Right now, I’m killing time at a friend’s house in Nashville before heading to Missouri for Monster Energy’s SMX Supercross Championship. Because I’m sponsored by Monster Energy, I attend and participate in many of their functions.
I’ll probably be taking Monster Energy’s riders fishing the day before they get on the track. It should be fun.
I just returned from a NASCAR race in Bristol, Tenn., to support Monster’s drivers. Before I signed with Monster, my dad said that if I got the deal, the only thing he asked was that I would take him to a NASCAR race.
This year I took him to Bristol Motor Speedway as a birthday present. When Monster learned it was dad’s birthday, they brought us to their office and surprised him with a cake. The Monster Energy girls sang happy birthday to him. It really made him feel special.
We had a blast watching the races. On Thursday and Friday, there were events with different tiers of professional drivers, kind of like the guys who fish the Bassmaster Opens. The main event with the top drivers took place on Saturday.
We stayed with several friends at a big campground near the speedway. Each day after the races, we’d hang out around a campfire and grill steaks. One night we were treated to a country boil. Monster Energy drove us to the races every day in golf carts.
The races were amazing. Ty Gibbs, one Monster’s sponsored drivers, drove Kyle Bushch’s tribute car on Saturday. Ty led much of the race but was passed with eight laps to go. He finished fifth.
We watched the races from the pits where the crews change tires and refuel these powerful cars at breakneck speed. The engine noise was so loud you couldn’t hear anybody speak. We had to wear earplugs and type questions on a phone to communicate.
I noticed that Kevin VanDam was in the Bass Pro Shops pit. I ran over to say “what’s up” but could only shake his hand and smile because we couldn’t hear each other.
I’ll be home most of October before I go to a UFC fight in Edmonton. My friend Cody Chovancek will be fighting there as a bantamweight. I met him at a fishing show. I knew he was a fighter because he had cauliflower ears. I walked up to him and jokingly asked if he wanted to fight.
At that time, he was trying to get to the UFC. A month after I met him, he won a fight and qualified for the UFC’s Contender Series. He knocked out his opponent at that event, which earned him the UFC fight in Edmonton.
Cody enjoys multispecies fishing as much as I do. I mentioned fishing for tarpon with him in Puerto Rico in one of my previous columns for Bassmaster.com. I’ve always been a huge UFC fan. Now I have a UFC fishing buddy I can root for.
