Words & Frames by: Skyler Kramer
Thursday, June 22nd, while I was wondering around Instagram, posted up in a hotel in Mexico, I came across MotoPlayground’s post about their 2016 video contest. I always participate in all the VurbMoto edit contests because as a small local, filmer it’s so much fun to edit footage that I, personally, would never be able to get due to not having the insane equipment that they have. It also doesn’t hurt that there are very talented riders featured in the footage. These contests are super tough to even get close to winning since there are so many people involved, so when I submitted my information to MotoPlayground, I thought to my self ‘ I guess we will see if I hear back from these guys’. A week went by and I didn’t really hear anything, so it kinda left my head and I forgot all about it. Waking up on Wednesday, June 29th, I noticed I had a missed call along with one unread voice mail. Little did I know I had just got invited to MotoPlayground’s Camp Boom Diggity. Calling the number back it led me to the owner and he told me that they wanted me to come down and film for the weekend to participate in the video contest. I was so pumped that it finally worked out and I was picked to go display my abilities. Right as I got off the phone I called my parents and told them I was gonna be leaving for the weekend. Haha! Peace out Mom & Dad, I’m gonna go film some rad things this weekend.
Thursday morning I was packed and ready to go, as I set off on one of the longest and most boring road trips you could ever conquer by yourself. The closer I got to my destination, the more it came clear that I was a little lost, oops. All I could see was trees for days and so much farmland it looked like Kansas. As I am coming up some hill, my phone tells me my destination is on the right and, sure as shit, there it was. Pulling in, down around the corner, it was like driving into another world. Tucked away behind a mess of trees, were dirt bike tracks, pit bike tracks and a straight rhythm as far as the eye could see. The place was packed full of campers and kids running around everywhere. I then set off to the hotel to get a good night’s of rest for a long, exciting first day of filming.
Filming all day Friday was pretty sick, but it was real hard because there is 5 tracks so deciding what track to film or what group to shoot was pretty tough, but i ended up linking with Zane Merrett, Parker Mashburn and they threw down for the camera. It also didn’t hurt to have my buddy, Jake Jaynes (aka Mumble), running around with me filming.
MotoPlayground hooked it up and built custom media huts for all of us filmers to stay in and it’s easy to say that they were pretty bad ass.
Waking up Saturday morning to the sound of rain was nice, but not so nice for the riding. It had rained all night and everything was super muddy. They pushed riding back until 5 and the track was way too muddy so they made 5 sick corner tracks and split up all the riding. Talk about dedication; I could barley walk around it was so muddy and slick, and these kids were putting down some laps. The Grand National Pit bike race was a nice addition, because it was uber intense. I’ve never seem moms on pit bikes cleaning each other out before, the moms were straight gettin’ it! The pit bikes were almost locking up because of how much mud there was on them, and they were still giving it all they had for the win.
Sunday ended up being canceled due to more rain all Saturday night, so i spent my day driving all the way back home to Colorado. Even though the weekend was cut short due to rain I still had the time of my life filming new things and being put to the test with having to do select types of videos. I feel like i really learned a lot this weekend, and I’m really excited to see how things turn out and how I do in this competition. There were some talented people there so it should make for some good edits comin’ down the pipe.
See you guys at the next local race!