gold deal.”
“We’ve actually had a lot of rider girlfriends coming in and buying those plastic plants that we sell to jazz up their hotel rooms, but honestly I find that hard to believe,” confessed Susie, who works at IKEA.
Clive, a sports reporter at the SLC Times, didn’t seem to understand us when we told him we were there for the supercross races. “I cover all the big sports in SLC. Lawn bowling, darts, archery, and on Saturday night there was a greyhound race in a school, but I’ve never heard of SX. Doesn’t really sound like a big event, if no fans even bothered to show up.”
Whilst walking to the stadium we came across a local law enforcement officer (who wouldn’t give his name) and he was less than impressed. “Admittedly I don’t really follow the news, and I’m sure it’s just a coincidence, but ever since your dirtbikers came to town, there’s been riots. No wonder the media always portrays you guys in such a bad light.”
A wide-ranging bunch of opinions there, but we’re sure by the time this festival of racing has come to an end, the whole city of Salt Lake will be talking about our wonderful sport in a good light. Once they find out what it is of course…
