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Well, I never really wrote much this year for AFM…In fact, I only did one write-up, and that was last round (R6 @ Infineon). I’d thought about it, but never really found much motivation for it.

I read once—in a blog—that if you are going to have a successful blog, that you need to write shit constantly…and that you shouldn’t spend too much time on it…just get it done, blast it out, rinse, repeat….F-that. I spend, like, 4-5 hour per blog that I write. At LEAST!

I’m not really sure WHY it takes me that long…I mean, I type decently fast, I never pre-plan what I’m going to actually say, I barely proof read my posts… I simply think of a topic and go PEW PEW PEW! Why the hell does it take me so long?

In this case, my topic is the the entire 2012 year of AFM.

Lawdy lawd, where do I begin? I’ve got the memory of an elephant—that’s been mortally wounded and had it’s tusks poached—so it’s not like I can actually remember many specifics about round 2…or 3 or 4 or hell, even round 7, just a few days ago.

R2 at Thunderhill.

Someone crashed…that’s all I remember.
crashed r6 crash thunderhill sparks lowside
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This kid is a beast. He’s my girlfriend, Kinsy’s kid. He’s raced 4 rounds of MiniMotoUSA so far this year, and I just wanted to post up a few pictures showing off how damned adorable and awesome he is motor-scootin around on his little 50 and his pocketbike. He podiums every round racing against some kids twice his age.

You can follow his progress and off-kilter comments on his facebook fan page here: Peyton the Pocketbiker

Infineon, back in May during the AMA round:
peyton the pocketbiker pocket bike 50cc
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For those of you that know me know that I’ve had a fear of Infineon for the longest time. Being a trackside photographer, I see really bad stuff happen sometimes…Infineon has always been the worst of the worst.

I’ve seen people die at this track. I’ve seen peoples’ lives forever changed at this track… and for that reason, I’d only ever ridden once there before, about a year ago. I did 4 sessions at a Zoom Zoom day.

Well, we were invited to come ride with Pacific Track Time last week, and I said “fuck it, I’ll ride.” and I did. I wanted to get over this fear that I’ve had… Toe was my wingman for the day.

I can’t really say that I’m “over it.” I mean, the track is fun. It’s certainly a workout as well…but I don’t think I could ever bring myself to try and go fast at Infineon. There’s just too many dangers! It’s like Skaggs Springs Road…but instead of guard rails, there’s k-walls.

It’s a lot of fun to just go horse around with the homies tho…I’ll give it that much.

Here’s some footage of me, Toe, Chris from CT Racing, Darius, Tim, and a few other people from the very last session of the day.

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Over the last few years, there’s been lots of talk about electric motorcycles and the TTXGP and “electric racing” and “way of the future,” et cetera…frankly, I’m not yet impressed.

With price tags being as high as $60,000 to buy one of your own, I simply do not see how this is the way of the future. At least, not yet. Even electric and hybrid cars are still not cost efficient. I’ve seen a few electric bikes up close and personal so far. I’ve chatted it up with a few designers, engineers, and riders of these electric bikes.

Most recently was this yellow thing that is to be raced in this years TTXGP. I’m not even sure what it’s called…but “thing” seems to fit the bill quite nicely.

garrett willis electric bike ttxgp

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Well, me and Infineon Raceway go back a few years. I’ve been shooting there since 2006. I’ve watched at least eleventy trillion bikes pass by me in every corner of that track. Fast guys, slow guys…whatever. I’ve seen and documented probably around 100 crashes at Infineon alone. Most in turns 2 and 9, for sure, but with turn 3 having a ton of crashes as well.

Three years ago, it wasn’t even in a turn that had me spooked. Three years ago, Allen Rice crashed into the k-wall as he was exiting the track and tragically, he passed away as a result of that crash. This had all happened just in front of me, as I was making my way back to the pits to get geared up to ride Infineon for the first time. Needless to say, I didn’t ride that day. In fact, I’d decided that day, after what I’d just seen, that I had no desire to EVER ride Infineon. “It’s too damned dangerous,” I’d tell myself.

And I didn’t.

For three years, I never even had the inclination to ride. I’ve seen some people make mistakes and have incidents sometimes out of their control at Infineon causing life-changing crashes. From Shawnery having come together with Brian in turn 8 some years ago, to Eric Arnold at the start of a race before turn 1. Infineon scared me. I was genuinely fearful of riding the track.

Yesterday was a Zoom Zoom day at Infineon. The conditions were absolutely perfect. The weather simply could not have been any better for a day of riding. I’d made up my mind: I was going to ride.

joe at infineon backing it in to turn 7

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Neither myself or Toe can give you tomorrows winning lottery numbers. We can’t channel the spirit of your long since passed favorite childhood pet fish Mr McFlufferson. We can’t read your palm and tell you how many times you’ll get laid. No, we can’t read your mind or, sadly, we can’t control your mind either… what we CAN do, with terribly high accuracy, is take your money when we bet you that so-and-so is gonna wad up their bike after having seen them do a single lap.

Before I get into it too much, I kinda want to drive the point home…we’ll talk about the point later.

motorcycle crash

Yesterday, I was at Infineon Raceway shooting a Supermoto Schools event. It ended at about 2pm, and I went down below to the big track because I saw a few fancy looking sprotbiles down there along with the big Pirelli truck. Chris, from Pirelli, is my friend so I stopped by down there to say hi and chit chat a bit and to see what was going on down there.

Turns out, Motorcyclist and Sport Rider magazine were doing a test with the major manufacturer bikes: MV Agusta, Ducati 1198R and Desmosedici, KTM RC8, Triumph 675, Honda CBR600RR ABS version, BMW S1000RR…oh, and the new R1 (*giggle*) just to name a few that I saw there.

I was in the garage where they keep all really well organized with the use of Auto News Center tips online, I started chatting with Tucker and Jeff Tigert , when I happened to see one of the test riders coming through turn 11…I just blurted out the first thing that came to mind as I always do…

“That guy is going down.”
Tucker looks over and replies, “what? On the R1?”
“Yeah. I think it said [name omitted] on the back of his leathers,” I says to Tuck-Tuck.
“Noooooo,” he laughs, “that guy is good! He’s FAST!”

I chuckled to myself, and simply replied back, “Mark my words, homie. That dude is going down.” Tucker shrugged it off and we resumed conversation about the idiocy in the design of the rearsets on the ~$70,000 Desmosidici (Seriously…what the hell was Ducati thinking?).

Not more than 10 minutes later, the very rider on the brand spankin new YZF-R1 I’d said was going to hit the deck limps the bike into the garage covered in mud and grass, most of the right side plastics dangling in the breeze. Tucker just turned and stared at me in disbelief. All I could do was laugh.

“I told you so.”

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So! It’s the beginning of the track season. Kevin went bonkers and ran around all over the place on February 8th at the Zoom Zoom opener and shot a bunch of amazing footage while Toe and I hustled the track getting photos.

This is part of the new video service we’re offering up to everyone at the track. Fully edited on-board footage set to your favorite track/artist/genre. :D

While Kev was doing his thing, when I finally had a few minutes of downtime, I also mounted the new GoPro HD to fast grrrrrlll Elena Myers and another fast gggggrrrrrl Melissa Paris! Talk about AWESOME riding along with them. Elena blows by other riders like they’re not even moving! It’s epic watching Melissa trail brake deeeeeep into every corner. Thanks you gals!

Be sure to watch it in full 1080p!

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so, i’ve just barely started going through the pics from this weekend… there’s a lot. i wanted to do things differently, so i tried a buncha different stuff than normal.. i’m so sick of all the same shots over and over and over…

hulk-smash laptimes! rawr!

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    race inc

All the pics from this weekend are UP! For those of you AFM’ers that practiced with Z2 on Friday, as an added perk, I’ve thrown Friday pics in with the AFM pics… :)

There’s some stuff that we tried to do a lil different this go around. There’s so many freggin AFM rounds at Infineon that it’s getting to be more and more difficult to be creative… and if you know me at all, you know that I find that irritating and I always try new stuff to keep it fresh.

*love!*

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