Ho, ho, ho.....

GOOD MORNING!!!

I'm one of those guys that thinks the holidays are mostly for the women and kids. I enjoy the time off work and getting to see people but the celebration isn't my cup of tea. We won't go into the background of the dates or any of that stuff but look it up sometime and you'll learn some interesting facts about where the customs came from. But in spite of my indifference Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all.

There's a lot of off season shuffling going on right now. As I mentioned in my last entry, Proctor is still tossing around the idea of switching to Friday night. Idiots!!! I seldom get up to either track but have seen some great Sprint Car races at Superior. On the other hand, I've been to Proctor twice, the first time the track rubbered up and locked down, the second time the Feature was fogged out. I didn't think that Proctor was a very nice facility, small grandstands, rocks in the parking area that could easily cause someone to sprain an ankle while walking back to their car in the dark (and fog), so so racing surface, not the worst I've seen but certainly on the bottom half of my list. If it would have been a little nicer I'd have probably gone there more often. I'm not a big Sunday night racer but it's close enough, all freeway and they run the Late Model Feature early enough. I could make it home at a decent hour and get up for work the next morning. That wouldn't be possible for me with Jim Falls or Redwood Falls. But Proctor never gave me a good enough reason on their schedule to justify it. Whatever happens up there I hope everything works out for the best.

Probably the thing that's bothering me the most this season is the number of racers selling their equipment and leaving the sport. Due to the economy a lot of high profile racers are losing sponsors from Nascar all the way to the short tracks. I think that the best short tracks (best shows, best facilities, near population centers) are going to be maybe in a better position than some of the rural tracks.

My personal circumstances have changed a bit as well. The wife lost a portion of her part time income so that's going to cut into my racing budget. Every year I sell ten days of unused sick time and use the money to supplement my racing budget. This year instead of just supplementing the season that money will be the majority of my racing budget. I have expanded my racing media contributions and added another publication to my list and another media pass to my wallet. That makes three primary publications I'll be working for, Midwest Racing Connection (photos and column), Hawkeye Racing News (photos) and Flat Out Illustrated (photos and an occasional column). In addition to that I am an occasional photo contributor to Wissota's All The Dirt as well as Dirt Late Model. Last season I did a special project for the Cedar Lake Speedway NASCAR night program and contributed photos to several tracks during the course of the season. The media work helps out at the gate because without that I wouldn't be able to attend as often.

Finally, last and probably the least is the gotomn.com website. This will be my thirteenth season running a website. It started out in 1997 as a personal homepage and I switched to the gotomn.com URL in April of 1999 so it's the thirteenth for the website and the eleventh racing season as gotomn. The website hasn't grown or taken on new goals but I have tried a few things that I didn't have the time or the commitment to pursue. And the bottom line with my website is that it's a hobby, I'm not competing for sponsors, market share or page hits. It's just my view of the racing world, a place for a history section, some links, a place to display my photo gallery and at times sort of an artistic outlet.

So I'll be attending anywhere from 20 to 30 shows between Cedar Lake, Kopellah and a few other tracks depending on the money situation. If I can pickup some pocket change from photo sales I'll go to Deer Creek for the World of Outlaws and finish out that week in August at the Jackson Nationals. Aside from those shows, I'll shoot for the Kouba at Brainerd, Red Cedar and Rice Lake IRA as well as Friday and Saturday of the Elko dirt week. I would like to get back down to Sun Prairie for the Fireman's Nationals this year but that's a long ways off so we'll see how it goes.

So far it looks like I'll be able to put together a decent season of racing. Maybe not the highest numbers but I'll go to enough of them. I've got some home projects to tend to so some weeks are going to depend on how well the projects are going. Last year not only did a month and a half of racing fall victim to bad weather at the beginning of the season but the projects lost a month and a half as well. Next year I have to get some of those things done and at times it might come down to finishing my work or going racing. I'll time my projects so that I won't miss any of the big shows but a few of the weekly races might have to be put on the back burner.

I'm going to take some steps to simplify the photo posting on my website. They won't look any different but I'm going to cut out some of the post processing. Post processing only needs to be done when they're going to be used as prints but isn't necessary for the gallery. I'm still thinking about getting that lens I mentioned a while back. Even though it's a manual focus I think that I can work with it and get some good results. The GRP Trivia contest is scheduled to start next month so watch the message boards for more on that.

I'll try to post weekly and more often if anything new comes up.

Later,

Stan

I can't believe what's happening in the Twin Ports

As you probably already know, the Superior Speedway recently announced that they will be a NASCAR affiliated track in 2009. Proctor Speedway has countered by suggesting that they might move to Friday nights and go head-to-head with Superior.

I can't believe that Wissota would allow Proctor to go head to head with Superior in an obvious attempt to put them out of business. What are they afraid of? They dominate practically all the racing from eastern Wisconsin to Montana. If they're as successful as they claim to be they should have nothing to fear and just let things play out. If this works for Superior it works, if it doesn't then maybe Superior will return to Wissota. Even if Superior is another sanction it's still good for racing to have both tracks operating in the area.

When it comes to auto racing facilities more tracks is always better. As auto racing enthusiasts the masses think of us all as a bunch of toothless rednecks so we're all in this together. The non-race-fan masses next to these tracks would like nothing better than for the racing community to implode from the inside over our petty differences. Congratulations Twin Ports, you're going to make the non-race-fan neighbors and politicians very happy if you keep bickering among yourselves resulting in the closure of one or both tracks. Once a track is lost to developers it will never come back and that's what's so disturbing about this whole thing.

I have only attended a few IRA shows, a WoO Gumout show and one Late Model special at Superior so I'm observing this madness from a distance. I have been to Proctor twice for a Wissota Sprint special and the Silver 1000. Last season I attended Wissota, Nascar, IMCA, unsanctioned, IRA, WoO, WDRL, Badger Midgets USMTS, USAC Pavement Midgets and a probably a few other sanctions that I'm forgetting. It's all good racing and everyone in the Twin Ports area will be affected if one of OR BOTH of these tracks ends up closing. That's right, I said both, it's going to be a tough economy and Friday night racing isn't necessarily an automatic ticket to success. People have to scramble to go racing after work and Friday crowds are never equal to those at most Saturday night tracks. A Split Friday crowd could backfire and adversely affect both Proctor and Superior.

Both Proctor and Superior are nice tracks with a long tradition. It would be a shame to see Wissota approve Proctor's proposed change to Friday night and end up having it blow up in their face. Personally I support my favorite tracks regardless of their sanctioning affiliation. Maybe down here by the Twin Cities we're a little bit more tolerant of that variety because we've got Cedar, Elko and Raceway (NASCAR) and Arlington (IMCA and one Wissota class) nearby. A short drive south and we're close to USRA Modifieds. When the southeast Minnesota tracks switched their Modifieds to USRA, when Bob Allen became an IMCA supporter and when Cedar Lake switched to NASCAR the sky didn't fall and the sun still came up the next morning.

Stan Meissner

NAVY DAVY'S SHOTS OF THE WEEK!!!

".........in 2000 Bristol Motor Speedway laid dirt on the track and hosted the Dirt Late Models and World of Outlaw Sprints. The lates were on the first weekend. It was quite a sight to see. The track was wicked fast. I remember Thomas Ware rolling his car in turn one, climbing out and jumping up and down with his arms in the air happy at being the first LM driver to flip his car there. It was very dirty. The cars would raise the dirt and it settled in the crowd. With the bleachers completely surrounding the track the dirt had nowhere to go but on us. We were orange at nights end.
The track was so fast that with all the pressure on the right rear the rims were blowing apart. Mike Balzano had a huge lead in the feature when he was the first to lose his. Jimmy Mars was running great when his came apart. Several drivers suffered the same problem. They had a mandatory caution on lap 50. Dale McDowell who won this event found a crack in his right rear rim. They let them change tires.
It was great being there that weekend. It'll probably never happen again. This weeks shots come from that weekend. Some of our local guys showed up, Jerry Redetzke, Eric Pember, Jimmy Mars, John Bey, and Lance Mathees are few I can think of off the top of my head.
See you at the races in '09............."

NAVYDAVY'S SHOT OF THE WEEK!!!

".........temps at or below zero, snow on the way, geeze must be winter. East Bay was on the Speed Channel Saturday. While I'm not much for TV racing it was good see the Lates going. It's been two months now since my last show at Tri-Oval.
I wonder what will become of racing now with the car companies in the trouble they're in. How will this effect NASCAR and in my opinion, even more important our local dirt tracks. With one in every ten workers attached to the auto industry what will happen if even one of the "Big Three" go under? It's not a pleasant thought.
This weeks shot comes from Kopellah and the streeters putting on another great show. Jeff Heintz leading Krista Swearingen and a three wide bunch behind her. That's Jimmy Randall on the outside.
See you at the races in '09........................"

Thursday December 4 thoughts...

It's December 4th and I'm looking ahead to the 2009 racing season. Wow, it could be a rough one but I'm not sure at this point where media hype leaves off and reality starts. I was raised by depression era grandparents and was lectured daily about how rough things were for them during the 30's. They pounded it into my head to be thrifty and cautious about using credit and that has stayed with me my whole adult life. The media is telling us that this is the worst economic slowdown in many decades and the plight of the auto makers seems to underscore what they're saying. I've been through some slowdowns when unemployment got into the double digits and my job was a victim of one of those recessions. The core economy soldiered on and people needed an entertainment outlet to forget about the hard times during all those past slowdowns so there was still racing. We'll see what happens and hope for the best for all the hard working people out there. That's all we really can do when things happen that are beyond our control.

As far as my plans for 2009 go I'd like to try to hang onto my truck for (as long as it keeps running) so I can go another racing season without making payments. It's necessary for me to own and maintain two vehicles on one income and as anyone that knows me will testify I make due with what I have. The wife drives the nicer of the two vehicles and I get the Ranger without cruise or air but I prefer to drive the truck despite those inconveniences. If I wasn't putting every spare cent I have into chasin' racin' I would stay home and wouldn't need two sets of wheels. Anyways, if the old Ranger can hang in there for another year I'll be happy because it will help me to keep chasing races. It's always been a year to year thing with me that's contingent on my family circumstances as to whether I can keep doing this or not. So far so good but this season is shaping up to be a big challenge for everybody.

The plan this year is to write and/or submit photos to a variety of publications. I plan on continuing with my column for MRC and doing an occasional article for other publications. I'll be sending pictures to MRC, Hawkeye, Flat Out and an occasional shot to All The Dirt on nights when there aren't any ATD or track photographers on hand. I plan on continuing with the gotomn website but don't have any major expansion or improvements planned. I have been doing my website since late 1996 (got the gotomn domain in 1999) and I don't think at this time that it's very relevant anymore. Not that it ever was very relevant (LOL) but early on it got a lot more attention than it does now. Back when the internet was new, most people still didn't have home computers so it was a more tight knit group of hard core fans and most of the racing sites were hobby sites like mine. As time went on more commercial sites came online and the original hobby sites like mine either became businesses or fizzled out. Actually, I think maybe with the tight economy some of the sponsored sites might have a tough go of it and it could affect the printed publications as well. Provided that things don't get too difficult for me personally and I can keep gotomn online maybe there will be a bigger niche for it in the future. On the other hand maybe I'll get tired of it or I won't be able to sustain it anymore. But the bottom line is that I don't plan on making any big changes to the website. We'll be doing the GRP Trivia Contest next month and I'll be doing a little bit of updating as time permits.

Screen savers...arghhh!!! Man, those things are a lot of work so I'm not sure if I'll be doing them or not this year. Maybe just a few computer backgrounds this time around. I'm really not sure with everyone switching to Vista if people still use screen savers or not. Mine have been tested in Vista and they work but they stopped updating the screen saver program I'm using and I was never very happy with the photo resolution. I'd use some great shots to create my savers then I'd import them into the savers and the program would degrade the quality of the photos so they didn't look anywhere near as good as what I intended. Besides, it's a lot of time and work involved to create them. We'll see, maybe the mood will hit me and I'll put something together before the contest.

Preliminary plans are to do a schedule pretty close to what I have done the past few years. As far at travel, last season I attended a USAC Midget race at La Crosse, a couple of races at Jackson, and the WoO at NCS and Princeton. I went to Chateau at Lansing for a USMTS race and I liked that track so I'll try to get down there for the USMTS again. The crowd at La Crosse wasn't very good so I don't expect them to invite USAC back again and that's a shame because it was an awesome race. I'll try to get down to Jackson a couple times and would like to go to Sun Prairie for the Fireman's National again. Aside from those shows I'll be going to Cedar Lake and some UMSS races at Kopellah. Pretty much the same thing I have been doing. Once every few years I'll take a trip to Knoxville but with the old truck I'm not able to travel much.

Well, that's going to about do it for this blog entry. I was posting every day there for a while but that's a difficult thing to keep up. I'll try to put something on here once a week or so to let you all know what's going on. I realize you're not hanging on the edge of your seat wondering what I'm up to but I consider this like a chat with friends.

Later!

Busy weekend...Saturday OT, painting and the Vike's game...

I worked a few hours of OT on Saturday then had a paint brush thrust into my hands when I got home. It's a good thing that I stocked up on beer and B Movies so I had something enjoyable to do later in the evening. Two of three movies worked in our DVD player but the one that looked the most entertaining is that one that didn't work. It was a football movie and I believe I heard somewhere that the team it was based on was the Duluth Eskimos in the early 1900's. In fact I think they might have shot some footage up in the Twin Ports. Anyways, that movie decided it didn't want to load. The other two were of the Sci Fi genre, the first being a shootum up with aliens and the second was billed as being based about the Phoenix Lights incident of '97 but didn't prove to be factual to the event it was based on. If you're not familiar with the Phoenix Lights incident in '97 you'd do well to do some research on what happened there. Long story but a very interesting experience worth the read. We're not alone. I'm convinced of that.

I have been going through some of my photos from the 2008 season and used one to create this windows wallpaper in 1024x768 resolution. I like the composition of this shot taken with the 500mm down the entire length of the backstretch at Cedar Lake. I had taken my first shots during hotlaps up in turn four and worked my way around the parameter of the track as the light changed until I ended up in this spot. A few minutes after this shot was taken I lost my light and had to pack it up for the night and put the flash on. In manual mode you're looking at the viewfinder and pretty much eyeballing what you see, guessing your settings as the light changes as you keep moving towards the available light. It's an "on your toes" sort of shooting but you can catch a few sweet shots in the process. If you want to maximize the number of good shots you get you wouldn't try something like this but if you're looking for something unique it's worth gambling on.




Not bad for a $150 lens


It's interesting to read the reviews on this lens. Most people complain that they could not get any sharp images with it. I'm kind of hesitant to admit it but I have taken quite a few photos with this lens that have appeared in racing papers and magazines. Kind of reminds me of what my cousin used to say about his race car, "it ain't the chrome that make's it go." The same could be said about my camera equipment, I try to get the most out of what I've got.

The conspiracy has begun. The usual winter time bantering about the Superior Speedway and what sanction they will use in the coming season. There are a bunch of threats that something like 40 drivers won't compete there if they don't stay with Wissota. My take? As long as they have their Sprint specials I don't give a #^%@ what they do for their weekly deal. As a matter of fact I haven't made it up there for the Northern Nationals for a couple of years so it's really not a matter of concern at all for me anymore. At one time I enjoyed going up to Superior but I had some hassles at the gate and difficulty getting vacation on race days so I haven't been up there for a while. They were on my schedule this year but I think they must have canceled their spring IRA race because I never got up there. Maybe it was the weather, I don't remember. At one time I considered Sprint Car racing at Superior a must see event but kind of lost interest. That happens for me whenever a track loses "the list" and I have to deal with that king of thing. Maybe we'll get back up there now that Butch has the track again.

Another interesting topic on the boards. One central 100. Again, who cares? Just go to whatever is most convenient and fits your circumstances. I go to the Legendary 100 because it's CLS and you can never go wrong by attending a multi-day CLS show. Others my disagree but CLS invented the 100 and is legendary in that respect.

We'll, there's a lot more things to rant about but I'm going to tend to other matters now. Later!!!

NAVY DAVY'S SHOT OF THE WEEK!!!

".......after as cold a week as we've had it's hard to think about anything but staying warm. For the most part racing is over across the nation for '08. Which brings to mind this question, what lays in store for '09 with the economy in such bad shape?
Will car counts be down? Will tracks beable to stay open? The only bright spot I see is gas prices tumbling. How long will this last? I know I'm staying around home a lot more these days. To bad they waited til the race season was over.
This weeks shot comes from 2004 at the Red Cedar Speedway. Tony Bahr, Luke Rofers, and Rick Hanestead coming out of turn two. Hanestead "tire hopped" Rofers and spun out. It ended his night.
See you at the races in '09................."

Thursday Nov 20, 2008 thoughts...

Three Wide Media publisher of Flat Out Illustrated, Dirt Lake Model and Dirt Modified have a special offer going right now. You can subscribe for an entire year to all three for $60 or pick two for an entire year for $42. I subscribe to Flat Out and Dirt Late Model so I'll have to take a look and see what my expiration dates are. That's a great deal so if you're not subscribing to any of these publications this is a great opportunity.

There has been a lot of chatter on the websites lately about a variety of issues. I'll skip the non-racing stuff for the time being and get right into what seems to be a developing controversy among Sprint fans. The controversy is whether 410 or 360 racing is better. From my point of view they're both fun to watch but 410's, especially the Outlaws, do tend to string out in single file during most of the Heats that I have seen. They're pure speed and it takes a tremendous talent to tame one but some of the side by side racing has been sacrificed. On the other hand, 360's offer more side by side racing but they're a few ticks slower on the stop watch.

The way I look at it the 360's we see today are faster than the cars many of the legends of the sport drove in their time. I saw some great drivers turning laps times that would have bored some of the current crop of pure speed fans. I that being a Late Model and Modified fan in addition to Sprints it has made me appreciate how entertaining good side by side racing can be. Then there's non-wing Sprints, they're in a league of their own. If you have never seen non-wing Sprints or Midgets you've got to make it a point to see them.

But where was I? Oh yeah, talking about the 410's and 360's. It's all good racing, some people have one favorite class, others like some variety. Whatever works for you.

I'll be writing more thoughts as I get time. Later!

NAVY DAVY'S SHOT OF THE WEEK!!!

".....this weeks shot goes back to 2000, it was another of our mega trips. Three weekends and two weeks on the road. It started with the "Show Me" at West Plains Mo. We got there in time for the Thursday night practice and the great BBQ dinner. Due to rain both Friday and Saturday they ran the whole show on Sunday. Ray Cook was the winner that year. After staying with Merry's sister for a few days we were off to Bristol TN. That was the year they laid dirt on the track and brought in the Late Models. I have a cousin who live about 30 miles away and we stayed with them a few days. We then left for the holy grail of dirt tracks-Eldora for the "Dream 100". On the way we stopped at CJ Rayburn's shop in Indiana. Billy Moyer and Don O'Neal were prepping their cars for Eldora and we talked with them and of course CJ. It was quite a trip and seeing three of the biggest races that year was great.
This weeks shot is Gary Stolba, Jimmy Mars, and Edwin Wells during a heat race.
See at the races in '09..........."

Another month goes by without a blog post by Stan...

I'm on vacation today so I have been spending a few hours cleaning up computer files and surfing online. One thing that has been on my mind lately is that I dropped the ball and all but stopped posting to this blog. I guess you could say that my level of passion for racing goes up and down. This time of the year I usually like to take a break from racing but I never stop thinking about it. I have been watching the economy lately and thinking about what effect that's going to have on all of us, not just on racing. I'm not going to get into politics or finger pointing because I don't think that's a constructive way to solve problems. You won't see any predictions from me because I simply don't know. I just try to go with the flow and do my best.

If you were following this blog when I was posting almost daily you probably are thinking that Navy Davy has hijacked it. No, that isn't the case, it only takes me a minute to post his "Shot of the Week" and comments as opposed to me coming up with something to blog about and finding the time to post it. I have been doing some photo work and spent quite a bit of my free time working on a magazine article and other writing obligations. Now that they have been completed I am going to try to get more into the habit of blogging on a regular basis. I'll see if I can come up with some ideas.

I'm considering another lens purchase during the off season. I was very happy with the 85mm f1.8 fixed focal length lens I bought last winter. You're probably all familiar with what a zoom lens is. Most racing photographers like a zoom for a variety of reasons and one of the most popular is the Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 VR. It's a great lens but it's heavy and costs around $1,600 new. I can't justify the purchase of a $1,600 lens when I'm driving around in a truck that's worth about that same amount. In addition to being more expensive zoom lenses aren't as sharp as fixed focal point lenses and most prime lenses are faster. The lower the f stop number the faster the lens so an f2.8 is fast, an f2 is faster and an f1.8 is even faster. Sigma makes a nice 50-150mm f2.8 that currently sells for around $700-$800. Last winter I spent close to that for the 85mm, a new camera bag and several other incidental accessories. I'm not in a position to shell out that kind of money this off season but I have found an alternative.

First I should point out that fixed focal length lenses like my 85mm are what is commonly called a "prime" lens. The advantage of a prime lens over a zoom is that you get sharper images. The disadvantage is obviously that you can only focus at one distance. For example, my 85mm is great for catching those 2 and 3 wide shots both day and night. On the other hand, if a Sprint Car is running way up by the wall I can get a sharp image but it doesn't fill the frame adequately. I do have a budget priced 70-300mm f4.5-5.6 zoom, the cheaper zooms aren't fast (f2.8) and the further you zoom out the slower they become. As far as image quality the cheap lenses can often provide results comparable to pro lenses within a partial range of their zoom capabilities. My 70-300mm is great from around 85-220mm but anything beyond that range is too far to get the image quality I want and that lens is only good until the light starts to fall off.

On a typical night if it's sunny I'll take some outside the track shots with the 70-300mm during hotlaps then run down to the infield and shoot with it during the Heats. Next I'll switch to my 85mm and either shoot with that one for the rest of the night or switch to my 28-105mm f2.8 Tamron for the Features if victory lane is tight quarters. The Tamron 28-105mm was $800 new but I regret that purchase because it's not good for action shots. I have learned it's strengths and weaknesses and can get acceptable results with it but I only use it when I'm at a place where there are cramped quarters and the 85mm won't work for victory lane.

The addition I'd like to make to my collection this year is a Nikon 135mm f2.8 E IA-S manual focus lens. This lens was originally made for Nikon film cameras and is still sold new at several online outlets. The 135mm will mount on my digital but I have to shoot entirely in manual mode and focus manually. It's a "prime lens" and the reviews say that sharpness is outstanding. I would only use it during the Heats and B Mains, the 135mm will give me enough reach to get some better sideways angles and to catch those Sprints when they're up by the wall. This lens costs about $190 delivered as compared to $700-$1,600 for a good quality fast zoom lens. Manual focus is tricky. What you have to do is focus on a specific spot and take your photos when the cars "hit your mark" at exactly the right moment. Consequently, your "keeper ratio" isn't going to be as good as it's going to be with a zoom. I'd estimate that with the 85mm I'm getting 70% to 80% keepers (in focus) shots. With the manual focus my keepers are probably going to drop down to about 50% depending on the track, lighting, dust in the air, etc. So you can see why the 135mm would be something I'd only use for part of the evening and not at every race.

You'd probably be surprised to know that one of the tracks I need more reach for is Princeton. From the stands that might not make sense but in spite of it's small size you've got to stand back further to be safe and it's a wide track with high banking so distance can be a problem. Besides Princeton a couple other places where you need the reach are the big tracks like Jackson and Knoxville. I will rarely if ever shoot at Knoxville and seldom get down to Jackson but a little more distance will help at those places. I think that considering the cost of less than $200 I can justify a lens that I'm not going to be using all the time. The 70-200mm and 80-200mm high buck lenses aren't close enough for some of the tighter victory lane areas so I don't see myself ever buying one of those.

Besides the 135mm prime I've got my eyes on another prime lens as well. It's the Nikon 50mm f1.8 standard lens that sells for a little over $100. I found out that I like opening up the 85mm wide open to f1.8 and taking some wide angle shots with it. I get great results of full fields going into the first turn, four wide salutes and that sort of thing. Another application where I like f1.8 is when they line up all the cars on the front stretch and introduce the drivers. A 50mm f1.8 prime would give me a wider angle and it's a good lens for non-racing stuff too so eventually I'd like to add one of those so that I have three prime lenses.

That's about all the prime lenses I want to carry because changing lenses when it's dusty exposes your sensor and you can get dust on it. I have a "Sensor Scope" cleaning kit and I clean my sensor pretty often during the racing season. An easy way to see if you have dust on your sensor is to lock your camera in manual focus and take several photos of the blue sky. If there is dust on the sensor you'll see little spots in the same place on every photo. Dust and moisture are two things that you have to deal with when taking racing photos. I carry a plastic bag so I can cover my camera if it starts raining and a towel so I can wipe it off. I also like to cut up old t-shirts and use that type of cotton material to clean my lens during the evening because they don't leave scratches. It works great for cleaning off the lenses on my reading glasses as well.

Well, that's about all I've got for now. When I buy the 135mm, probably as we get closer to the racing season, I'll post some test shots. I turned the auto focus off on one of my lenses recently and practiced focusing manually. The photos turned out good enough that I'm confident I can get some good shots with a manual focus prime lens. Some racing photographers only shoot with manual focus so it's not impossible but it takes some practice. The focusing rings on manual focus lenses are a little more precise and forgiving than the ones on the auto focus lenses. You can turn the auto focus off and manual focus and auto focus lens but they're not as precise as a dedicated manual focus lens. I forgot to mention that I have a fixed 500mm manual focus lens that I sometimes like to use for outside the track shots. It's an f8 lens so I can only use it for hotlaps during the time of the summer when it stays light the longest. The lens isn't a Nikon so none of the focus assist or metering works. With the 135mm the focusing dot in the viewfinder should work which should make it easier to shoot with than my 500mm. I have gotten some pretty good shots on full manual no metering with the 500m. I like using it once in a while because I can get some neat angles, here's a sample:



Like I said, this lens is 100% manual and has to be used in good lighting. The fastest f stop is f8 but I get my sharpest images at f11 or slower. Also, I have to use 1/500th shutter speed when the cars are coming at me head on like this. Usually I can get away with half as much shutter speed but in this case I have to speed it up a little. In daylight I have an advantage because I can hold the shutter button and take two or three shots in quick succession. I won't have that luxury at night when using flash because of the recycle times.

Well, that's going to do it. Hope I didn't bore you too much with photo geek talk.

NAVY DAVY'S SHOT OF THE WEEK!!!

"........this weeks shot comes from Hales Corner near Milwaukee in 2001. We were on quite a tour that year. We followed the UMP Summer Series and the Hav A Tampa Series for a week. We started at Brownstown Indiana on a Friday. Saturday found us at Kentucky Lake near Calvert City KY then the next day it was off to Danville Ill, from there it was Hales Corner. We then jumped off the UMP tour and headed for Davenport Iowa for the Hav A Tampa race. Wednesday was a travel day with no racing on our way home to Cedar Lake Speedway for three days. Our final stop on this tour was Shawano WI for another "HAT" race.
This weeks shot is Scott James hiking it up at Hales Corner. Hales Corner closed a few years ago. I heard Menards bought the property. The track and facilities were very shabby. Rough track, shoddy facilities. Very unimpressive. Still I'm glad I got to see a show there.
See You at the races in '09...................."

NAVY DAVY'S SHOT OF THE WEEK!!!

"........the racing season has been over for a few weeks now here in the Northland. Saturday night Speed had a live World of Outlaws event bringing both the Sprints and Lates together for their finale. It was fun watching a dirt event on TV. Josh "Kid Rocket" Richards won the Late Model feature and Fargo's Donny Schatz won the Sprint feature. The track looked good and racey and it was.
Since I just completed my tenth full year of race photography I thought it would be fun to go back and find some interesting shots from those past years. It's been a lot of fun being out there. The middle of the track offers some interesting perspectives that you don't see from the stands. In a way it puts you in the action. I know I've had to run from errant cars a few times.
This weeks shot comes from 2004 at Cedar Lake, going down the back stretch three wide are Joel Cryderman, Jeff Martire, and Paul Brust.
See you at the races in 2009....................."

Sorting things out after the season...

Judging by the dwindling number of message board posts on all of the racing boards people have shifted into post season mode. That's my situation right now too, I'm kind of taking a little break from being absorbed in racing. Well, not exactly a break as I'm busy with a writing project. Tonight I'm trying to locate a couple of old "Race Show" DVD's with a specific driver interview that I need a quote from. Those darned DVD's were sitting here on my desk, not just for weeks but for a couple of years and now I can't find them. Who knows where they ran off to...

A week from Saturday (25th) the first UMSS meeting will be held at the Settlement just north of Somerset at 11:30am. I'm looking forward to seeing what everybody has to say about this deal and how much interest there is. I'll be writing a lot more about it over the off season.

Well, I better see if I can figure out where that DVD went. Later.

NAVY DAVY'S SHOT OF THE WEEK!!!

".........the tracks are all silent now. We closed our '08 season at that little three corner bullring known as Tri-Oval Speedway for the "Great Pumpkin Races.On an unseasonably warm night the action was hot. Three Superstock drivers going for the Wissota National point title were there. Ross "Roscoe"Dixon finished third in the feature and takes the title back to Ramona South Dakota. Bob Timm won the USRA Mod feature. Also on hand were Streetstocks, Midwest Mods, Vintage cars, and Hornets. A scary moment near the end of the Hornet feature saw a nasty roll over. They had to call in the Fountain City F.D. to extricate the driver from the car. It was a long night with many yellows but the racing was good. It was great to see all my racing pals for one last time this season. Mean Gene, Hoosiers Up, and of course Zimmy. Talked with a lot drivers and fans and had an enyoyable night. Even Zimmy found a new freind. See you at the races in 2009......."

NAVY DAVY'S SHOT OF THE WEEK!!!

".....we made our first trip to Deer Creek Saturday. It was a beautiful Fall day. The racing at "The Creek" was pretty good. The Midwest Mod feature was won by about a foot by Al Wytaske. Close racing all night long in all classes. Bob Timm won a hard fought Mod race, Ross Dixon from Ramona South Dakota took the national points lead over Curt Myers by one point by winning the Superstock feature. Mike Prochnow made it look easy in the Late Model feature. Redetzke and Brent Larson had a great race for second. Larson got the spot. At 9:30 the races were over and they played "I did it my way" by Ole Blue Eyes as we all left for the last time in '08. This weeks shot is th of a fierce battle in the Mod feature. See you at Tri-Oval next Saturday for the final races of the '08 season................"

Got out of the blogging habit

I got out of the blogging habit the past few weeks so I'm going to try to get at it more often now that my season is over. The last race around here is the Tri-Oval and as of now I don't plan to go but that could change before the end of the week. It will depend on the weather and what the family is up to. I've got enough cash left over from this weekend that I could do it so we'll see.

Right now I'm recording the 'Dega Cup race on the DVR and am working on some photos. I'm not in a rush to post my Outlaw photos on gotomn because I doubt that anybody from the WoO is going to look at the website of some hack way up in Minnesota. The WoO used my victory lane photos from NCS and Princeton on their website and that was cool. It was an honor to know that people world wide will see my pics. In addition to using my photos I noticed that the Outlaws stayed at the track to greet the fans and that left a good impression on me. I've talked to the people at a couple of the tracks and they all tell me that the people running the series now are a pleasure to work with. That's a good thing and I'm happy to see them taking some positive steps in that direction.

I've got to do some photo editing and a few other things but I'm going make an effort to post here more often. By the way, what classes were they running at Tri-Oval? LOL

In case anyone is wondering where I've been...

Doing a lot of photo processing and researching information for an article and my monthly MRC online column. I've got some photo orders to tend to during the next few days as well. There were three nights of racing last weekend and two more this weekend then I'll be done until next year.

I will make a longer post when time permits.

Monday, Monday, how ya' doin'?

It's been a while since I have typed a blog entry so I better get busy and catch up with posting my most recent thoughts and experiences.

This past Saturday night I went to Husets Speedway with Chuck Priefer and Dick Kelly. I think they got sick of me talking so I guess they better never go on a racing trip with me and GRP. It took four days to Eldora and back before we finally stopped talking racing. (insert LOL) Seriously though, I enjoy traveling with fellow racing fans and sharing our stories and experiences.

There can be no doubt that Husets is an action track. By way of example, some years I'll go all season without catching a photo of a Sprint Car flip. One night at Husets resulted in a three shot sequence of Donavan Peterson going over as well as two other flips. From an action standpoint it's wild.

Saturday was only my third time at Husets and the first time I have spent the entire night taking photos there. The only other time I took pics there was hotlaps during daylight with my old film camera. Shooting there for the first time with the digital and flash was quite the challenge. Up here at familiar tracks I've got the settings all figured out and a night of shooting goes pretty smooth. At Husets I struggled with the cramped quarters and color balance settings. For some reason I always have problems getting it set right when a track has black dirt. I managed to get some decent photos but they weren't my best work but I'm a self critic so they probably look decent to others. Shooting pics is kind of like driving a race car, you're probably not going to come into another guy's home territory and nail the setup on your first try. I was working with some new more powerful flash batteries and the additional power made a difference in brightness. I'll have to keep that in mind this weekend at Cedar Lake or I'll be doing a lot of post processing on Sunday.

Chuck was standing around talking to Doug Wolfgang so I stopped and stood around with a dumb look on my face. I get tongue tied around Wolfie and can't even tell you why. Maybe it's because he was one of my heroes while he was driving but I still get nervous around Wolfgang. I have always wanted to ask him if he really used to ask Tom Wilke if he could scrape the mud off the 87 car when he was a kid. Tom told me that but Tom never hesitated to bullshit me so I can't be sure. I'll probably never know because I don't think I'll ever work up enough balls to ask Wolfgang an off the wall question like that. He's a helluva guy, his observations are priceless. He's just a regular guy just like the rest of us trying to make sure his family does right and putting food on the table for them. That's the second time I've seen Wolfie this summer and the second time I chickened out and didn't say anything to him.

Doug Clark gave me shit about falling on my ass when I crossed the track. I didn't have any problem taking a shot back at him when he tip toed across the same spot a while later. Clark is easy for me to talk to and he invited a rebuttal by taking the first shot across the bow. I met him at one of the Gopher 50's in Owatonna years ago. He's a nice guy but giving people shit must be what they do for entertainment down in Sioux Falls because he sure handed me a full ration of it. That's alright by me, I like a dry sense of humor. Not everybody can say that Doug Clark gave them shit. Probably just a few Outlaw drivers who got sent to the back for jumping a start and a couple dumb assed photographers like me attempting to transverse a wet track.

I ran into Jimmy Schmidt, my wife's aunt's brother. He builds motors out of a shop in Flandreau. I wouldn't have even recognized him but he walked by with a lawn chair that had his name written on it in magic marker. He might as well have had a damn sign on his forehead, "I'm Jimmy Schmidt." Here's your sign! LOL It was nice seeing him and I'll sent his regards back to Dick and Barb.

The first UMSS meeting is tentatively slated for Saturday October 25. I plan on attending and listening to what their plans are. I'm not an authority on motor rules, tire compounds, that sort of thing but I'm familiar with the MSA of eastern Wisconsin and know they've got a good deal over there. I think this deal will be good for the Sprint teams and it will help out some of the promoters that can't afford to book an ASCS, IRA or Outlaw show. We've got a lot of tracks around this area that fall into that category and they know a Sprint show might draw more fans but aren't able to book one. This might give them that opportunity. The IMCA had some Jackpot Junction series shows this year at Jackson and Kasson that I attended on other nights of the week but they run Arlington on Saturday nights. That makes it difficult to run a JJ show at another Saturday track. Just like everyone else the IMCA teams are fighting increased travel expenses. I think this deal at Cedar Lake, maybe Kopellah and a couple other tracks in that area might work out pretty good. The people organizing this want to generate interest among Street Stock, Super Stock, Midwest Modified drivers that would like to try Sprints. Sprints are never cheap but this deal will make it possible for more people go get involved. Sprint Car racing in eastern Minnesota and western Wisconsin will die out if new drivers don't get involved.

Brooke Tatnell in the Forbrook 5 was leading the Cheater's Day A Main while Mark Dobmeier in the Lunstra 13 worked his way through traffic to second. Mark caught Brooke and got underneath him coming out of turn two. They got together on the backstretch sending Tatnell into a wall scraping pirouette ending his run. Guy Forbrook wasn't very happy with Mark and expressed his displeasure to Dobmeier as he approached victory lane. This was one of those racing deals where you really don't know if one of them slipped or it was on purpose. I have never met Mark but I can't imagine a driver who subbed for Brooke in the Volcano Joe's car at Wilmot

Brooke would be catching a 5am flight the next morning to meet up with the Craig Dollansky team in New York. Craig's arm was broken in an Eldora crash that some have described as the worst they have seen there in 20 years. I wish Craig a speedy recovery and congrats to Brooke for getting the opportunity. When I heard about Craig's misfortune right away I knew Brooke was the best candidate to fill in based on his driving talent, easy going nature and close proximity to Craig's shop. He's been running his own limited deal and subbing in various cars all season so this is a good opportunity to get some WoO exposure. Hopefully he'll have some good finishes and keep his name out there for the next time something opens up. Personally I think if Guy and Brooke could get some sponsorship to run a full or partial Outlaw schedule they'd be a force to be reckoned with. I wish some Minnesota based business would take note of this sponsorship opportunity and come on board.

That's going to do it for tonight. I'll add some more later this week during the Badger Nationals. This should be a good show.

NAVY DAVY'S SHOT OF THE WEEK!!!

".........what a great weekend. Perfect weather both Friday and Saturday. The pits at Red Cedar Speedway over flowing with cars for the 29th Annual Punky Manor Challenge of Champions. Friday night with the Midwest Mods on hand there were nearly 200 cars on hand. So many in fact they were pitting in the infield. Friday was a full show for the midwest mods and heats for the Supers, Mods, and Lates. A very enjoyable night.
Saturday they ran two B-mains for the Supers, Mods, and Late Models. Great racing there. Then it was off to the features. Friday night they ran the MWM feature and Shane Halopka came from 17th to take the win. A very impressive run. Also Friday night they ran The Debbie's and Bongo Dash for the Late Models which was won by Harry Hanson. Saturday's features started with the Superstocks. Shawn Huse in the 1H car was strong and took the win. Craig Thatcher remains nearly unbeatable at Red Cedar. It was his at least his 8th Punky win. John Kaanta got the Late Model win with Harry Hanson second and a fast moving Jimmy Mars third.
All in all it was a great way to end my 2008 season behind the camera. I'll be in the stands at Cedar Lake next weekend to kick back and watch some racing sitting on my butt. That will be it for 2008 as I have other things planned in October. The 2008 season was shorter for me this year with all the early season rainouts. Doesn't seem right we are once again at the end.
This weeks shot comes from the Modified feature at Red Cedar. See you at the races............."

NAVY DAVY'S SHOT OF THE WEEK!!!

"............Mother Nature once again has not been kind to us this weekend. Two of the four days of "The Legendary 100" at Cedar Lake have been washouts. Wednesday night was Midwest Mod and Streetstock night and that went off good. Thursday a steady rain most of the day and then a persistent drizzle wiped us out. All I got for my efforts that night was about two pounds of mud on my shoes. Friday night was great. Cool temps and a mostly clear night made for a fast and racy track as the Late Models, Modifieds,Superstocks,Pure Stocks,and hornets took to the track. It was the hornets first ever appearance at CLS. With the pits full to overflowing it was as good a night as I've seen there. There was some excellent racing and the fans definitely got their moneys worth. Saturday was another story. Once again the steady afternoon rain cancelled the days events. Since Thursday was a washout they ran that show Friday night. Friday nights show was to be run at noon on Saturday. They got two Superstock heats in and once again old Ma Nature stepped in. Today now they plan to wrap the weekend up. Once again Ma Nature threatens to step in so I'm staying put.
Next weekend is the "Punky Manor Challenge of Champions" at the Red Cedar Cedar Speedway in Menomonie.
This weeks shot come from the front stretch at Cedar Lake Friday night. See you at the races..........."

Sunday morning vacation week recap...

I scheduled this week for vacation way back in January when the seniority list went around so here's a recap of how the week went.

On Saturday September 6th I attended the Jerry Richert Memorial at Cedar Lake. Despite about an hour rain delay they managed to get the entire show in. Due to the rain delay we weren't able to pop open our first barley pop until the stroke of midnight. The JR Memorial is an annual camping weekend and we enjoyed the camping experience and post race BBQ put on by the Richert family. If not for the rain delay we'd have been done a lot earlier and had more time to enjoy the post race festivities. Just once I'd like to see the racing conclude at 10:30pm but it wasn't to be this year. Maybe next time. The all night partying is getting to me a little more each season and it's getting harder to recover. I made it to something like 3:30 or 4am but didn't check the time because I couldn't see my cell phone clearly.

Sunday was a recoup day from the JR. I must have got home around 10am but again didn't take note of the exact time. The rest of the day was spent unpacking and cleaning camera equipment, editing photos and watching a little television. I fell asleep early in the recliner.

Monday? The only thing I remember about Monday was going on a long walk and watching the Vikes fiasco. I suppose that I spent some computer time catching up with photos and such. The day doesn't stand out but that's what vacation is for, to unwind. One does not have to be chasing a race or doing anything special to relax. I think I might have had a few beers that day because I had some left over from the JR.

On Tuesday I finally got around to cutting and installing some base board that my wife had stained months ago when we redid our bedroom. We have a powered miter saw so the job went off without a hitch and it looks pretty good. I ran up to Menards and got a couple of 36" laminate pre finished sliding closet doors and track so we put those up. The only problem I ran into was that the doors were about 1/2" too long so I had to cut that much off the bottom. The doors are hollow core but the bottom inner core was longer than 1/2" so it worked out perfect. I have cut a little off the bottom of doors before. You have to use masking tape so the saw blade doesn't splinter the door. What I did to get a perfect cut was clamp a straight piece of board across the bottom of the door as a guide for the skill saw. When we were done we lightly touched up the cut edges with steel wool and presto, a perfectly straight cut that you can't even tell we did.

Wednesday, another day spent wrapping up a few things around the house. The wife has been on call all week for one of her Doula clients so we couldn't do anything special like spending a night at Hinckley. Her client is going to deliver down at Regions in downtown St. Paul so she didn't want to go anywhere. Besides, when she has a birth pending there's no drinks allowed if we were to go anywhere and she's on edge wondering when the phone will ring. That pretty much kept Debbie occupied for the whole week so aside from eating together and saying hi and bye on the way to and from races I didn't see much of her. She spend a good deal of the time doing research down in her office. We've got some family issues with one of our daughters that have been keeping us on the edge of our seats as well. I hope that works out but it's not something I have any control over. Our door is always open but the older we get the more difficult it gets to give up our privacy.

Wednesday, night one of the Legendary 100 and I was looking forward to four nights of racing. The racing in the Street Stocks and Midwest Modifieds was excellent with two exciting Features. These guys aren't the top classes anywhere and they don't race for a huge chunk of money but close racing is always fun to watch. I got home late and stayed up until almost 3am uploading pics to my website. My four and a half year old rechargeable batteries that I use in my flash and power pack were giving me trouble and went dead after only 100 shots. Fortunately I was carrying eight fully charged spares so I continue shooting with four in the flash only. It doesn't recycle as fast but I could still take one shot per lap of the Features and victory lane photos.

Thursday, day two of the Legendary 100. I made the rounds going to Fleet Farm, Menards, Home Depot, Office Max and Northern Tool that morning looking for replacement batteries. I have used a 15 minute charger the past five seasons which works especially well when camping out. Unfortunately Rayovac discontinued the product line so I was forced to consider something else. After running around to the stores and calling the Battery Store I decided to wait until after the season was over. That night the rains came and we all ended up waiting around to see what would happen. The rain eventually stopped and it looked like we might get the show in but right around that time a steady mist that didn't even appear on the radar forced CLS to cancel. They rescheduled the Thursday preliminary to noon Saturday. The pits and infield were a muddy mess.

Friday went pretty well. I decided that I'd have to settle for overnight rechargeables so I went to Walmart and picked up another overnight charger that had two in the package and an additional eight pack to make the total of 10 that I would need. I put them on the chargers and would have to try to get by one more night with the old ones. CLS ran something like 17 Heat races, B Mains and Features. It was a wild night with one Mod tearing down a section of catch fence and snapping the posts right off. There were several other roll overs during the course of the evening so it was a wild night. It was a late night as well and it was going on 2am by the time I got home. The racing went well past midnight so I'm sure the track ended up having to pay a fine for going past curfew. I haven't had a cold in over a year but I started to notice that my throat was getting scratchy and that my nose was a little runny. D*mn, this might not be much fun if it gets any worse. In the meantime my 15 minute batteries only lasted for about 50 shots but I had plenty of backup to finish the night.

Saturday the weather was overcast, damp, humid, cool and clammy. I quickly took a shower, pumped down a couple of cups of mud and put my new batteries in the camera and auxiliary power pack. Unfortunately as it would turn out I didn't get an opportunity to test them at the track. I felt run down and my throat was sore when I woke up and I was getting an irritating tickle so I had to cough once in a while. The cold was obviously getting worse and the weather was not going to help it any. I stopped at a nearby convenience store to get some cough drops then drove through rain all the way from Forest Lake to Osceola. By some miracle it wasn't raining south of Osceola but the skies didn't look good. I got out to the track around 11:15am, signed in, made some quick rounds then ran out and got my camera, long lens and monopod to try some outside shots. They must have been in a rush because they went right into the Canadian and American anthems without hot lapping. They got three Super Stock Heats in the books before it started drizzling. I put the camera away and walked over to where Dan Plan, Vinster and Rick Blewitt were camping. Navy Davy was there with his wife Mary and they invited me to go to the Cedar Creek bar for a burger. I had a couple of beers and a tasty burger and it appeared to have stopped raining. We went back to the track and heard that they had been wheel packing but unfortunately it started raining around the time we arrived. After waiting around a couple more hours in the cool mist (great for my cold...NOT!!!) they canceled until Sunday afternoon. By this time it was obvious I wasn't going to be feeling very well the next morning so I decided I wasn't going to go back on Sunday.

So here I sit on Sunday morning with a sore throat, runny nose and that zonked feeling one gets with a cold. The weather didn't look any better this morning so I checked the CLS website and they canceled the Sunday afteroon race due to wet grounds. The pits were a mess and they're probably still pulling haulers out of the mud with the grader as I type this blog entry.

I was looking forward to seeing all the 100 Features and the Sprint Cars on Saturday night. But I only lost a few hours of my time and the irony of rainouts is that I had the opportunity to talk to some people and get to know them better. You too Jason!!! LOL So my loss really wasn't a loss because anytime I can get to know people it's good. The Saturday night crowd is always the best at the 100 so Cedar Lake did not have a good week. I'm sure some of the internet idiots are going to be blaming them for the weather but any reasonable person knows they did the very best they could. I felt bad for them because I talked to a couple of the owners as well as the track prep people a lot during the course of the weekend. Besides the weather they dealt with torn down catch fences, a very muddy pit area and a lot of unhappy people looking for someone or something to blame. Believe me, I would not want that job but as they say "it is what it is" so that's the hand we have been dealt. All they can do is pick up the pieces sand hope that their remaining events go better than the 100.

Meanwhile I'm going to lay low today and nurse my cold. Tomorrow I have to go back to work after nine days off and it's going to be busy. I'll have to stock up on cough drops and cold medicine. Meanwhile my wife is still waiting for the call from her client so we can't really do anything today. I think it's time to sign off and go watch the Vikings and Nascar race (side by side pictures is great for that).

Later.

Legendary 100 craziness

In my last blog post I wrote "I hope the Legendary 100 isn't going to be that crazy" in reference to the Richert Memorial. Wrong again!!!

Thursday night of the Legendary 100 produced some legends. Unfortunately I can't go into much detail but I'll drop a few hints. The incident involved sippin' whiskey, hooties and several gentlemen not wanting spilled spirits to go to waste. This happened in the vicinity of a certain Late Model with "evil inside" according to a decal on the valve cover. This story will probably end up being legendary.

Gotta get going so I can get out to the track. It's wet and clammy out there this morning so I hope we can dodge the bullet on the "R" stuff.

Hey ya'll, I'm still out here...Tuesday September 9...

I'll bet you thought I gave up blogging. No, I didn't give it up but I have been really busy lately. Labor Day weekend I spent a night at the races and the rest of the time was taken up with family obligations. Last weekend I went to the Jerry Richert Memorial and was dealing with a roofing company and Dish Network. They had to move the dish off my roof and put it on a post out in the yard to clear some trees that had filled in over the years. I've still got a couple that we're going to have to find a way to top off without having to hire it done. I've got an olive tree my wife has been b*tching about for ten years so I'll probably get my brother-in-law over here with the chainsaw sometime after the season ends. I could use some more firewood anyways so we might as well get it done.

I took vacation this week from the JR Memorial to the Legendary 100. I'll probably commute most of the time but maybe I'll spend the night on Friday to take in some parties.

I thought I had seen everything out at the Cedar Lake campground but last Saturday night was a first. There were a couple of "yoopers" (UP of Michigan) who follow the IRA around camping near us. One of them was playing a guitar and both of them had (I'm not kidding) rubber pigeons on their shoulders. I didn't see any bird shit running down their backs so I presume they were rubber. Anyways, they're playing and singing so the guy decides to play the song "tie my kangaroo down" for Brooke Tatnell's pit guy. I didn't catch his name and he went back to Australia yesterday but I'll find out eventually. Anyways Brooke's helper and this guy with the parrot got into a bit of a pissing match trying to outdo each other imitating Arab accents. Then they'd both go back to an Aussie accent, actually the guy with the parrot sounded right on to my untrained ear. And Brooke's helper did a pretty good job at the Arab.

So watching their verbal joust I figured they were just kidding each other. Anyways, a little while later I was sitting in a lawn chair and we hear this crashing sound. Evidently from what I heard second hand Brooke's bud went and got a boom box to drown out the sound of the parrot guy's guitar. So the parrot yooper guy gets ticked off and does a Who concert impersonation smashing his guitar to smithereens. The guy goes back to drinking beer and I ask his brother what the hell happened. His brother says he was pissed at the guitar because a string broke and didn't like that one anyways so he decided to end it's service life then and there. He threw it in the fire and we watched it burn. He let me play it earlier in the day, it had a decent neck on it and played pretty good. I'd have taken it off his hands if I had known he was going to smash and burn it. I could use a second guitar, especially one that sounded that good.

So that was the first time I ever saw guys wearing rubber pigeons performing in the campground and smashing their guitar. Come to think of it I had never seen an Australian with a boom box speaking Arab before either. That's two firsts in one night. I hope the Legendary 100 isn't going to be that crazy but I have a hunch it will go beyond what we saw last Saturday night.

NAVY DAVY'S SHOT OF THE WEEK!!!

".......another great weather weekend for racing. Friday night it was season championship night at Kopellah. The two best races were in the Streetstocks and the Modifieds. Chanda Fjordin Nord won the Streeters by less than a car length over Jeff Hientz and Jason Schill got his first feature win after battling Mike Mueller all race long.
Our original plan for Saturday and Sunday was to head to Hibbing for the "Labor Day Shootout" which is their final weekend of the season. We decided to stay around here though and went to Rice Lake for their final show of the year. It was a good night although a long night. I photographed this show also and was very tired by the end. There were 172 cars in the pits. The high light race of the night was the Streetstock "Little Dream Race". It's pretty neat how they get the payout. They take donations and it adds up pretty fast. Scott Clark the winner took home over 1000.00 dollars. People also donate to different positions such as we did. We put 25.00 bucks up for the 17th place finisher. Everyone comes out with something. I even heard someone put a 12 pack of beer out there for somebody.
Tonite is our final night at Kopellah.
This weeks shot comes from the Late Model feature Satuday night as they go three wide down the front stretch. See you at the races................."

Holiday weekend racing, the Richert Memorial, other ramblings...

Did everyone enjoy the racing over the Labor Day weekend? The only night I had free for racing was Friday so I went to Chateau from work to watch the USMTS Modifieds. Chateau is a nice track, Musco lighting, good food, racy surface, friendly people, I really liked it. I like Mark Noble's new wrap too, it makes me thirsty just looking at it. The 40 lap Feature was outstanding, one of the best I've seen all year in any division. I'll be going back down there in the future.



I have been trying to find Mighty Axe Sprint results. Good luck on that. I checked Speed Net results as posted by North Central, they posted every division except the Sprints. That's the mentality around here that I despise, Sprints getting second class treatment as if they didn't even exist. I don't even want to get started with my thoughts on that because I'll end up putting my foot in my mouth and getting in trouble. In my mind when entry class results are posted but not the Sprints there's something major wrong with this picture. Since when are Sprint Cars second fiddle to Streets, Supers, Pures, B Mods? Or to put it another way, if the Knoxville Raceway held a Super Stock Nationals would the stands be full and the event televised on Speed. You get my point, the Wissota anti Sprint agenda strikes again. We saw it at Rice Lake last week. The ATD paper comes out and there's one brief sentence that says Bill Balog won the IRA Feature but they've got whole paragraphs describing the Modified and Midewest Modified races in lap by lap detail. Sometimes their "back gate" mentality gets to me.

Anyways, I managed to find the Friday results posted on the ASCS website. Joseph Kouba won the Friday A Main. Wow, that one caught me off guard. I don't recall Joseph ever winning a Feature then to come out and win the Axe prelim, congratulations Joseph. I hope that cheered your dad up, he was seeing red earlier this week.

Jerry Richert Jr. and Brooke Tatnell will have their cars on display at County Line Liquor, Forest Lake, Minnesota, on Thursday September 4 from 3pm to 6pm. County Line Liquor is at the first stop light as you head out of Forest Lake on the south side at the intersection of Greenway and 8. I'm going to do my best to hustle over there after my 4pm doctors appointment over in Fridley. Whenever I go to this particular doctor I end up sitting in the waiting room so I'm probably going to get to County Line about the time they're loading their cars in the haulers. I'm going to do my best to get there before they're done. Sprint Car fans, come out and show your support if you're going to be anywhere near Forest Lake.

The Jerry Richert Memorial is the biggest, most anticipated event on my entire racing schedule. I won't go into a long explanation about how that came to be but will simply point out that I know the family and there is a connection to my past.

I don't have time to type much more this morning but maybe later.

Friday, looking forward to Rice Lake IRA...

I'm looking forward to the IRA race at Rice Lake tomorrow night. Last year's winner was Scotty Neitzel and it was a great night of racing.



Also on the card are the Wissota Modifieds, Wissota Midwest Modifieds and the Pure Stocks. Last year the Modified winner was Craig Thatcher but I don't believe Craig is racing much on Saturdays this season so my guess would be that Buzzy Adams will be the man to beat in the Mods.


Craig Thatcher RLS 2007


Kevin "Buzzy" Adams RLS 2007

Rice Lake had one of the better fields of Pure Stocks that I've seen in my travels. They're nowhere near as fast as the other classes but they put on a good race that's fun to watch. The IRA along with these support classes should make it an entertaining night. Rice Lake has been struggling with car counts this season from what I have seen on the results pages. I am not hung up on the sanctioning politics and don't like to see anyone struggle regardless of their affiliation.


RLS Pures 2007

There are some rumors going around the internet boards that the Rice Lake Speedway was sold. I can't verify that and have no idea what goes on behind closed doors so I'll just let those details work themselves out and leave it at that. RLS is an infrequent destination for me anyways as I have only attended a few Late Model and Sprint specials up there. Actually, I did make one attempt to go to Rice Lake sometime around the summer of 1966. There was a Supermodified special and I rode up there with my uncle Lloyd following the race car trailer. My uncle used to help our cousin out with the car so I tagged along with them. Unfortunately, that was before the days of cell phones and when we got there a heavy shower had dumped on the track resulting in the race being canceled. I specifically remember there being little or no grandstands and the track being the tiniest little thing I had ever seen up til then, a small quarter mile.



I did not return to Rice Lake until I started writing for MRC in 1999 and wanted to get out and visit a bunch more new tracks. I'm not on a mission to rack up record numbers of tracks on my racing resume but I have been to quite a few. Let me see if I can name some of them:

Minnesota
State Fair (dirt & asphalt)
Twin City (later North Starr)
Stillwater
Hutchinson
Fairmont
Jackson
Deer Creek
Kasson
Owatonna
Princeton
Grove Creek
Golden Spike
Alexandria
Proctor
North Central
Elko
Raceway (17)

Wisconsin
Cedar Lake
Kopellah
Rice Lake
Superior
ABC
Fox Ridge
Red Cedar
Central Wisconsin (formerly Monster Hall)
Angell Park
La Crosse (10)

Iowa
Knoxville
Cresco
Farley (3)

Ohio
Eldora (1)

Kansas
Kansas Speedway
Lakeside (2)

Texas
CC Speedway Corpus Christi (1)

South Dakota
Aberdeen
Husets (2)

That's 36 total but I can't help feeling as if I might have missed one. This year I added La Crosse to the list and I'm thinking about going to Chateau for the USMTS the Friday of Labor Day weekend (that's next Friday already). It's 122 miles from Forest Lake and work is 25 miles so I'd have a 97 mile drive, mostly freeway after work. Without taking any vacation I'd be leaving the office around 3:30 and should be able to get down there by around 5:30 or 6pm. That would give me enough time to sign in and walk around the pits for a while before the races started. I'm going to have to give that some serious thought because it's not that far and I have never been there before. I have seen photos and video clips and it looks like it would be a fun place to take photos of the USMTS. So far this season I haven't seen the USMTS and it's coming up on the end of the year already. I could add a new track and catch the USMTS in one shot. Might be a plan, we'll have to count the pennies.

I don't know about you but I'm about broke after a season of racing. Not the kind of broke where I'm destitute and can't afford to go to another race but the kind of broke where I'm having to pay attention to the bottom line more than I was a couple months ago. I'm just going to bite the bullet and spend the money. There's plenty of time over the winter to live like a monk and not do anything so I can save money. The rest of the season is going to cost more than I want to think about but I want to do some traveling to close out the year and I'll be damned if I'm going to let anything stop me. Photo sales usually pick up after the season for a couple months leading up to the holidays so I'll be able to bank a few bucks after the season to hopefully replace what I spend.

I've got a personal savings account that I use to fund all my racing. I have a certain amount taken out each month and lately I've been drawing more than I've put in. That might not sound like such a terrible thing but my property taxes, homeowners insurance and car payments come out of that account too. I've got another tax installment due in October and have not made a car payment in several years so I'm getting by with tired old iron. One of these days it's going to catch up with me and I'm going to have to start taking a car payment out of there again. Also, I use that fund for emergencies like breakdowns, etc. I've got credit but I don't like to use the plastic unless it's absolutely necessary so I've been dipping into that a little more than I'm comfortable with lately as well.

I was raised by my depression era grandparents after my folks died and I was in my formative teen years so being frugal was pounded into my head. Another thing they did was to insist that I work during the summer instead of just hanging around getting in trouble. I got my first job at 14 on a truck farm, worked 8 hours five and a half days a week. The first year the farmer paid me $3.50 per day and the second year I got a raise to $5 a day. I was one of the bigger kids so he used to take me out to do road maintenance because he had the contract for our village. Talk about violating child labor laws LOL, today they'd have hung anyone they caught doing that to kids. He contracted to do driveways too so he'd bring me along on those jobs as well. Hot sun, 95 degrees and humid I'd be out there raking asphalt and pulling the roller (water filled pushed, pulled by hand). At 16 I went to work on the golf course cutting fairways, roughs and greens with various size mowers up to and including a tractor with a gang mower. A few weeks prior to my 18th birthday I reported to basic training, got married a couple years later and have been working ever since. I guess the "abuse" according to modern libs that I received working on a truck farm at 14 gave me what they'd consider a bad habit in their eyes. I developed a good work ethic. Those lessons I learned at 14 were passed onto my children and hopefully will help my grandkids in some small way in their lives as well.

So where were we before I got sidetracked and told half my life story. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the Rice Lake Midwest Modifieds.


Midwest Modified action, Rice Lake 2007

Rice Lake offers some good photo opportunities and I'm looking forward to shooting there again. There was enough daylight last year to catch hot laps and most of the IRA time trials head on using available light. Rice Lake has some good angles for the type of head on shots I like to do where you can see the driver's eyes. This is my favorite angle for Sprint Car photos and I love shooting without a flash whenever I can get away with it. Perhaps I'll do that or maybe I'll try the straight on angle from the infield I did down at Arlington and Jackson. I'll see how the light is and make a decision when I get there.


head on using available light from outside of track


head on angle from inside of the track at Arlington


Robby Wolfgang shot from head on angle at Jackson

Well, this is going to have to do it for tonight. I'm about typed out for now...

Wednesday August 20, podcasts, IRA at RLS and more...

Was anybody out there listening to the Dirt Nation podcast? They went offline a while ago stating that they took their broadcasts offline in order to switch to a podcast only format and have not come back up yet. There is a post on the site stating that they ran into a delay because of an update to their podcast software. Now I'm not claiming to be an authority but some of you might recall my experiment creating a local racing podcast. Actually, it wasn't so much a racing podcast as a personal racing audio blog. After having played music for 40 years and having learned 4 track recording the recording and sound balancing part came easy for me. I did the entire podcast and mixing using a free open source audio recording program called Audacity. I listen to a lot of podcasts on a daily basis on my MP3 player, some are among the most popular on sites such as Podcast Alley, and many of the most popular podcasts are created using Audacity. They get way more listeners than any dirt track podcast will ever get. So I don't know what they're talking about that there's a delay due to their program being updated. All one needs is the free open source program Audacity, a mic, some podsafe music from one of the royalty free music sites, a few spare hours and presto, you've got a podcast. There are even free open source RSS feed generators out there for the taking. Actually I got pretty good at mixing the sound (attributable to past music recording and sound board experience) and my podcast stacked up pretty well as far as sound quality.

Another podcast I have been listening to on occasion is the KFAN Motorsports show. I'm not particularly fond of that one (no offense to Chris Hawkey) but it's too commercialized and NASCARized for my taste. Obviously it has to be commercialized because it's a re-broadcast of an AM radio show so they have to advertise and follow the standard radio format. Part of following the standard corporate radio format is music clips that target a young audience and emphasizing the personalities of the hosts often times it seems even more than the racing. I understand the need to do that, they have to attract younger listeners and target the biggest audience possible which in racing means television NASCAR fans.

Many of you might remember that the former host was Russ Bohaty and that Chris came in as a co-host and ended up taking over the gig. Russ is a good guy, really sincere and he loves his racing, but I think maybe his love for grass roots racing over the bigger picture (NASCAR) might have had something to do with the change. I talked to Russ as recently as last Friday night and I know Chris a little but I have never discussed this with either of them. I could be all wrong so consider this my opinions, my observations, which may not be entirely accurate as far as what really happened. All I know is that I liked Russ' more locally oriented coverage better because it had less NASCAR and not as much trendy music. Just my opinion so take it however you will but when I listen to a podcast or radio show I don't want to hear banter between hosts or endless music and commercials. True podcasts, those done in somebody's home office with a PC and mic, are often much more to the point and that's what I prefer.

You're probably thinking "if you think you can do better why don't you go ahead and do it?" Like I said, I could put out a good broadcast from a sound standpoint and set it up with RSS so your podcatcher could locate new episodes. I know how to do that and have done it. I could make the phone calls, line up the interviews and cull news to report on the podcast if I wanted. I think I've got enough contacts and friends in the racing business that I could get that done. I've got a digital voice recorder that I could use to get interviews at the track and have tested it so I know how to upload them to the computer and incorporate them into a podcast. There are programs such as Skype that are used to make the long distance calls and record the conversation directly onto a computer so with a little practice I could do that.

The reason I didn't take my podcast any further is that I already have a full plate of things to do at the races. There is also a line that I drew in the sand a few years ago after we did a year of television interviews. I swore that I would never work that hard at the races again for free. Without advertising or some kind of compensation it just wouldn't be worth it to do all that work at the track. My photography is basically a hobby but I do sell a few photos from time to time so I get some hotdog and gas money out of it. If I did a podcast and chased interviews it would be too much like a job and even though the fans would enjoy it I'd just be obligating myself to do even more work. That's why I stopped posting news and results and went to news feed links on the gotomn.com website. There are text links for tracks and sanctions as well as Speednet and Hoseheads Newsfeeds right on the main page. In addition to that there is a links page. That's all you need to find what you're looking for. I don't have to post endless results on my main page where you have to scroll through 200 banner ads to find out who won. I've got most of the favorite local tracks (to my location just north of the Twin Cities) and links to the most popular message boards on my site. If you can't find what you're looking for from those sources there's probably not much more I can do to help you. Besides, my site does have some news but it's never going to be everything to everybody. No website is that good.

Another thing that bugs the hell out of me is dirt track racing sites that require registering a user name and password to view content. Now I understand why people need to register to use message boards and that sort of thing but no way anybody should have to register to simply enter the site. Heck, I can see photos, video, and all kinds of stuff on places like YouTube and major news and sports websites. Who do these dirt track site webmasters think they are that their content is so valuable users should have to establish a user and password. As a webmaster I know what the reason is, sponsor statistics, demographics, market share, all that commercial sh*t. Now I realize that there's a time and place for corporate mumbo jumbo but when I come home from a day of that stuff at the office I don't want to deal with it when I surf my favorite dirt track sites. I think with the worsening economy and tighter advertising dollars some of these self serving money hungry folks that thought they could get a piece of the dirt track racing pie are going to find out that it's not the cash cow they imagined. There are a few, and I won't say any names, that have come along during the last five or so years and were gonna' whip the dirt track world. One even suggested that I shut my site down and go to work for them "and do it the way it should be done." Some no longer have a presence on the internet, they came in like a flash in the pan and ran off with advertiser's money. Their sites are gone and mine (the one that wasn't doing it right) is still out there.

So if anybody comes on the message boards and says they're the next new dirt track site that's gonna' whip the world give it the test of time. If it's still there in a year then just maybe there's something to it. I think most racing fans can see that type of deal as clearly as if the webmaster had a sign on their forehead that says "I'm only in it for the money."

Yeah, I know what some of you are thinking. I used to run a few banner ads but those businesses approached me and offered to help me with my website expenses. I never solicited any advertising and when some of them started making demands I said to hell with it and discontinued the banners. I'm appreciative of all the help I got and I got to know a few business owners through the banners that I still see sometimes but it just wasn't something I wanted to continue. Other things I tried years ago was selling photo CD's and gotomn decals but I probably caused more hard feelings by doing those things than it was worth. I never made much doing it and all I was ever wanting to do was supplement my gas and hotdog expenses. Now that I have put more emphasis on the photography (and hopefully gotten pretty good at it) that's how I make a buck or two but even that isn't much. Mostly I do what everyone else does, hold my expenses down wherever possible and spend every spare penny I can muster to go racing.

And now that I'm not hung up on the financial end of it I'm having a lot more fun with the racing. I learned a lot of lessons over the past ten years. I alienated some people and made some bad decisions but now my website and my racing are coming out of pocket and I do as much or as little as I can. I'm happy and my only regrets are that I might have pissed someone off in the past and that this season is winding down too fast. One thing my experience and mistakes taught me is to be suspicious of any new internet jockey that comes out of college thinking they're going to set the racing world on fire. When I taught myself how to create a website in 1996 I was already 45 years old and building computers and learning graphics and simple web design was just for fun. I didn't have any formal training and now I'm going to be 57 in a few weeks so I don't know for sure how much longer I'll stick with it. I always told people I don't want to be hunched over a computer doing this at 60 year old but that's only three years away so now I say 70 because I'm not ready to quit yet. I'd be willing to bet that gotomn gets more hits per month than some of the supposed commercial sites because it's been around for over ten years. I just don't blow my horn as loud as some people so nobody knows I'm out here half the time. I want to give something back to racing and not take away from it so I'll continue to have fun with this as long as possible.

This Saturday I'm planning on attending the IRA race at Rice Lake. I enjoyed the show last year so it should be a fun night. Rice Lake is a high banked speed bowl and the racing there is very exciting. Hopefully Red Cedar canceling won't affect the car count too much as some teams might not travel for only one night of racing. IRA usually schedules two nights when they travel in order to make it worthwhile for the teams but RCS pulled the plug without telling anyone.

That's going to do it for tonight, gotta get some rest before another exciting day at the office...