Recently I have been involved in the Villanova FSAE team and the car is coming along at an accelerated pace. We will need to design and fabricate a braking system, rear drive train , driver control systems, Test engine with new fuel and intake system, final weld the frame. It is safe to say we have out work cut out for us. I will keep you posted on the progress.

For more competition information: Official FSAE Website

New Photos Posted in Media Gallery

Well I would say it has been a while since my last post. Many of my readers have said, “Man, Garrett, Are you Alive?!” My response is that Yes, I am alive and well. Many Family emergencies have been coming up whichhave been taking precedence over my website blog. I apologize for this.

Racing schedules will be decided in the coming months. The Florida Winter tour is off the schedule as of rightnow. Currently, I am looking towards Stars of Karting National Tour and the WKA Manufacturers National Tour beginning late March and early April.

Happy New Year to all my Readers. Catch you in 2008!

-Garrett Olsen

I Fly out today Thursday, Sept. 13th at 4:30 EST from Philadelphia on a non stop flight to Los Angeles, CA. Practice starts at a bright and early 7:30 AM PST Tomorrow, Friday Morning.
5 Practice sessions are on the agenda. Times will be posted live as they occur on http://www.EkartingNews.com

I am wondering what this track is going to be like considering I have never raced Moran Raceway in my career.

At Many Sprint Kart Races as well as other forms of Racing, Friday practice sessions dictate where everyone stands coming in to Saturdays Race. It is certainly good to be fast on a Friday, but Saturday and Sunday are what actually goes in the record books. We will see where J3 Competition and I stand by tomorrow night.

-Garrett

Click here for Track Information: Beaver Run Motorsports Complex

Laird Hamilton is known as the guiding genius of crossover board sports, and he is truly amazing in the water. His size - six-foot-three, 215 pounds - makes him seem indestructible. ‘Laird is the elder son of 60’s surfing legend Bill Hamilton, and is a throw back to that time when surfers prided themselves on being all-around waterman.’ His mother, Joann, gave birth to him in a “bathysphere” with reduced gravity as part of an experiment at the UC Medical Center in San Francisco. Joann was also a surfer and decided to move the family from California to Hawaii when Laird was just a few months old. They lived on Oahu’s North Shore and later in a remote valley on Kauai, not far from one of the world’s best surf breaks. He learned to surf between the ages of two and three on the front half of a surfboard, and at age eight, his father took him to the 60-foot cliff at Waimea Falls where Laird looked down, looked back at his dad, and jumped. ‘He’s been bold since day one,’ says Bill, ‘and hell-bent on living life to the extreme.’

Laird does all kinds of interesting things in the ocean like making epic long distance journeys on his ocean-going paddleboard, and creating the fast forward speed sailing loop.

When he was twenty-two years old, Laird entered a speed-sailing competition in Port Saint-Louis, France, defeated the heavily favored French champion, and broke the European speed record of 36 knots in the process. Today, he surfs the outer-reefs in Hawaii with his friends after years of working with different board designs to be able to catch the giant waves. Their method involves getting into a Wave Runner, taking a water ski rope, and towing each other into waves that are too big to paddle into. The craft flings them into the wave at full speed. Laird has footstraps on his board to keep from getting bounced off and to enable him to do some mind-boggling things like aerial liftoffs, including 360’s. “Jaws Maui,” a book published in ‘97, features Laird in action and is filled with spectacular photography of the men who pioneered tow-in surfing.

Photo shoots with sponsors such as OXBOW have taken Laird around the world: the Caucasus mountain range to snowboard, a jungle preserve in Java, Indonesia with a world-class surf break just offshore, and the Great Barrier Reef to name a few.

He can be seen on the cover of magazines such as National Geographic, Outside, The Surfer’s Journal, Men’s Journal, Surfer, Surfing,etc.and in Sports Illustrated, People, Life, GQ, Interview, L’Uomo Vogue (Italy), Paris Match (France), Surf (Germany), High Wind (Japan), and Sailboarder. In 1996, People magazine named him ‘one of the 50 most beautiful people.’ Surfer Poll Awards,’00 ‘Breakout Performance of the Year’ and in France,’00 (M6) honored him with overall ‘Rider of the Year’. In ‘01, ESPN’s, Action Sports & Music Awards, awarded Laird ‘Feat of the Year’ award.

Laird is featured on TV as a host in Fox Sports Net’s, ‘Planet Extreme Championships’ (2000) on the Outdoor Life Network (1999), and “The Extremists” (1996-97), in which he took incredible risks while air boarding, rock climbing, kite surfing, jet-ski surfing, and much more. He is featured in the documentary film “Endless Summer II” (1994), the sequel to the surfing cult classic. Laird’s filmmography also includes “Waterworld,” “North Shore,” “Night Waves,” “Totally Committed,” and “Five Summer Stories.” Among his ventures, Laird and his crew provide film and television companies with performers, planning, and expertise in shooting in surf.

Their own productions, including “Radical Attitude” (1992) and “Wake Up Call” (1996), are videos in which Laird, ‘the Chuck Yeager of experimental surfing,’ demonstrates why he is considered one of the most respected board riders of our generation. ‘Bigger. Higher. Faster,’ says Laird of his future plans, ‘I want to go after the world speed sailing record. I want to ride bigger waves. I want to try and invent some new sports, combine some existing ones. I want to be creative.’

It has certainly taken many pain staking hours to have the site come to fruition, but it is well worth it when the product comes out this well. Many Thanks to Kim Coleman and Jason Coleman at Stranger Studios web design company for laying all the creative ground work both on the front end and the backend of this site. They have done a Terrific job.

Now the hard part is on my end for the news to be made and written about all in real time. I will try to stay as updated as possible as well as clean up some of the fake test posts.

My goal for this site is to be an intermediary for all interested parties to keep informed of all the ups and downs as a College Student and National Racer moving towards a career in Motorsports. Please keep checking back as this site will be growing for the better. My design team and I have many upgrades for the site in store which I know you are going to love.

Please add yourself to mailing list which will not be used for any other purposes but to compile a list of interested parties who would like to be informed down the road of the latest news in my life. Don’t be worried I will not barrage your email with updates every other day. A Bi-Monthly newsletter is in the works though however and if you would like to receive it you need to be on this list.

Come Back Soon for the Latest

-Garrett

August 27, 2007

The Fall Semester of the Villanova School of Business begins. I will be moving back to Bryn Mawr, PA for the 2nd to last semester of my college career. I will be taking 5 classes. Currently I am majoring in Finance with a Minor in Marketing. Monday is the first day of classes.

With his first major championship entry only 6 months of experience driving a go kart he takes the TaG Masters Championship in the Florida Winter tour winning 5 out of 6 races. The Premiere United States Karting Championship proved to be a rude awakening for his first race of the championship in Norman, Oklahoma with a 42nd place. Garrett peresevered to grab 6th this august as he steadily improved each time out. Today the Ekarting News Driver Rankings came out to give a hierarchical order of the top karters in the nation.

“I am great full that all the hard work down in Florida with DL Racing, and the hard work with my new team J3 Competition is paying off. Balancing my racing endevours while studying for my BA at Villanova University can certainly be chaotic at times, but it makes it all worth it when progress is steadily being made.”

Official Driver Rankings for month of August at Ekarting News National Driver Rankings