Hello All,

The time has come for me to create current content. There will be some change overs happening in the future to this website in order to reflect my journey as a cyclist. You can find my blog hosted on googles blogger for the time being until the change over occurs. Thanks

-Garrett

http://garrettolsen.blogspot.com/

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

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

]]> http://www.garrettolsen.com/2007/07/30/dl-racing-s-garrett-olsen-keith-spicer-fwt-2007-round-2/feed/ http://www.garrettolsen.com/2007/04/09/new-website-under-development/ http://www.garrettolsen.com/2007/04/09/new-website-under-development/#comments Tue, 10 Apr 2007 01:43:24 +0000 Olsen http://garrett.strangerstudios.com/2007/04/09/new-website-under-development/ Sorry for the dusty appearance - but we’re still developing the new site. Stay tuned in the next few weeks for new updates!

On Saturday, Olsen qualified first to take the pole position for the TaG Heavy class by half a second over the rest of the field. He won the 12-lap Prefinal round, and continued on to win the 20-lap Final, leading the field by over two and a half seconds.

The weather on Sunday brought 30 mph winds and a deluge of rain that started during practice and continued into qualifying, forcing the sanctioning body to declare an official rain race. Olsen opted out of the practice round after team director Derrick Lesinski of DL Racing noticed the rain was subsiding and qualifying would most likely be a drying-track condition. In racing, rain is the great equalizer since drivers must rely more on their skill and finesse than on the engines and equipment that give them advantages in the dry. Olsen’s first time out on the track on rain tires for qualifying would see him take pole position for the TaG Heavy class by over 2 seconds and still qualify only 2 tenths of a second off the TaG Senior class pole position—despite being 38 pounds heavier.

In the 20-lap Final round, Olsen faced a start from 18th position overall, due to a wheel failure that prevented him from finishing in the Prefinal round. Still, Olsen gunned for a top spot in the lighter class, even though he weighed at least thirty pounds more than any TaG Senior competitor. In the first lap, two wrecks tangled racers. Undaunted, Olsen finished 7th place overall in the mixed field, winning in his TaG Heavy class by a staggering 8.7 seconds!

The last rounds of the Florida Winter Tour will be taking place in Ocala, FL on March 16-17, 2007. Olsen will enter with the points lead for the TaG Heavy class at 390 points of the 400 available points.

http://www.garrettolsen.com/

MONDAY, July 15th
Dawn Weatherax Fall. She had this to say:

“I am proud to help Garrett Olsen by giving him the fuel to bring the full championship potential out of him”