2026 GSL National journal @ Antelope BMX.

[bnd]

I'm 1 week out from the kick off of the 2026 Great Salt Lake National at Antelope BMX.
Starting today I'm going to be posting about the journey, giving a behind the scenes perspective of whats going on at ground zero.
Stay tuned.

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[bnd]

Just a heads up, this journal is going to be pretty much straight forward & what I see day in & day out.
Friday, got up to the track with my son at about 8:30am. It was already hot as hell. Took the day off to get Zip a de doo da done as I don't get up as often as the rest of the crew. We got after the cludder by the compressor shed, lots of it. Zach showed up around 9:30am with fuel for the 4-wheeler. We loaded up the big trailer with a ton of stuff and hauled it away. Zach continued slurrying sections of the track by himself. I noticed he had visitors come and go & his phone was ringing every 4 minutes, lol.
After de-cluttering Grady took the 4-wheeler and took 104 laps by the NW gate to get the path leveled out. The City came yesterday and leveled out the parking lot with heavy equipment. The City has been absolutley wonderful to deal with and are usually right THERE when we need something. They are excited for this event.

Since Spring, the crew have been working in shifts, whenever someone is available they just go and do something. Thats how I've been operating, take a whole day off and do my thing. Today, I left around 2pm & there was another bunch showing up later to keep getting things done. We scored another 4 huge rolls of astroturf & that will be set over the weekend.
Tomorrow is Saturday, people will be up there at 8:30am then take a break for Beginner League then probebly keep going with stuff.

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[bnd]

Tuesday........
Iv'e almost lost track of what day it is we have been so busy.
The crew have been living up there every day, into the nights, we secured 4 big rolls of new turf & it's labor intensive to roll it out & get it situated. I was sent a video at like 9:30 at night with a crew working it.
One of the biggest surprises came when a picture was sent out of the inside of our semi trailer. For those that have seen it, to be quite honest it was a train wreck. Stuff, bikes, tools, equipment just piled in there, I'm surprised nobody was hurt when they opened the door and an avalanche of gear could of come flying out.
The surprise was it was cleaned up, organized and looking top shelf! Who did this? Of course it was one of the ladies who runs the show. Yeah, the guys can put down slurry, build buildings, dig trenches but clean up after ourselves, C'mon! When I opened up the door today, I still couldn't believe it was our trailer, thank you & well done!

Over the weekend I was in RV trailer HELL. I'm providing the trailer for the Antelope crew basecamp. I haven't had it out in almost 3 years but its been covered and maintained over the years, what could go wrong, right? Let me tell you G'Dam everything!
New batteries, propane fuel lines, AC that doesn't hardly blow worth a $hit. All Iv'e got to say is 2 full days & thank god for Amazon Prime.

The wife & I took that & a cargo trailer up today, parked them and set up camp. We then went over to Ron, the driver of the ABA bigrig and introduced ourselves. He had nothing but good things to say about everthing there so that meant alot. I thought it was going to be a day where we just tidy up some loose ends and be done......yeah right. Talking to him I find out they need electrical power right where there isn't any, oh crap. I actually prepared over the past few months for moments like this, I told him I would make it happen. To make a long story short, the electrical gods were shining down on me today and 2 hrs later I gave him a dedicated 20a circuit right where he needed it.

The ABA trailer was joined today by the guys who provide the trophys, nice guys and again, had nothing but compliments for us. I ain't going to lie, it feels damn good. After about 6 hrs of working in the sun, we tapped out and got going. I noticed Brad snuck in and was working on something over on the starters shack. Soon after, the 2nd/ swing shift crew were arriving and continuing on with other chores that need to be done.
The whole track is I'd say almost done to our crews expectations. Theres a few things that still need to be done but it's no biggies really.

It's been a long, hard season so far but now that the event is on our doorstep, meeting people, hearing the nice things, it's really taken the "hard" out of "long, hard road" out of it somewhat. Maybe a little, teeny tiny bit.

I'll be back out on Thursday when things begin to get serious. Thanks for reading.

b.

[bnd]

I wanted to give a daily update in here as the weekend came but I was so busy everyday that by the end of the day I was exhausted. I'll try to give some insight with what I remember, if it goes back & forth & up & down with my stories its because I lost a ton of brain cells in the 1000* heat.

Thursday.
It came & it was practice day, the sanction was already set up & we were ready to go as a crew. The Jeff Upshaw clinic was going when I arrived at the track to my trailer. I made my rounds & introduced myself to ABA staff & vendors I knew. After the Upshaw clinic, the pros practiced. Being on the infield I had a front row seat to the speed, power & talent of these riders, absolutley amazing.

The track for whatever reason, the heat, amount of traffic, ect, started producing some holes in the corners, mainly the 1st & 3rd. we have this system with special dirt & spray bottles filled with glue/soil tac that we spray on developing holes & slap some dirt on them too. It works like a patch on a tube & in the heat, dried within a minute. I was very busy making the "rounds" I called it. I would spend some time in a corner, then move on to the starters shed to make sure they were fine with everything, then blow off the hill real quick with a leaf blower, then make my way around the back of the hill, pick up any litter, rake away pebbles, just make sure things were nice, tidy & in order. I did this all day long into the night. Practice winded down around 8:30pm & it was still hot as hell. we closed the track & decided to patch all the holes in the corners & straights, we would as a crew clean the whole facility, leaf blow everything, all garbages were taken away and refreshed, ect.....you get the picture.
It was roughly 10:30pm that I made it back to my trailer to take a shower & get some rest, I turn on the shower & barely nothing.....WTF?! Yeah, NO water pressure. I was a filthy mess & after messing with the system gave up. Trust me, I was pissed & didnt sleep at all & it was uncomfortable as hell. Oh yeah, the generator wouldn't run the AC. Thankfully by that time of the night, the temp was tolarable.

Friday.
Morning comes & my wife & son arrive. It took my wife excatly 3 minutes to figure out I had not turned on the right valve for the water to work. Yep, I'm an idiot. I'm off to the track to start working. Things are really picking up steam as racing starts at 2:30pm. The temps are around 100* & it's rough. I'm still doing my rounds. The parking lot is really filling up & I hear it's a tough gig running it as some people just are being dicks to the parking lot staff. More on that later.

Racing starts & my son gets bumped up to the expert class. he's a bit disappointed but I tell him to take the challenge head on which he did.The goal was to make it out of the motos or not take last. The wife had a good group in 56+ cruiser. The day honestly went by so fast & it was a blur. Everything was new & fast moving but I was able to be around during all my families motos & mains. My son didn't make it out of his motos but he didn't take last & actually hung with the group in the 2nd round. We both talked and agreed it was a good learning experiance. The wife had what it looked like 1st day jitters & didn't look like herself. 2nd in the main.
Friday night was another late night working on the track doing the same routine of cleaning up & getting it ready to go for the next day. I Didn't get to bed till 10;30pm.

Saturday.
Looking back was the busiest day out of the 4. It was over 100* by noon & a packed house. The moto count said 139 I believe but holy $hit, there were a TON of people there. The parking lot was filled to the brim, overflow parking was packed, super busy. There was about a 4 hr stretch where I was literally jogging from one fire to another. I made sure all the ABA staff wherever they were' were happy and to see to their needs. I could tell some of them were not used to this kind of customer service. Water, shade, whatever, we were there & got it done fast. I saw a guy filling his water buckets, I walked over to him & asked him if I could help, he of course said no but I got it, I helped out then got the 4-wheeler & hauled his buckets to his campsite. The guy was Gordy Jr. from Gordys Bikes in AZ. I chatted with him & we ended up waving at each other the rest of the weekend. I spend 1/2 the day taking care of the corners, mainly 1st & 3rd.

Utah locals from the past showed up strong this day, it was great seeing so many friends & past racers. I also got to hang with Shannon from the ABA. He was able to get away a few times to our camp & relax. He was able to meet a few new Utah guys & catch up. We also did a quick video that we did in the bigrig, a funny music trivia contest that we had fun with.
The kid had a great day winning his open & 20" class mains. The class main was tough & he came thru under pressure in front of his home town. The wife looked better today & got another 2nd.
The races ended around 4:30pm & the crew decided to meet back at 7:30pm to do our thing. Man, I was feeling it, went to camp, ate, drank & we regrouped at 7;30pm. We decided to slurry the whole 1st & 3rd corners, it was just becoming too much to keep putting band aids on them during the day. This was a brutal night let me tell you. 3 hrs of carrying 5 gallon buckets of slurry to the top of the berms, dumping them then others sqeegee the slurry out smooth. I ended up taking a water hose & hosed myself down at the track then took a shower at the trailer. got to bed around 11:30pm.

Sunday.
This was a tough morning as racing started early, got the gates opened around 6am and did a walk. The slurry paid off as the turns looked great.
Racing started & I stayed on the infield all day. The corners held up better & I was on it whenever I saw a hole or cracks start. I must of ran up & down berms hundreds of times over the weekend. Things seemed to run smoother this day. The son raced class & cruiser today. Cruiser was going to be a challenge but he was up to it, unfortunatly his bike wasn't. 1st moto, unclipped down the first straight, 2nd moto, flat tire in the gate. The starter aired it up but halfway thru the race it was done. oh well, that's how it goes sometimes. He won class again, great race. My wife wins her cruiser main, 1st cruiser national win since 1999, nice! I was super proud of both of them.
Around main time I was really starting to feel the week & even though I drank 50 gallons of water, for the first time I started feeling light headed a few times manning the corners. I told myself don't pass out on the track with live TV going, lol. I made sure I didn't but I was really feeling like crap.
I witnessed a really bad crash in the Pro Mens main, the rider went down as did 2 others but the first one got carted off on a backboard and he was barely moving. I haven't heard any updates on his condition as of Tuesday. Again, more Utah locals with deep BMX roots showed up & I was at least able to give hugs, say hi & then get back to my duties. The last main race ran, I went over to the infield corner workers I made friends with & said adios, great people. I chatted for awhile with some other friends, said goodbye to some of the vendor buddys I knew & started the journey to get out of Dodge.
3 hrs later we had camp cleaned up & hit the road, honestly that was bad too. I was soooo freaking wasted, sore, sunburnt....I don't know how I made it home in one piece.

Random thoughts.
- I'm still processing the whole experiance. It was a huge effort by many, many people over the past 8 months. Things got hairball the last 2. This was really tough, mentally & physically. The weekend took down a few people that just had enough & tapped out. I get it. It was that challenging. You get a combination of pressure, stress, schedules, HEAT, some demanding people, over a 4 day period, your going to have some collateral damage.
As much as I was hating it over the past couple days since the event has come & gone, the good memories are coming to the forefront & the few bad ones are disappearing in the rear view mirror.

- USABMX.
As much $hit these guys get online for whatever, they were just awesome to deal with. They held a pre-race ceremony with our TO, his wife, volunteers, City officials & the Mayor. It was very touching, heartflet & emotional to me. The Mayor absolutley loved the event & wants it back.

- Flo Racing TV.
I bit the bullett & paid the $$ to get this so we could watch it in the campsite. Iv'e got to say its a totally pro outfit & slick as hell. I saw the behind the scenes production & how they run things. It ain't your 1 stationary camera set up anymore. The people running the whole thing are pros. Am I going to keep it? Probebly not to be honest. Not that it's not a good product, it's that we don't need it anymore.

- The parking lot.
Oh yeah, here's where things happened & it was about the only problem we had all weekend. 99% of the visitors were nice & respectful to the parking staff & the group of Airmen helping with that job. The 1% were the problem & they caused alot of drama. What gives anybody the right to give total strangers a ton of $hit just because they think they don't have to follow the rules? The entitlement that some showed was bleep! God forbid you should be asked to move your vehicle or move in general. I heard enough of the stories & delt with the parking for a bit. Yep, some douche gave me an attitude & when I TOLD him to move the 2nd time, he slammed his door & did it, then stomped off. I was laughing & shaking my head just waiting for him to give me $hit. Also, it's amazing how grown men will throw their weight around towards women but not men. Grow up you bleep pussies.

My closing thoughts.
- Some say BMX is dead, no, it's not, not even close. Is it on a down cycle right now? From what I see, yes, Iv'e lived thru many of these up & down cycles, it happens for whatever reasons.It will swing back up, it always does.
From the feedback we have read online, our local scene at our track & our group of solid volunteers at Antelope, I'd say the future is bright. Will we apply for the national again?
Time will tell.

Thanks for reading.
b.

[J Gallo]

Youtube links for GSL Nationals:

Day 1 Replay:

https://www.youtube.com/live/kHr_JEFDnOA?si=wvnHyIRCNHRjn1wL

Day 2 Replay:

https://www.youtube.com/live/8hgQvBhrAI0?si=q7tOdppYEfE1h75f

Day 3 Replay:

https://www.youtube.com/live/WZ9l3pyjo1U?si=q2BMa7TPddcyzzs8