While I was cleaning up the junk on my Blackberry, I came across multiple, uh, inspiring photos of Swap that I had snapped off when he wasn’t paying attention…or conscious. Here are two that are particularly telling of his dedication to motocross..and bowel movements.

Saturday, August 2

I wasn?t long into my car ride from the Brussels airport to the track at Lommel with Giovanni and Fabio that I knew I was in for more than just a unique European experience.
Almost immediately I relaxed and extinguished my feeling of being a foreigner. Giovanni and Fabio were as lost as I was. The GPS in the rental car did not agree with their Mapquest directions and soon I found myself part of an impromptu village tour around Northeast Belgium as we navigated toward the track.
Green, manicured lawns surrounded every single brick house and everything appeared on pause. I looked on at what should have been bustling towns, but were just frozen landscapes. Everything looked freshly, well, lived in; but no one was in sight. Not even a withered old man yelling obscenities (not that I expected that in a European town?).

As it turns out, August is holiday for greater Europe and most neighborhoods had retreated to destinations and visitations. What?s more, one of those destinations happened to be the surrounding area of our hotel. Our accommodations stood smack-dab in the middle of a large community of rental cabins, bike trails, and recreation areas, but I?ll get back to that…
So, here I am, in Belgium, amongst fellow travelers, completely out of my element. Thank heaven I am here for motocross. Motocross is basically the same everywhere you go. Sure, the gear is different, the languages change, even the tracks are vary greatly from the U.S. But the spirit remains the same. Tons of die-hard moto fans pile inside the track grounds to watch their favorite riders practice, girls in small outfits gaze off into the horizon looking unimpressed at the goings-on around them, the brraaappps of four-strokes reverberates inside your eardrums, and the familiar Yamaha, KTM, Honda, Suzuki, and Kawasaki pits line the outfield of the track. Ahhh, motocross.
I got in yesterday and we spent the entire day at the track (I arrived in Brussels 10 am local time). I was exhausted I had been traveling for an entire day and my inner clock had already sprung out of any logical schedule. I cruised around the pits taking in very little observation; merely gazing absently at the bikes resting on their stands inside each pit awning. I don?t remember much more, until our triumphant arrival at our hotel inside SunParks ?vacation destination.? When we finally did find the hotel hidden within the intertwined roadways (that I am sure looked like a plate of half-eaten spaghetti from the sky), I collapsed onto my little bed and fell into a half-awake stupor that I settled for in lieu of an actual nap. We had decided to meet back up for dinner at 8:30pm, so I gave up on the nap idea and meandered back into the lobby, or mall, or atrium, or whatever it was and met up with my three new friends.
Apparently, people in Belgium do not eat, or drink for that matter, after 9pm, because the only restaurant that was still open at that hour had already closed the kitchen and we were left with 30 minutes to drink a quick beer. Cazzo!
Today, I feel a bit better, though I think the jetlag is still haunting me. Lucky for me, I am excited to shoot some motocross on the sandiest track on the World Motocross GP circuit.