Danville, The Monaco of Virginia

Arriving in the paddock on Friday morning, it was nice to see so many of my adoring fans. After my victory in Round 2 of the TDI Cup at VIR last year, my popularity in Virginia sky-rocketed, and it was good to see that thousands of my fans had made the drive to cheer me on this year. In the garage I got fitted to my #19/Red Bull/ Right To Play/ Odkarts.com Volkswagen TDI. Although the official TDI Cup policy is that cars are randomly assigned, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I was put in the Red Bull car considering my Rock Star persona, and devilish good looks.

In first practice, Ryan Ellis set the tone for the weekend, by laying down a lightning fast time of 2min13.3 seconds. For those of you who don’t know Ryan is actually a dual sport athlete having been selected 11^th overall in the 2009 NHL entry draft by the Nashville Predators. This makes it a little suspicious that Ryan was driving the #6 “Rock The Red” Washington Capitals car this weekend. Is there a trade in the works? Could the diminutive offensive defenseman Ellis be on his way to the Capitals with Mike Green possibly going the other way? Time will tell.

Race Winner Ryan Ellis

Qualifying proved more of the same, as Ellis took pole for both races, with Mexican racing legend Juan Pablo Sierra Lendle qualifying 2^nd both times. JP is one of the biggest superstars in his country, and his name Sierra Lendle literally translates to “ridiculously fast” in English so there was no shame qualifying behind these two. I managed to put the #19 in the third spot for Race 1, and fourth on the grid for Race 2, much to the delight of my adoring fans. Our guest driver, current Indy Lights points leader, JK Vernay, who some are already calling the next Alan Prost, was able to just squeak by me into 3^rd during the second qualifying session.

Prior to Saturday’s Race 1, I stopped by the “Jake Thompson Fanzone” that had been constructed by my fan club on the hill above Turn 4. I spent a few hours signing autographs and posing for pictures before belting into the car. The start of the race went off exactly as planned, as I was able to slot into 3^rd in the early going, and hang with the leaders throughout the 14 lap race. On the final lap I made my move, as JP ran wide in turn 1 and I was able to grab 2^nd. However, seconds later, disaster would strike. At 170km/h the left front tire exploded, probably due to debris, leaving me stranded in turn 10, as the rest of the field sped by to take the chequered flag. This handed 3^rd place to the deserving AJ Nealey, much to the excitement of his legion of fans who had taken over the south end of VIR (Editor’s note: Unlike the “Jake Thompson Fanzone”, the AJ Nealey fan club is very real, and his rowdy followers actually did take over the south end of VIR).

The Jake Thompson Fanzone

To make matters worse, as I tried to climb out of my wounded car, I re-aggravated an old injury and dislocated my shoulder. For those of you not educated in medical terminology, a dislocated shoulder refers to when your arm actually falls off, and needs to be surgically reattached. I originally suffered this injury while taking part in an intense and barbaric game of ice hockey (Editors Note: This injury actually dates back to being tripped by his little sister while playing pond hockey).

Remarkably, after having my arm re-attached, I decided to still drive on Sunday, not wanting to let down the tens of thousands of Jake Thompson supporters on hand. Race 2 went off without any of Saturday’s bad luck, and I was able to bring the # 19 Redbull / Right To Play / Odkarts.com Volkswagen TDI home in 3^rd place, for my first podium of the season. With the podium, we were able to raise over $1000 for Right To Play.

The #19 Redbull / Right To Play / ODkarts.com VW TDI

The next race on the TDI Cup schedule is May 8^th at New Jersey Motorsports Park, another track where I have gained Schumacher-like popularity so expect the Jake Thompson faithful to be out in force once again. After the DNF in race 1, and the extremely impressive performance of Hockey superstar Ryan Ellis, I will definitely need a big weekend to get back in title contention. In the meantime make sure to click on my profile at driverdb.com, as I’ve now cracked the top 4000 in popularity, tied with the immortal Aki Ajo, and follow me at twitter.com/jakethompson19, because having only 7 followers is downright embarrassing. Also, feel free to leave a comment as it’s nice knowing someone other than my mom is reading this. Thanks again to all my mechanics and the great people at VW for kicking the season off on such a great note!

Until then….

JT

Hopefully PMGear will be stoked as it is one of the first shots published of me that really shows the skis I am riding, the incredible lhasa pows!

I haven’t really heard of any of my hard work from last winter being published through the actual photographer, just through friends who happen to see it. Perhaps there are more out there and I will never know.

Still busy as can be shooting for Dendrite Studios debut ski film. I believe we have a title as well after a brainstorming session in the hot tub at Selkirk Wilderness Skiing.

-Athan

Last week I was in Vancouver for the first weekend of the Winter Olympics. Vancouver itself was completely nuts, but the atmosphere felt mostly like everyone in Vancouver coming out for their own party. I was lucky enough to spend a few days in Whistler and there was a very cool vibe up there. With Whistler hosting Apline Skiing, Cross Country, and the sliding sports there was a distinctly European vibe. The village was flooded with Swiss, Norweigens, Germans, Swedes etc all making the most of their olympic experience. I had tickets to the Luge, and I can say that I was completely blown away. After the tragic death of Georgian Luger Nodar Kumaritashvili, the start was lowered slightly, but they top sliders were still hitting over 145km/h. Up close it was completely nuts. It also made for a much better spectator sport than I expected, as they had built a fabulous spectator terrace over the last corner complete with a massive big screen and live timing.

Luge Madness in Vancouver

Other than that, not much exciting here. I am looking at starting a new job in the next few weeks, which will hopefully put me in a better financial situation ahead of this season, and give me the opportunity to do some karting this summer to stay fresh. Here’s a quick video that my buddy Joey Atterbury showed me, and oldie but a goodie.

Cheers,

Jake Thompson

Action Armada

2010 Driver Selection is now in the books! Yesterday we were out at the beautiful facilities of Spring Mountain Motorsports Ranch in Pahrump, NV to get in the racecars for the final day of driver selection. What a place, the facility is a country club style, with rows of garages for people to keep their cars and a beautiful club house (tile floors, pool table, etc). Unfortunately, when we arrived the weather did not match the facilities. I got a ride out with AJ Nealey and we passed through snow over a pass just before the track, it was definitely ugly. First up was the track walk and just as we arrived at Turn 1 the hail came, ugh. We headed back to the tent for Jan Heylen (chief driving instructor) to give us a “verbal” track walk instead.

Luckily, next up was breakfast, which gave some time for the weather to ease up ever so slightly. The first scheduled session of the day was for the returning drivers, and we were faced with ALOT of standing water, very very tricky conditions. Despite just doing some slow laps behind a pace car to get a feel for the track, the cars were dancing all over the place, and I definitely had a few “oh sh*t!” moments as the car got loose. Luckily this was the turning point of the day, as while we were on track, the weather started to break, and we never saw any more rain. It took a few hours for the water to disappear, but by the time we were out on the track for our second session, the Pirelli slicks had been slapped on the car for some dry running.

It took a few laps to get up to speed, but once I got going, man was I having fun. It had been way to long since I had driven anything in anger, and it was awesome to be back behind the wheel throwing the car around. The loop that we were running at Spring Mountain was a lot of fun, with some great corners, and if it had more of a straightaway it would have been a great place to have a race. The session ended up, and I managed to run a time of 1min 22.1, which was fastest of the session save for our instructor Mr. Heylen (who somehow threw down a disgusting 1min20.8, despite the track being damp, Im calling foul play! lol).

After the second session it was back to the clubhouse, for lunch and more importantly the cuts to announce the 25 drivers competing in this year’s TDI Cup. Unlike 12 months before, it was pretty relaxing for us returning drivers knowing we were probably through, but its still good to hear your name called. We look to have a very deep field this year which includes 9 returning drivers: AJ Nealey, Andrew Cordeiro, Taylor Broekemeier, JD Mobley, Ryan Ellis, Andrew Novich, Juan Pablo Sierra Lendle, Juan Pablo Delgado, and myself. Also, there is some great new talent including some National champion karters in Michael Hogg, Arie Ouimet, Jarvis Gennari and Chris Wehrheim, as well as Wyatt Gooden, who won his seat in the series through iRacing, and showed great speed all weekend. Obviously, I know to look out for the names I recognize from the karting world, but I know some other guys that I haven’t got to know as well yet are going to be fighting for wins.

After lunch, the final 25 drivers got 2 full practice sessions to let everyone get familiar with the cars. The track was now fully dry and I was able to really get after it, dropping 1.2 seconds to put in a lap of 1m20.9, fastest of the series drivers and just a hair slower than the benchmark that Jan had sent. In the final session, I was able to shave a little bit more time and get down to a 1m20.6, but full credit to JD Mobley, who found a little bit more and ended up with a 20.5, the fastest time of the day. There was a whole group of drivers just behind JD & I, who ran 20.9s including Nealey, Gennari, and Cordeiro, so that shows just how close its going to be all season.

All that was left after that was the drive back to Las Vegas. By now the snow was really coming down in the mountains, but AJ got us back. I have to say, that for whatever reason, I found it to be a very taxing week. As I write this I feel mentally run down and exhausted, I suppose that comes from trying to be at the top of my game all week. The first race is at VIR in a couple months and I will be working hard to get ready for the season until then.

Here are a few pictures we close the books on another edition of TDI Cup Driver selection….

The #33 Pirelli Car I was using at Selection

Cars on track going through some practice starts

Take Care

Jake Thompson

Monday February 8th, 2010

Just got back to my room after Day 2 of the Selection event, which was another good day here in Vegas. Bright and early at 6AM I regrouped with team Purple (temporarily nicknamed team Grimace) for another day of evaluation. Once again we were woken up by an early morning workout with Athlete’s performance. While yesterday focused on testing our physical fitness, today they ran us through some nutrition training and took us through a full workout tailored for racers. After the workout it was helmet on for our second crack at the autocross course with the 2010 Golf TDI’s. I will say right now, autocross is not my forte. For those of you that don’t know, autocross involves taking a car through a course defined by cones, usually in a parking lot. Unfortunately, no matter how many times our instructors told me to pretend the cones were a cement wall, there still cones and I couldn’t help clipping quite a few in my never ending pursuit of going faster. Ultimately I was pretty disappointed in myself, as I have worked very hard to prepare for this season, and it was silly of me not to leave a bigger margin for error.

Autocross Car - Golf TDI

Next up was karting, and although i have a lot of karting background, once again there were cones to hit, and I couldn’t resist crossing the limit a few times. Again, pretty disappointed with my performance. The karts were CRG Rotax engines, and the people from SSC East did a great job getting them ready to go, and I had a lot of fun on the track.

After a quick lunch, we had a sponsorship seminar with IndyCar driver Townsend Bell. I have sat through a number of these type of seminars from fellow drivers, but this one was hands down the best. Townsend has a great story, great advice, and is a great speaker, so I learned a lot as well as throroughly enjoyed his presentation.

Kart Track

Then Cuts. Last year I can’t even tell you how nervous I was, and I could relate to all the terrified faces in the room. As a returning driver it was nice to be able to relax a bit. I know how hard these decisions are for the coaches, and I really feel for the people who didn’t make it through to tomorrow. On a positive note, all 6 drivers in team purple made it through to tomorrow when they will cut it down from 30 to the final 25.

Tomorrow I finally get to knock the dust off after the long winter and get back in a race car, so I’m totally pumped up. We are headed out to Spring Mountain Motorsports Park, to log some hot laps in the TDI Cup car before final cuts. It should be fun. Im excited to be back with Volkswagen and this outstanding program for 2010, and I know I can better last year’s performance and win that championship. One more day tomorrow, so look for another blog…

Sunday February 7th, 2009

Today official festivities kicked off at driver selection, bright and early at 6AM, as 40+ finalists arrived to compete for the 25 spots in the 2010 VW TDI Cup. I was assigned to the purple group, which included JD Mobley from last year, and Michael Hogg from Vancouver who I know well from karting. Team purple was put through the ringer early as our first stop was Fitness Testing with the good people from Athletes Performance. They ran us through a push-up test (props to JD who CRUSHED out 70 reps), an excruciating wall sit, and finally a VO2 Max Test.

Still reeling from the early morning workout we headed outside to hit up the autocross track. This year they have a fleet of 2010 VW Golf TDI’s, which with their short wheel base are ideal for the tight autocross course. If you got after it you could really make the golf rotate, even getting it up on 3 wheels, and I had a blast, although I hit a few too many cones. After all that early morning excitement, the rest of the day was spent in the classroom where we were put through a series of written tests and sponsorship training.

Tomorrow it’s another 6AM start with karting and more autocross on the docket. First cuts come tomorrow so Im sure there will be a lot of nervous faces from the new drivers. They let us off a little early today, so im just relaxing in my room watching some Superbowl, although a little more craps might be on the cards.

I forgot to get the camera out during the day,  but I took a couple shots of the hospitality setup they have here at the Southpoint.

More to come tomorrow…

Saturday February 6th, 2009

I`m here in Vegas at the 2010 VW TDI Cup Driver Selection, and although the weather is right miserable, its not enough to take away from the excitement of the weekend. The event is hosted at the South Point Casino Resort and i spent the morning wandering around looking for familiar faces. It was great to see all of our mechanics again who deserve all the credit in the world for the hard work they put in to make this thing happen. I also ran into a few buddies from last year, and was able to spot some nervous faces of guys who are here for the first time. I can relate, I remember feeling exactly that way last year.

TDI Cup Car on Display at the South Point Casino

Right now I’m thoroughly enjoying the view from my room on the 11th floor of our driving instructors (Jan, Andy, Ryan & Mark) sloshing around in the rain setting up the autocross course for tomorrow. I know they’re going to be hard on us once the competition starts so I can take a certain amount of pleasure in the fact that right now I’m dry and they’re not.

Very Wet looking Autocross/Karting Circuit

Right now I’m thinking that I’ve swallowed enough casino smoke for one day, so Im gonna grab some dinner and try to get to bed early tonight. Driver selection starts in earnest tomorrow morning at 6AM sharp, so it’ll be an early one.

PS. Gambling is a bad habit that I don’t condone, so I can tell you that I didn’t play craps with AJ Nealey this afternoon, and we both didn’t win a couple hundred bucks

Cheers,

- Jake Thompson

Daytona

After arriving in Orlando, then checking into my $42.00 fleabag motel, I made my first trip to the hallowed grounds of Daytona International Speedway on Friday morning. Right away you are blown away by how steep & narrow the high banks are. We have all seen the Daytona 500 on TV, and I promise you it does not do any justice to how completely insane it is to race 3 wide at that place at over 190MPH. It looks barely wide enough for 2 cars, and I think you would need a full climbing harness to scale the bank.

Massive, Steep, Narrow, the banks of DIS

The support race was the Continental Tire Sportscar Challenge Fresh from Florida 200 (thats a mouthful) which had 5 TDI Cup alum competing. Good buddies Joey Atterbury and Devin Cates are teammates and debuted their new TC Motorsports Camaro in the GS class, while 2008 Champion Josh Hurley, as well as Ryan Ellis and Andrew Novich were in the ST class. It was cool to see guys I raced against out there on a big stage, dealing with some real HP (Atterbury told me they got 167mph). Unfortunately there was a lot of bad luck on display, as Devin and Joey were run into by a Porsche and lost a few laps with a cut tire, and Josh was unceremoniously punted out of 5^th place with a few laps to go. Ryan Ellis had a very solid run in the Freedom Motorsports Mazda 3, bring home a top 10 finish, while Novich also had a good run in his Irish Mike’s Jetta coming home 11^th.

Atterbury in the Camaro

Saturday was time for the big boys as the 24 hrs started at 3:30PM. With most of the top sportscar drivers in the world on hand, including most of the Porsche factory ringers, it was due to be good show. The Rolex 24 features two classes competing simultaneously, with the DP class for purpose built Prototypes, and the GT class featuring (heavily) modified production based cars. With a bunch of NASCAR stars in the field the infield was packed with fans ready to party for 24 hours. Among the drivers: Jimmie Johnson, Juan Pablo Montoya, Dario Franchitti, Jamie McMurray, Justin Wilson, Scott Pruett, Patrick Long, Max Papis, Michael Valiante, AJ Allmendinger, Sebastian Bourdais, Ryan Hunter Reay, Ryan Dalziel, Mike Rockenfeller, as well as actor Patrick Dempsey (pretty sure I saw a chick orgasm because she got to shake his hand). Basically a who’s who of the racing world.

Some of the "names"

Once night set in, the action really ramped up, and it was a very cool atmosphere to see those guys doing 190mph through the night. I purposely wore all of my VW team gear and by doing my best to act like I belonged, I was able to sneak my way into the hot pits, and spend some time on the pit wall. It’s totally surreal to stand 4 ft away from a pit stop where they change, tires, fuel and DRIVER in about 35 seconds. While there I was able to mingle with a bunch of teams and meet some very cool people. Sorry ladies, although I got a good look, I was never able to meet Dr. McDreamy.

Talk about access, on the pitwall

I can’t even describe to you how different things looked when I arrived back to the track on Sunday morning. When I left shortly after Midnight, there was energy in the air, most of the field on the track, and enthusiasm in the pits. When I arrived back around 11AM (~20hrs into the race), I was greeted with the weary faces of drivers & crew, a lot of cars retired to the garage, and the rest hanging together with duct tape and tie wire. It was amazing to see how rough cars that hadn’t even seen contact still looked. 24 hours is a war.

Your Race Winner, a little worse for wear

In the end team Action Express scored a surprise victory in their Porsche Riley, amazingly by only 40 seconds over the # 2 Ganassi car, despite competing 755 laps. Congratulations to drivers Joao Barbosa, Terry Borcheller, Ryan Dalziel, and Mike Rockenfeller. Vancouver BC’s Michael Valiante had the #6 Michael Shank Racing car at the front all race, but unfortunately they suffered an engine failure in the last hour while fighting for the win. Former karting star Jonathon Bomarito brought his Mazda RX8 home for the GT win along with teammates Ham, Haskell and Tremblay.

All in all, a very cool weekend, glad I came, and I have more resolve than ever to be there as a competitor next year. Thanks to the Cates and the Atterbury families for putting up with me, and everybody else who hung out with me this weekend.

Here’s the photo gallery, I apologize for my limited camera skills…

Location: Daytona International Speedway Photos: Jake Thompson

 

So good luck to him and his team as they head into Winter X, and I’m looking forward to catching some footage over the weekend. Heres a quick video that I grabbed from ESPN, enjoy.

LaVallee in the TDI Cup Car - Photo by Bruce Lancaster

- Jake Thompson / Action Armada

Title photo from launchinlevi.com

Location: Whistler & Backcountry
Date: 2008/2009
Photos: Nic Teichrob

 

I would also like to welcome DNA outerwear to the team. Now photographers can’t complain that my clothing isn’t bright enough. The clothes rock. Bright, simple, functional, breathable, and waterproof. Golden.

Cheers!

- Athan

It’s been a great year so far and I’m looking forward to the rest of it! Very excited about my latest sponsor Naish. I’m looking forward to being a part of the team and riding their boards for all of my upcoming races and adventures. I was just over on Maui for the day to help with the Stand Up for Womens Health and Fitness. What an awesome event. There were over 300 women who showed up and got their paddle on! Most were beginners and despite the pounding shore break, they grabbed their boards and headed out to sea. Way to go Ladies!

Speaking of adventures…this April, Morgan Hoesterey and I are taking on a rather big challenge… to paddle across all of the Hawaiian Island channels. We’ll start on the Big Island and end on Kauai. We’re doing it to help raise awareness for something we both enjoy and care about: the ocean. We’re hoping that throughout our journey we can make people more aware about the importance of keeping our ocean clean. It’s going to be a once in a lifetime adventure and I’m really looking forward to it. I will post more details next week – we’re finishing up our website and facebook page! I’ve got to kick the training into high (very high) gear.

The surf has been up this past week and bigger swell is on its way here are some shots from the last few days. The last three shots are a sequence from one of my first waves. I had so much fun out there. Thanks to the guys I paddled out with that encouraged me to push my limits! And thanks to Andy Carlson and Earl for the great shots!

Pura Vida,
Jenny

My place in Whistler is without internet and they cannot install it until the 14th. So I have some news that has happened recently. Let’s start with the good news.

My first cover! Oh my god, a dream come true. Well not quite, but almost there. It is from a small publication in the states called Off Piste that is available at select ski shops. I am stoked none-the-less. And an extra special thanks to my buddy Adam U who gets covers galore with his tele steeze for letting me know. He seems to keep me more in the loop about publications than anyone else. Perhaps he is a ski magazine hoar who subscribes to every single one known to mankind. Thanks buddy!

COVER of Off Piste, October 2009. Photo By: Grant Gunderson

I need a copy. Anyone in the states want to pick one up and send it to me? I’ll pay for shipping and a sixer.

Publication number two in Great Britain at Fall Line Skiing. From our fellow armadian and new business partner Nicolas Teichrob…Dendrite Studios coming soon!!

Fall-Line UK, Editor's Note November 2009, Photo by: Nic Teichrob

And now onto the bad news. I go back down to the city to visit my wonderful girlfriend and my truck gets stolen right from in front of our apartment building. Bastards. A ski bum such as myself is already on a thin financial rope to make it through the winter. Especially with a project such as Dendrite Studios looming over my head. Having a cheap, beater sled truck stolen that only had liability insurance on it…well because it is super cheap…does not help matters. What a sinking feeling walking back home and seeing the truck no longer parked where it should be and glass in the street. Some day I will not be dead broke, because it is sure getting old I tell you. Such is life.

So if anyone sees the truck in Vancouver or the surrounding pacific northwest please contact me so I can reclaim it. Thank you.

1990 Chevy Pickup. Grey primer paint job. Ext cab. Mismatched front rims.

Adios. Stay tuned for dendrite studios and enjoy the bounties of winter!