If you've never had the opportunity to attend a Supercross race in Las Vegas, don’t wait…start planning your next trip to the “city of lights” to watch the Supercross finale in person!

 For our family (along with a few friends) the Vegas Supercross has become an annual event and the 2006 Supercross finale was no different. As soon as tickets went on sale, we bought a total of 10 tickets in anticipation of the May 6th battle royal. This year we rolled into Vegas on Friday afternoon and spent the rest of Friday (and into early Saturday) experiencing the nightlife of the Vegas strip. Once Saturday morning arrived, we headed to breakfast and then it was off to the track at Sam Boyd Stadium. For our group, race day pretty much takes up the entire day. It was somewhere around noon when we headed for the pits, which where open to all ticket holders. Can I just say that Vegas knows how to throw a pit party! We spent hours wandering around the pits (which were located just outside of the stadium) checking out the factory motox bikes, looking at the factory rigs, trying to get a glimpse of our favorite riders, buying souvenirs, watching freestyle BMX and getting our share of freebie handouts. At various times, we would head into the stadium to watch the big boys practice. If you’ve ever wanted to get some great pics of some of the fastest guys on the planet, practice is that perfect time. During practice everyone can freely move around the stadium, positioning themselves for that perfect shot as riders style over the massive triples, blitz the whoops and rail every corner in sight.

At 5:30 pm when the pits closed to the general public, we headed to the parking lot for our traditional tailgate party. Needless to say, we had a great time! As 7:00 pm rolled around we headed into the stadium for opening ceremonies. Before the racing even started the crowed was going crazy! The races started and the cheering continued at a fevered pitch through out the night.

When the checkered flag flew, Bubba had just won the Vegas finale on his KX450F, along with his first world Supercross championship! Carmichael, on the other hand, finished the night in second place, capturing his 5th AMA Supercross championship riding his RMZ450! It was cool to see the respect that both riders showed to one another at the end of the race; they both dropped their bikes to the ground and raised each other’s hand in victory of winning their respective Supercross championship.

At the end of the night as we walked back to our car, worn out from the days events, with voices hoarse from all of the cheering, in a semi-giddy state and still smiling ear-to-ear, we bragged about the autographs and pictures that we had been lucky enough to get and started making plans for next years Supercross race in Vegas!