I’ve shot quite a few races over the past couple years, both photo and video.  From AFM to MotoGP, I have had the wonderful privilege to be able to watch and shoot races and racers from restricted areas.  I have watched so much raw, un-edited onboard HD GoPro footage from so many different racers I can’t even keep track anymore.  But no matter how hard I tried to understand the “why” behind sportbike racing, I was never able to truly FEEL it how I knew I could.  I understood it in my brain, but I didn’t have a 100% clear picture of it in my heart… and it drove me crazy.  I have done trackdays, gotten in fun little battles with friends, but as time went on, the need to feel what I felt like I was missing out on grew stronger and stronger.  From a full grid start, all the way to setting up a pass on the last turn of the last lap, I wanted…NEEDED to feel that.  It was with TTP Racing that I was able to experience something I will remember for a lifetime.

Lifetime
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This past weekend, Tomas the Terrible joined me after a brief hiatus for some 24 Hours of LeMons action up at Reno Fernley Raceway as well as shooting a wedding for a racer friend of ours.

We headed out Thursday night as there was a Friday practice for all the LeMons Racers.

What is The 24 Hours of LeMons? Well, put frankly, it’s a 24 hour endurance race where people buy pieces of shit cars for $500 or less, put all kinds of ridiculous decorations and whatnot on them…

sheen machine lemons rfr
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Everyone else is doing it…I guess that means I gotta do it too. ‘Cept…I’mma do it in typical Joe-Fashion, and totally OVER do it. I’m not just gonna pick my top 10 images from the year. I’m gonna go through the year and pick whatever the hell I think represents 2010. Anything memorable; From our zany adventures around the Western United States to our unspeakable acts in other countries. *shhh!*

So hide yo kids, hide yo wife, cause I posted up at least thirty seven thousand pictures up in here.

“Whoo hoo! to 2010. The good times, the bad. The ups and downs. Whoo hoo, I say! Whoo hoo!”
4theriders
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Quite probably the single phrase/question I heard most during my 9 days in Baja, Mexico was “Choo hab steekers?” I’ve come to understand that stickers mean a lot to those people…the young children running around the streets barefooted to the geriatrics, leathery wrinkled skin and hunched over from probably a lifetime of hard work…work like the most of us would never understand. I’m pretty sure stickers represent status. If you’ve got stickers, and you give them stickers, you become a celebrity of sorts…if you didn’t have any (which I did forget to bring some with me while prerunning and the likes a few times), suddenly their expressions change from excitement to “choo hab monies por tacos?”

baja 500 stickers

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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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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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So, I expected hellish June temperatures…but instead, all weekend, we were treated to March-like weather… what gives? Is the world going to implode next week? Is global warming a myth afterall? Is it really global cooling we have to be worried about? OMG, should I dig a bunker in my back yard?!?

//me runs and hides

Anyhow, I arrived with my trio of dastardly feinds mid morning on Saturday only to find that the dates on my calendar musta been wrong, cause the paddock seemed nearly empty compared to rounds in the past. It looked more like a trackday than a race weekend…but no matter, all the fun and excitement was still there. Code 4 brought back some of the Saturday night love. The fast guys were still fast. The racing was still awesome.

Here’s some pics…

    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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