Metal Mulisha

If you’re in the Huntington Beach area this weekend you better be down at the US Open of Surfing! Not so much for the surfing–cuz that shit gets boring quick–but more for the thousands of chicks that flock there like he salmon of Capistrano! Oh yeah, and Maddo and Ox will be riding FMX demos on the sand all weekend and signing autographs in between!

Make sure to stop by the Mulisha booth and shave a mohawk, grab some stickers to slap on all the surf companies shit, and steal a beer to pour in your Big Gulp cup!

Here’s the FMX Schedule so you can catch a show:
Saturday
practice: 11:15 - 11:30am
show #1: 11:30am
show#2: 2:00pm
show #3: 5:00pm

Sunday
practice: 11:15 - 11:30am
show#1: 11:30am
show #2: 1:00pm
show #3: 4:00pm

Metal Mulisha celebrated the 4th of July the only way we know how…partyin’ wide open poolside!

Check out more photos of the debauchery in the photo gallery!

Potter, Fitz, Fluff and Ox (sounds like a group of confused pornstars, huh!?) were riding yesterday down at the Del Mar Fair near San Diego, CA. Fitzpatrick and Ox will be down there riding demos until July 6th, so if you’re in there area get over there and check ‘em out!

Over the weekend Mulisha had a few different things goin’ on. Deegan was racing again at CORR in Pomona all weekend. He was battling with suspension setup all weekend and it just never felt quite right. None the less, Deegan managed to get a top 10 finish on Saturday in the Pro Lite A Main. On Sunday, instead of breaking up the the final into A & B mains, with the faster guys in the A Main, they just grouped everyone together for huge 30 truck demolition derby! Deegan was running around 8th with 2 laps to go when his throttle cable broke…I guess that can happen sometimes when you’re pinning it wide open!

While Deegan was bangin’ bumpers in Pomona, Fitz, Potter, Lusk, Ox and Scummy were riding a ramp-to-ramp demo at the Temecula Balloon and Wine Festival. Yeah, random. The turn out was pretty big for both shows…the crowd loved it! The second show had a crowd judged contest. It came down to Lusk and Potter, but Lusk just edged out Potter for the win. Potter was bummed since the winner got 1.2 million theoretical dollars.

Check out the Photo Gallery from the Balloon & Wine Demo.

The last stop of the Journeys BBQ Tour was also this weekend in Philly, PA. Fluffer and Garland were out there again providing the FMX entertainment for the fans. Bam Margera and family showed up to hang out as they live pretty close. Trittler, who runs the Rockstar/Mulisha demos and takes the ramps around the country, got drunk and into a speedo and helmet to announce the demos…again. Speedo Man got on stage with bands, went crowd surfing, got escorted off by security and signed more autographs than Bam! Photos of Speed Man coming soon…

Jeff “Ox” Kargola raced the legendary Baja 500 last week with teammate Grant Steele. They placed 12th in the Open Pro Class! Ox sent in this update…it’s a little long, but man it’s a cool read! He went through some gnarly shit, so sit down and read the whole thing ’cause it’s a bad ass story!

“Racing the Baja 500 can’t be all that tough.” That was the first thing through my head when I got a phone call from Grant Steele Tuesday night before the Baja 500. He called asking for a steering stabilizer that I use on my jump bikes to put on a CRF450 to use in Baja for the SCORE Baja 500. Grant was planning on riding the entire 440mile long race by himself, so I thought, “what the hell, I’m in…should be minor.” I couldn’t have been more wrong!

So, Wednesday morning rolls around and I figure I had plenty of time to get ready for the race so I made the drive out to Brian Deegan’s house in Temecula to get some more practice time in for Dew Tour. For some reason I couldn’t keep my head into practice because I actually started to realize that I’m going to have to ride at a race pace for well over 200miles without killing myself! Considering I had no idea what the terrain would be like and I was thinking to myself that some of these guys spend weeks on end down in Mexico pre-running the course to make it out in one piece. So with my head spinning, I cut practice short on Wednesday and headed home to get the ‘race bike’ good to go. Funny thing, when I say ‘race bike’ I don’t mean a race ready good condition reliable dirt bike, I actually mean a dirt bike that just got back from a thirteen hundred mile ride from Ensenada, Mexico to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Oh, and it was never cleaned or serviced upon its return! Needless to say it was corroded from salt water and worn out in the worst way.

Wednesday afternoon with the help of Kyle Sitzman at Nicoll Racing we got to work on the bike and did as much work to it in the few hours we had to do so, I ran and got a few parts that were necessary for the ride and got the bike in running order with no time to spare. By Wednesday night I realized that pre-running my section of the race would be an absolute must, so I called everyone I knew with a 450 to see if I could take it down to Mexico and pre-run about 300miles of the race course. The thing about that was I soon found out that people weren’t too open to that idea. Luckily enough at about 10pm Wednesday night my buddy Bill Zolg picked up the phone and gave me the go ahead. He knew how important it was to run the course beforehand and let me take his fresh KTM 525 that was all Baja’d out.

I was so pumped that everything came together but by that time I was dead tired! I had spoke with Cameron Steele from the Dessert Assassins race team and he told me to get to Ensenada by 5:30am Thursday morning and he could have a few of the team guys follow me on my section of the course in one of their buggies to make sure I would have help if needed. So Wednesday night I left my house in San Clemente and began heading South. Had to make a quick stop off at the Dragon optical offices in San Diego around midnight to grab a package of tear off lenses I had them stash outside for me…got back on the road and around 3:30am Thursday I was sound asleep in a hotel room in Ensenada, Mexico.

I Woke up to the alarm and an urgent phone call from Cameron at 6:00am saying to get my ass to his hotel because the pre-run crew was about to head out. Grant ran his section and I began to run mine, although something very strange clicked in my head almost immediately! I realized very quickly that I had just signed myself up for the most physically demanding and mentally challenging experience I have ever taken part in. The course was not a cake walk at all; it was in all reality hell on earth. There is absolutely everything imaginable out there from 5 mile long whoop sections to 100mph sand washes littered with boulders. At one point I must have be doing about 70mph and all of a sudden out of nowhere I found myself neck deep in what seemed to be an Anaheim super cross peaked out rhythm section with no end in sight. It was like nothing I could have ever imagined, and that was only the first 40miles of my pre-run! Cameron met up with me at the end of that first section to fill up my fuel with the tank on his buggy and sent me on my way to complete the other 200miles of the course that I would have to ride at full speed 2 days later. When I returned to town that Thursday evening shortly after sunset I really understood the reason that people racing down there come down weeks before to do what I did in one long day with 2 hours of sleep.

Friday came all too fast. I was happy to get real nights sleep, but still had a lot of work to do to the bike. Back at home before I left Larry Badgwell let me take a few necessary parts for the bike that we had to install Friday before the race in order to pass the tech inspection. Once we got the bike all dialed in I was finally for the first time able to take in what I actually had to do come Saturday morning and then the nerves kicked in. The previous day I didn’t get a chance to pre-run the last 30 miles of the course due to lack of sunlight, so with a few hours left on Friday I jumped on the bike and checked it out. Just when I thought I could get a handle on what was about to happen in the race on Saturday I learned about “Booby Traps.” What the hell man, as if it wasn’t tough enough to negotiate the natural terrain of Mexico with riding the edges of rocky cliffs to riding through 4ft deep whoop sections consisting of nothing but football sized completely smooth river rock, a handful of the Mexican people decided it would be good to build jumps in sections of the course that you would be doing 60mph+ or dig trenches and even bury entire telephone poles in the sand washes for pure amusement. Needless to say I didn’t rest easy that night; my head was again spinning at what was ahead of me.

On race day, my teammate Grant Steele started the first half of the race at 6:00am Saturday morning 2nd off the line. While he started I jumped in my truck and made the drive South to mile 228 of the course to meet up at the Yokohama semi truck which would be the beginning of my section. Along the way we saw a paramedic on course with a group of people standing around a down rider which made reality sink in more and more. When we got to the semi truck all the guys were so cool and offering anything that we needed. The first thing said to me however was that over the radio a report of a “Booby Trapp” a few miles into my section was spotted and was still being built, my heart started thumping! Grant soon showed up looking like he had been dragged behind the bike for 200 miles rather than riding it, and reality continued setting in. I scrambled to get my gear on as the Yokohama guys threw a fresh rear tire on my bike and I was off. Somehow in all the chaos I seemed to forget about the “Booby Trap” a few miles in and before long I had my first close one soaring through the air panic revving back end high but pulled it off none the less. I soon got in the groove, holding it wide and making it to my first Honda fuel pit stop that Cameron again helped in getting lined up through Johnny Campbell Racing. I was again on my way until the first of 2 solid crashes of the race, unfortunately this one was doing roughly 60-65mph when a whoop section came out of nowhere. I hit the first and catapulted into the air nose high and crossed up, when I got up I was dazed seeing stars and found my bike about 60 feet away. I made it back on the bike and kept it going. Through the remainder of the race I had 3 flat front tires, one of which I rode on for about 40 miles, crashed one more time resulting in the bike tackling me, lost my helmet visor and tear offs were gone. In reality, the only thing that got me through the last 20 miles was the sound of the Mexican locals cheering their asses off which somehow gave me a little boost of energy. With zero knobbies left on my rear tire I rolled over the finish line and took the beer out of Grant’s hand to wash the mouth full of silt and insects down my throat.

I was beat too oblivion, absolutely exhausted, bruised and bloodied. I headed to my hotel to have a beer with Grant and assess the hell we had just been through, chatting it up with the helicopter pilots that had been rescuing racers all day long one of which a pilot said “cracked his helmet clear off his head.” Everything in my head told me I should never take part in something like this ever again, but the reality is that next year can’t come fast enough and I’m ready to go again! I don’t know what it is but this was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life and I have a huge respect for the people that take part in these races that I never have.

Before I knew it I was driving home, cross eyed from exhaustion, delirious just like my drive down, and Sunday morning I was home. And to think just a little more than 4 days before, I didn’t even know there was a race.

Huge thanks to Cameron Steele and all of the Dessert Assassins crew…couldn’t have made it without you guys!

#3x Grant/Ox finishing 12th overall Open Pro Class - 2008 SCORE Baja 500

We threw together a little edit of the guys sessioning Deegan’s backyard…good shit, enjoy!

Download (QuickTime 25.2MB)

Here are some bad ass shots that our favorite photo nerd Chris Tedesco sent in from last week at Deegan’s house…enjoy.

Here’s a little update from Jeff the Oxecutioner Kargola…which means he is still alive.

It was supposed to be just a quick trip to Kansas City to ride a show for the Freestylemx.com Tour; unfortunately, though, there is a BUT! Yep, I had just got geared up and took a run at the ramp and, well, it only took one to end my day. I went a little on the long side, landing at the base of the landing right where the landing ramp meets pavement. Now, in a normal situation it would have been a rough landing, and I could have shaken it off, regrouped, and got the show on the road. But this time my front wheel decided to explode–breaking spokes and cracking the wheel–which sent me head first to the ground and on to the hospital shortly after just to get checked out. Fortunately for me no broken bones, just a bruised ego and a nasty headache! Back to practice, dew is right around the corner…

Just getting ready for another demo…

Ouch, shoulda tightened those spokes…

“Jeff, how many fingers am I holding up?”

On any given day you will find the Mulisha hitting up the foam pit and tryin’ out some new shit. Here is one such occasion featuring Jeff “Ox” Kargola. You never know…anything is possible!

Download (QuickTime 4.5MB)

We just updated the videos on the team pages of Brian Deegan, Jeremy Lusk, Todd Potter, Jeff “Ox” Kargola and Beau Manley. Check ‘em out!