Here are a few photos from the Jerry Richert Sr. Memorial that I set aside back in August but never got around to posting.
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| Travis Whitney |
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| Phillip Mock |
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| Brooke Tatnell |
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| Mark Meeks and Greg Parent interview Jerry Richert Jr. |
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| The IRA Feature winner's trophy |
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| Richert family pays tribute |
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| Ricci Lepinski driving a replica of the Duce |
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| Former employer pays tribute to a legend |
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| IRA action |
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| UMSS action |
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| Chris Graf UMSS Feature winner & 2013 UMSS champion |
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| Mark Dobmeier IRA Feature winner |
The Jerry Richert Sr. Memorial race concluded an 11 event season which is the fewest shows I have attended in many years. My original plan was to come in at closer to 20 shows but early season cancellations and our home improvement project cut my schedule in half. It wasn't the best year I have had numbers wise but certainly some of the best racing I have seen in recent years. The UMSS has upped the ante on Sprint Car racing in our region and totally changed the way I approach my racing schedule. In the past fans in our area went through some lean years where we'd only get to see a handful of Sprint Car specials and we'd either travel to see Sprints or attend other types of racing. Now we've got a situation where a person can attend Sprint Car races every weekend all summer long with a minimum of travel.
Going into the 2014 season I've got some obstacles to overcome before I can finalize my schedule that include finishing the home improvements, replacing my camera body, learning a new OS and software. In addition to those immediate concerns other interests and increased family responsibilities have cut into racing as well. There is one other thing that has been cutting into my racing attendance the past few years but I haven't been willing to admit it until now. I hate to even say it but here goes....I'm getting old. I turned 62 in September and I'm starting to feel the physical effects of getting older a little more each year. It's a subtle change, every year I lose another step and find it increasingly difficult to push myself out the door on a Friday night after a week of work. There were a couple of times last season that I had to take a break in my van with the AC on because the heat was getting to me. That didn't used to happen ten years ago.
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| My home project included wood flooring, new baseboard and refinishing doors, trim and stair rails |
I decided to make up two schedules for the 2014 season. The first schedule consists of 20+ events and includes trips to Jackson, Knoxville, and Superior as well as big local events such as the Masters and USA Nationals. That is my "wish list" schedule based on "singing for my supper" by contributing to publications, in other words business as usual. The second schedule comes in at six races at my own expense and at this point in time that appears to be the version most likely to come to fruition. I'd like to be in a circumstance where I could do more but that will have to wait a few years until I retire. I will have to replace my camera body before I feel comfortable making a commitment to any publications and had planned to do so before the season begins. I had my eyes on some refurbished Nikon models that are an upgrade from what I have but the ones I saw on Amazon that were priced within my budget all sold out during the holidays. Hopefully in a couple months it will be a buyers market again and I'll be able to find the one I'm looking for.
** Note that I found the link to the used cameras on Amazon and there are still plenty of deals to be found. The problem wasn't that the used D200's were all sold out, they changed the link on the page so that I didn't see it. There shouldn't be any problem finding a replacement camera body before the start of the 2014 season.
** Note that I found the link to the used cameras on Amazon and there are still plenty of deals to be found. The problem wasn't that the used D200's were all sold out, they changed the link on the page so that I didn't see it. There shouldn't be any problem finding a replacement camera body before the start of the 2014 season.
My six year old Compaq computer crashed a couple of months ago so I was stuck without a PC. I use my computer for photo editing, recording and mixing music, video editing, websites and word processing. I could have gone out and bought a new computer but that would have been an expensive proposition. After factoring in the computer and necessary security and productivity software upgrades I'd have been well over $1,000 and I'm making an effort to gain some ground on my debt over the next few years to prepare for retirement. Fortunately a friend who salvages company computers at work came to my rescue with the offer a used Dell. It's an office build with a smaller power supply that is not capable of running a video card for gaming but I was familiar with this model after having used one at work for several years and knew that they're reliable performers. I opened it up and installed two larger hard drives, the media card reader and front USB ports from my failed computer, two more gigs of memory and a wireless keyboard and mouse. I've got an OEM 3d graphics card specifically built for this computer but I haven't had time to tweak Linux so that it will work. You see, this computer did not come with an operating system so my solution was to install the Ubuntu Studio version of Linux. Several of my favorite programs only run on Windows so but I was able to run them on Linux through a compatibility layer program called Wine.
The Dell runs great and I'm very grateful to my anonymous donor for supplying me with a box that I could hot rod. I'd like to be able to say that all is well with Stan's computer and it is in the sense that I've got everything working to my liking. The only downside is that I was thrust into an entirely different way of approaching my work flow so my productivity is nowhere near where it needs to be for the coming racing season. I have resolved most of the technical issues that come with configuring a Linux distribution to a specific computer but I'm still not up-to-speed with photo and website editing. Recording and editing music are going extremely well and I'm getting the hang of video editing as well. The photo and website editing will come with time as I'm still in the process of evaluating the various programs available to find the ones that best fit my needs. Unlike Windows where the OS costs a couple hundred bucks and each program must be purchased separately Linux offers a repository of thousands of free open source programs for every application imaginable. The challenge is finding the right programs and learning how they work. To put it in perspective, think of me as a 100 words per minute typist who was suddenly forced to hunt and peck with two fingers on a totally different keyboard layout and you'll get an idea where I'm at. I totally committed myself to Linux in part so that I can keep my expenses down but also as a way to challenge myself to learn new things.
I'm not sure what direction I want to take this blog and the gotomn.com website going forward. When I started the gotomn.com website in 1999 there weren't very many racing sites around. Facebook, Twitter, streaming video and high speed internet had yet to be introduced. In those days of dial up connections and x486 computers, 80 gig hard drives and 8mb of ram just waiting for photos to load was a chore. Back then if I uploaded a couple dozen photos to my website it was a big deal. Today photographers upload thousands of shots from every race that you can order online. In 1999 having a racing message board on your website was a big deal that attracted thousands of visitors. Today people carry around phones that can do 1000x more than those old x486 computers and the online world that existed when I got online is a distant memory.
Things are still pretty busy. My son-in-law James Zimmerman recently released a book that is available on Amazon as well as brick and mortar book stores such as Barnes & Noble. Jimmy has been doing television and radio interviews as well as book signings around the Twin Cities area. My wife and I are mentioned prominently in the book and we attended one of his recent lectures and book signings. Some of my racing friends might recall me talking about my youngest daughter Roberta and her fiance Jason living with us for a couple years. They have since moved down to the Twin Cities where Jay was able to setup a practice space so he can pursue his love of music. His band Via has been playing at some of the clubs around downtown Minneapolis including the Pour House and the Fine Line Music Cafe. We have been trying to make it to as many of their gigs as possible. Here's a clip of Via from the Fine Line.
Jay and I spent many hours sitting around the fire ring jamming while they were living with us. As you might have guessed all this music has inspired me to get back into playing the guitar. I have been playing on and off for about 45 years but I would leave it sit in the corner for months (years?) at a time without picking it up. After floundering around at that pace for a couple decades I decided to take it more seriously so I picked up a few cheap electrics and hacked around on those for a few years. Last spring I got sick of playing cheap junk so I popped for a Gibson SG 1967 reissue, one of only 400 built to the original 1967 specifications. The minute you hear this guitar in rock mode with some distortion you'll recognize that vintage 60's psychedelic sound. Of course it follows that I would get back into home studio recording, here's a brief sample of a mellow tune I was experimenting with.
Did I mention that my son Les is now part owner of a deep and wide 14' fishing boat with a 25 hp motor? I used to fish just about every weekend year around so the idea of getting back out on the lake sounds inviting.
Maybe you can understand a little more about where I'm coming from as far as the racing goes the past couple years. It's not that I don't love racing, to the contrary, I still love racing and always will but I also love many other things. I'm not getting any younger so I'm trying to enjoy as many of my interests as possible while I can. I approach racing hands on, in other words I'd rather spend the night in the pits and infield taking photos than to sit in the stands. Unfortunately things aren't getting any cheaper, the cameras are worn out and it looks like big oil will continue to jack gas up to $4 per gallon every summer. I almost always attend races alone and that isn't going over as well since the grandkids came along. I've been going to dirt track races for over 50 years so I think it's safe to say that I'll always have an interest in the sport. I'm not one of those folks who's going to dedicate my existence to dirt track racing to the exclusion of everything else. Yeah, I did that for quite a few years and did the racing media gig but that's a hard pace for a family man with many interests to maintain and hopefully we'll get another opportunity to ramp it back up to that level in the coming years.
Did I mention that my son Les is now part owner of a deep and wide 14' fishing boat with a 25 hp motor? I used to fish just about every weekend year around so the idea of getting back out on the lake sounds inviting.
Maybe you can understand a little more about where I'm coming from as far as the racing goes the past couple years. It's not that I don't love racing, to the contrary, I still love racing and always will but I also love many other things. I'm not getting any younger so I'm trying to enjoy as many of my interests as possible while I can. I approach racing hands on, in other words I'd rather spend the night in the pits and infield taking photos than to sit in the stands. Unfortunately things aren't getting any cheaper, the cameras are worn out and it looks like big oil will continue to jack gas up to $4 per gallon every summer. I almost always attend races alone and that isn't going over as well since the grandkids came along. I've been going to dirt track races for over 50 years so I think it's safe to say that I'll always have an interest in the sport. I'm not one of those folks who's going to dedicate my existence to dirt track racing to the exclusion of everything else. Yeah, I did that for quite a few years and did the racing media gig but that's a hard pace for a family man with many interests to maintain and hopefully we'll get another opportunity to ramp it back up to that level in the coming years.
Jason has been telling me that I should start a Reverbnation page so that I can share my tunes so I have been working on some new tunes. The sample I shared above was recorded on my old PC and the tunes I'm doing on this new system sound much better. Switching to Linux forced me to do some research on my recording software and I discovered some tweaks that improved the sound quality. I'd like to think that my playing has improved but I'm old so maybe I'm just going deaf and can't hear my mistakes as well. LOL
We'll see you at the races or maybe somewhere else for sure. You never know where I'll show up.
