Good Friday is one of our holidays so that makes it's a GREAT FRIDAY, but for those of you who worked it was good because Friday is always good. Finally it sounds like we're going to get a decent weekend but not before Red Cedar and Cedar Lake were forced to cancel their scheduled opening nights. Hecklers will say "they could have raced" but reasonable people will take into account the frost covering their windshields every morning this week and understand that sufficient drying did not take place and post sundown weather was not warm enough to attract a crowd. Those diehards who would have showed up in their snowmobile suits will protest with the aforementioned complaint but reasonable people with little kids in tow outnumber them and promoters know that the families go a lot further making the bottom line work than a couple dozen diehards. Complaints aside, next weekend's preliminary forecast is calling for more spring-like conditions though still not warm after sunset by any means but jittery promoters with one eye on the economy and remembering the six lost weeks of early 2008 will oblige die hards. In other words, I predict that we will race next week come hell or high water. A fitting expression in the upper Midwest because you never know which one you're going to get in the early spring, hell like temps or high water.
You probably noticed that my blog has been silent lately. That's because I have been brushing up on 25 years of public speech training. My public speaking experience includes addressing large audiences and I am a past member of the Toastmasters club. No matter how long you have been a Toastmaster you're always learning. The Toastmasters has a thing they call "table topics" that goes something like this:
The Table Topics portion of a Toastmasters meeting takes place before or after the formal “prepared speeches” segment and usually lasts 20 or 30 minutes. The Topicsmaster announces a topic or question and calls on several members, one at a time, who give impromptu one- to-two-minute responses to that topic.
When you’re called (or volunteer) to speak during Table Topics, you’ll do well if you keep your remarks brief and to the point. (This is often easier said than done, however!) Try to present sensible, worthwhile ideas that add to the knowledge of others and organize your thoughts into a mini-speech. You’re encouraged to refute or elaborate on ideas and information already presented by other participants.
The challenging thing about Toastmasters was that I was required to speak extemperaniously (on the spot with no warning). That didn't bother me, I could deal with that but sometimes they would come up with some off the wall subjects that I couldn't relate to which forced me to learn to wing it. I left the Toastmasters because I didn't have time to prepare speeches during the racing season when spare time is always at a minimum. I can barely get the grass cut, the projects done and fulfill family obligations as it is without having to write and practice speeches. Toastmaser's is a great organization but it's a big commitment of time that was starting to cut into racing. Anyways, I'm shaking the dust off my speaking skills and will soon be putting them back to work.
Back in 1987 the Traffic Department was eliminated by Northrup King in favor of decentralization and out sourcing. Consequently, I found myself out on the street for four months. I had a severance package and a room full of music and recording equipment that saved me from going nuts worrying about finding a job. Equipment included a multi track recorder, a keyboard with beat tracks, a borrowed bass guitar and my own electric six string guitar. Even though I can't sing worth a damn and am not the best guitar player I spent the summer writing and recording songs to keep my mind off being out of work. It was fun working with a multi track recorder, laying down all the tracks and pinging from one track to the next. I tried to keep the total number of tracks around eight to maintain the integrity of the sound. Back around that same time I was traveling around with a friend's band and helping with the sound. I played guitar at their practices and even stood in on the bass guitar for one of their gigs. I learned a lot about recording but that was before home computers became popular so it was all done with audio tape. Today's recording technology is way better and it has been easy for me to pick up due to my recording experience.
I installed a gig of memory and a 1tb second hard drive in my computer yesterday with no problem. Unfortunately I made a bad decision and tried to install Ubuntu on a partition on the new drive and that set my productivity back about six hours. Grub boot loader comes bundled with Ubuntu so I thought, why not setup a dual boot system because I had used Linux on my wife's computer for a year and would like to master using it on a daily basis. Problem is that when I got it installed and tried to reboot the Grub boot loader locked up and showed an error #21.
I spent an hour trying suggestions posted on the Linux forums like changing the boot order and several other things that didn't work. I narrowed it down to a drive controller conflict on some systems and I saw where people who experienced this problem had posted screen shots of the error code and the Ubuntu team would evaluate the problem and respond. When I saw that I knew I was in trouble because I can't afford to lose a week this time of year so I had to do an XP recovery. Besides insufficient printer support another one of the drawbacks of Ubuntu is time consuming hardware compatibility issues like this one. I would still like to run a dual boot system with Linux but that's going to have to wait until after the racing season. Even the off season only offers a narrow window of time between the pre holiday photo rush, the GRP contest and ramping up for the coming season. I'm putting Linux on the back burner but I intend to try it again in the future. Anyways, the system restore went well and the only thing left to do is enter an occasional password and download a few browser plugins. I'm doing a long format of the new drive partitions then I'll set one up for file sharing so I can put our growing collection of family photos on it. The other partition, about 500 gigs, will be for my racing photos. That's the reason I got the large drive, so I could copy a decade of scans and CD's to one easy access location. I'm sick of digging through shoe boxes of CD's every time I need to go into my archives.
I got rid of my Qwest DSL and phone service and went to cable internet and saved about $50 per month. I purchased a Skype account and got a USB headset with a microphone so I can make calls anywhere in the US free of charge. We got a USB adapter to connect our cordless phone to Skype so it can double as a home phone system. The USB adapter directions and Skype directions were cryptic and I couldn't figure out the call sequence to make outgoing calls with the cordless. I could call my cordless on the Skype number with a cell phone and received the incoming call but I couldn't call out. Seeing as it worked fine using the headset and I could receive calls with the cordless I knew there had to be a setting or dialing sequence that I wasn't seeing. I posted the question on the Skype forum and one of the moderators replied with the answer. You have to use the country code, (area code-phone number) and an * after the number. That solved the problem but I'm thinking to myself "here I am building and maintaining computers and I can't figure out a USB phone adapter"...what's wrong with that picture? I can do almost anything with technology as long as there are good directions and I'm wearing my reading glasses. LMFAO Seriously, that is one of my pet peeves, electronic devices with incomplete directions and poor help sections on their websites.
So that's what I have been up to lately. My goal now is to apply my speaking, recording and tech knowledge to racing.
Today is going to be a nice day so as soon as I get the last load of laundry in the washer I'm going to run to the store and buy a gas grille. So far this morning I got up, fed the cats, made the coffee, have one load in the washer and one in the dryer, took out the trash and straightened up the kitchen. The wife finally got to take the sling off her arm after six weeks and started physical therapy. Talk about a kick in the *ss, the copay is $35 per visit and she's got to a couple times a week. On top of that she's got another unrelated procedure that has to be done next Tuesday so I might have to take a day of vacation unless she feels comfortable driving herself there. She did get in the car and went shopping yesterday after six weeks of not driving. I hope that she finds a ride or feels comfortable driving there herself because I have already used too many vacation days and racing hasn't even started yet.
If you have a family some years are going to be like this where other things have to come before racing. Some years it has been my medical problems, a few years we had a daughter and granddaughter living with us and this year we're dealing with my wife's health problems. I suppose I could have been like some of the racing fans and stayed single but I love the family connection and racing is just one aspect of my life. I think you can kind of see that, especially early in the season when all these rabid fans are running all over h*ll looking to attend their first race. I stay home and try to get some early outside work done, clean the garage, get organized for the season and wait for the racing to start at my local track. As far as I'm concerned I can drive a half hour to see weekly classes at two tracks so I'm not going to travel long distances and incur motel expenses or do a redeye for a weekly show. I'm a specials events snob when it comes to traveling, it's got to be something pretty big for me to travel that far. I only have a limited amount of money to spend on racing and with my wife not working and going through physical therapy I have to plan my schedule out carefully. Hopefully I'll sell a few pics early in the season but I'm not counting on it because that's so competitive early in the season that I never sell much this time of the year. There are several photographers that make a living selling pics and they go after the hero card business very aggressively early in the season. Consequently, guys like me who take photos mostly for the publications and don't canvass the pit area selling photos like they do kind of get shoved aside until a little later in the year. I have so many things going that I don't have time to do a lot of the custom artwork anyways and don't have a competitive low cost bulk printing source so I just step aside and let them knock themselves out. My bread and butter as far as photos is selling enough of the 5x7's and 8x10's to supplement travel expenses. This year is going to get off to a tough start so I hope the wife heals up quickly and I don't have to start cutting the planned travel out of my schedule.
The vacation roster has been tough this year too. Usually when one gets older and gets more seniority scheduling improves in their favor but in my case our staff is being reduced by retirements making single day vacation scheduling more difficult. Thursday and Friday vacation for some of the events I have taken for granted like the Masters and USA Nationals may be difficult to get this year. I decided to quit camping out at multi day shows because there aren't any electrical hookups so I can't charge batteries and send to the publications from my camper. The partying and lack of sleep was getting old anyways, the way I look at it now is that I can only do one or the other, not both. Often I'm up until 3am after the races photo editing and getting organized for the next day. Try doing that with a hangover in a 100 degree tent trailer with no electrical hookup or internet access sometime. I've got a couple of single day events that I'll camp out at but that's going to be the extent of it. The Firecracker/WoO weekend and Jerry Richert Memorial will be my two camping excursions this season. I don't know if I'll be able to afford the motel for the Deer Creek WoO and Jackson Nationals weekend but I can guarantee that I won't be doing those with a camper. If I can get the days off and I can't afford to stay in a motel with high speed internet I'll probably just do the WoO after work on Wednesday night then head for home. There's always plenty of work around the house and nearby weekly shows to attend. I love the Jackson shows but the way it's getting anymore for me 210 miles feels more like 2010 financially and vacation wise.
Later.
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Thursday, and I have a few things to cover...
The latest issue of the Midwest Racing Connection is now posted on theracingconnection.com Check out my "Inside Dirt column and interview with Ron Bernhagen of the Upper Midwest Sprintcar Series.
I switched from DSL to a cable internet connection so if you have my old email address, gotomn@mninter.net, in your address book you'll want to delete it and use mndirt@hotmail.com instead. I'm still using stanm@gotomn.com but am in the process of migrating all of my email messages into the hotmail account because it's easier to manage and I can access that one from work during the day.
Southern Minnesota is supposed to get hit by a snowstorm this weekend so I think it's a safe bet that the Deer Creek opener will not take place as scheduled. Red Cedar has already canceled their scheduled opener that was supposed to take place on April 10. I'm already looking ahead to the weekend of the 17th and 18th as the probable opener.
We'll, I've got a bunch more to say but am too busy to type right now. I'll pick it up tomorrow.
Oh, one more thing. When I signed up for Facebook I had no idea that it would keep me so busy....
I switched from DSL to a cable internet connection so if you have my old email address, gotomn@mninter.net, in your address book you'll want to delete it and use mndirt@hotmail.com instead. I'm still using stanm@gotomn.com but am in the process of migrating all of my email messages into the hotmail account because it's easier to manage and I can access that one from work during the day.
Southern Minnesota is supposed to get hit by a snowstorm this weekend so I think it's a safe bet that the Deer Creek opener will not take place as scheduled. Red Cedar has already canceled their scheduled opener that was supposed to take place on April 10. I'm already looking ahead to the weekend of the 17th and 18th as the probable opener.
We'll, I've got a bunch more to say but am too busy to type right now. I'll pick it up tomorrow.
Oh, one more thing. When I signed up for Facebook I had no idea that it would keep me so busy....
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Windows reinstalled, backup files restored and some fresh idea...
First a video of our granddaughter one year ago.
And now a word from our sponsor.
Are you feeling run down, out of sorts, not in sync with the rest of the world? Then I have just the thing that you're looking for. A post on Stan's MDTR blog, the place where nonsense rules and conversation centers around absolutely nothing.
My windows reinstall went better than expected. XP and sp3 installed seamlessly and with the help of my trusty backup drive I was up and running by 2pm on Saturday in time to do some visiting. There are a few minor tweaks and passwords left to plug in but we're almost up-to-speed. As has been the case since 1996 I would have liked to have done some upgrades to the computer but I decided that I'll stick with what I've got for a while. We're moving along plenty fast so this will have to do for a while.
I'm good to go now.
And now a word from our sponsor.
Are you feeling run down, out of sorts, not in sync with the rest of the world? Then I have just the thing that you're looking for. A post on Stan's MDTR blog, the place where nonsense rules and conversation centers around absolutely nothing.
My windows reinstall went better than expected. XP and sp3 installed seamlessly and with the help of my trusty backup drive I was up and running by 2pm on Saturday in time to do some visiting. There are a few minor tweaks and passwords left to plug in but we're almost up-to-speed. As has been the case since 1996 I would have liked to have done some upgrades to the computer but I decided that I'll stick with what I've got for a while. We're moving along plenty fast so this will have to do for a while.
I'm good to go now.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Windows reinstall this weekend
I have been busy lately so I haven't posted much on the blog. A few days ago I started a post and saved it as a draft but changed my mind and deleted it.
I got the cars both done, the plugs and wires in the Olds and a new radiator in my truck. I've been pretty busy doing the cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping, cleaning the sh*t out of the litter boxes and all that other stuff the wife usually does. She's sitting back with her arm still in a sling watching American Idol, The Biggest Loser, Dancing with the Stars, Hell's Kitchen, Desperate Housewives, ER, The Amazing Race, and a bunch of other stuff. As a matter of fact, she maxes out the dual channel DVR so I can't switch the second tuner into the other room and watch television. My wife loves her shows. I get the TV for a few minutes on the weekends if there's sports on but that's about it.
I spent the entire night downloading and saving the latest versions of programs that I'm using to my firewire storage drive. I'm backing everything up tonight so that I can come home from work tomorrow and start reinstalling Windows from the recovery discs. My computer is overdue for a system restore and I really should have done it sooner but all this other stuff came up with the car repairs and surgery. I'm glad that I've got a couple weekends left before the season starts because it takes a good two weeks before everything is configured properly. I'll get the OS up and running probably by late Friday night but what takes time is installing all the individual programs, looking up and entering passwords, configuring everything and all that tedious stuff. A lot of programs require reboots so you end up sitting there restarting over and over each time a program is installed.
My restore partition got corrupted so I'm going to have to reinstall from my recovery discs. My computer allowed me to burn one copy of the recovery discs but I have never used them so we'll see how that goes. If somehow they got corrupted then I would be forced to purchase a copy of Windows so I hope they work. I'd go with Linux as an alternative but I've got some essential Windows software that I have to run so I'd be stuck spending the money if that were the case. I buy all my computer parts at General Nano, they have a pretty good price on XP with SP3 so that's where I'd go. It's an OEM copy so you have to buy a piece of hardware with XP, hard drive screws are 5 cents. LOL But I'm hoping for the best with my install discs because I don't want to put anymore money in this box.
On my next PC I'm going back to a home build and will run a dual boot system with Windows and Linux on an Intel processor with the maximum amount of ram I can use. I want a good TV tuner card that doubles as a DVR, a large 2nd drive and a good CD/DVD RW. A P4 would do me just fine as I'm not so much interested in speed as I am reliability and a work horse machine that keeps plugging away.
I'll type to you when I'm done with the reinstall.
I got the cars both done, the plugs and wires in the Olds and a new radiator in my truck. I've been pretty busy doing the cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping, cleaning the sh*t out of the litter boxes and all that other stuff the wife usually does. She's sitting back with her arm still in a sling watching American Idol, The Biggest Loser, Dancing with the Stars, Hell's Kitchen, Desperate Housewives, ER, The Amazing Race, and a bunch of other stuff. As a matter of fact, she maxes out the dual channel DVR so I can't switch the second tuner into the other room and watch television. My wife loves her shows. I get the TV for a few minutes on the weekends if there's sports on but that's about it.
I spent the entire night downloading and saving the latest versions of programs that I'm using to my firewire storage drive. I'm backing everything up tonight so that I can come home from work tomorrow and start reinstalling Windows from the recovery discs. My computer is overdue for a system restore and I really should have done it sooner but all this other stuff came up with the car repairs and surgery. I'm glad that I've got a couple weekends left before the season starts because it takes a good two weeks before everything is configured properly. I'll get the OS up and running probably by late Friday night but what takes time is installing all the individual programs, looking up and entering passwords, configuring everything and all that tedious stuff. A lot of programs require reboots so you end up sitting there restarting over and over each time a program is installed.
My restore partition got corrupted so I'm going to have to reinstall from my recovery discs. My computer allowed me to burn one copy of the recovery discs but I have never used them so we'll see how that goes. If somehow they got corrupted then I would be forced to purchase a copy of Windows so I hope they work. I'd go with Linux as an alternative but I've got some essential Windows software that I have to run so I'd be stuck spending the money if that were the case. I buy all my computer parts at General Nano, they have a pretty good price on XP with SP3 so that's where I'd go. It's an OEM copy so you have to buy a piece of hardware with XP, hard drive screws are 5 cents. LOL But I'm hoping for the best with my install discs because I don't want to put anymore money in this box.
On my next PC I'm going back to a home build and will run a dual boot system with Windows and Linux on an Intel processor with the maximum amount of ram I can use. I want a good TV tuner card that doubles as a DVR, a large 2nd drive and a good CD/DVD RW. A P4 would do me just fine as I'm not so much interested in speed as I am reliability and a work horse machine that keeps plugging away.
I'll type to you when I'm done with the reinstall.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Fixing cars, musings about vinyl wall graphics, Sprints excluded from interviews and various other thoughts...
Howdy, it's Monday night. I'm going through the nightly process of charging and reloading my MP3 player. I've got a huge selection of podcasts that I record on a weekly basis covering just about every subject from A-Z. But more on that later.
I finally got the Olds finished on Saturday afternoon. Number 3 cylinder was missing and it turned out to be a loose injector wire. The intake gaskets had been replaced recently and even though the plug appeared to be securely fastened it wasn't. I pushed down on it and it made a "click" sound when it locked into place. As a result of the misfire I replaced all the plugs and wires so it's probably a good thing that this happened otherwise I might not have taken the time to do a tuneup. The plugs and wires were pretty rough looking so it worked out for the best. My next task before the start of the racing season, replace the radiator on the pickup. It's a four cylinder standard transmission, no cruise or air so there's only a few bolts, a couple hoses and a few fastener screws holding a plastic shroud over the top of the fan. Shouldn't be too bad of a job...key word "shouldn't." LOL anybody that works on their tired iron knows why I'm laughing about that one...
I heard a commercial for the company that sells vinyl images of race cars where you send them a photo of your favorite car and they make a wall vinyl out of it. After hearing about it I decided to check out their website to see what they're doing to protect the photographer's copyright. They mentioned copyright but how do I as a photographer know that they're not going to gain access to one of my images without my knowledge? Fans and race teams can send them photos that they'll create a wall sticky out of and they can put their images up for sale and make commission on them. How do I know that I didn't sell somebody a photo and they in turn are making money from my work through this wall sticker company? I don't. There's no way that I'll ever know. For that reason I don't like it because I don't want somebody telling them it's their photo but actually they're making money off my work. There's not much I can do about it, it's a lot bigger than me and my limited influence, but I'm sure the other photographers would agree with me. It appears to me that it would be easy to pull the wool over their eyes and use photos that you don't have authorization to use. Aside from my concerns about my work they look pretty cool.
Speaking of using photographer's photos it bugs me when people post things like this on message boards: "I'm (fill in the project), send me photos". Now I don't mind contributing photos for advertising, t-shirt design, etc., but the thing that rubs me the wrong way is when people demand that we send them photos. Stop and consider, previous season's photos are stored on CD by event. If someone requests for example all the Cedar Lake Late Model or Mod photos of a particular driver I'm supposed to volunteer hours of my time to go through my files and send some stranger that I don't even know free photos? Get a clue!!! It's time consuming, I have an investment in time, work and equipment and I don't give photos away to strangers. That doesn't mean that I never contribute a photo to a specific person for a specific purpose but I won't send pics to people I don't even know because they made some reference to their "project" on some message board. People that make those kinds of demands are clueless because if they knew how much work it is they'd offer to pay for the pics as a courtesy.
I was pretty excited when they started doing those driver interview podcasts and I have downloaded and listened to just about every one of them. There are two associated websites doing the interviews, one nationally which I really like because they do high profile Sprint and Late Model driver interviews and another one concentrating on our local area. Unfortunately, the local one has gone in a direction that I'm not crazy about and I should have known was coming. Only two Sprint Car drivers have been interviewed so far and both divide their time between Modifieds and Sprints so they're not exclusively Sprint Car drivers. In fact, the interviewer put the emphasis on the Modified and only mentioned the Sprint Car in passing. These guys are so clueless about Sprint Car racing that they don't even know what kind of questions to ask a Sprint driver.
Also, the podcasts have an obvious "big W" agenda and that is no surprise considering that the one doing the interviews is a "big W" writer. Don't take what I'm saying the wrong way, the podcast interviews are well done but they're ignoring Sprint Car racing and putting the emphasis on the "big W." There's a lot of other racing around here, Sprints of various sanctions, NASCAR tracks, USRA Mods, IMCA at some of the Minnesota tracks, two World of Outlaws Sprint Car drivers live in Minnesota as well as a former IRA Champion. Matter of fact, one of the interviewers asked me for contact information for Sprint Car drivers and I send them email addresses and phone numbers over a month ago but still no Sprint interviews. That's bullsh*t when they go ga, ga over some 16 y/o Street Stock driver but ignore Craig Dollansky, Brooke Tatnell, Travis Whitney, Jerry Richert Jr., and a host of other talented drivers. It's a shame that they're ignoring Sprint Car racing.
Wake up people!!! It's not a sin to not pledge one's allegiance to the "big W" and it's OK to like Sprint Cars. There, I said it...whew, I feel better already.
Well, that's probably enough venting for the time being.
Questions? Comments? Cat Calls? I respond to criticism at mndirt@hotmail.com
I finally got the Olds finished on Saturday afternoon. Number 3 cylinder was missing and it turned out to be a loose injector wire. The intake gaskets had been replaced recently and even though the plug appeared to be securely fastened it wasn't. I pushed down on it and it made a "click" sound when it locked into place. As a result of the misfire I replaced all the plugs and wires so it's probably a good thing that this happened otherwise I might not have taken the time to do a tuneup. The plugs and wires were pretty rough looking so it worked out for the best. My next task before the start of the racing season, replace the radiator on the pickup. It's a four cylinder standard transmission, no cruise or air so there's only a few bolts, a couple hoses and a few fastener screws holding a plastic shroud over the top of the fan. Shouldn't be too bad of a job...key word "shouldn't." LOL anybody that works on their tired iron knows why I'm laughing about that one...
I heard a commercial for the company that sells vinyl images of race cars where you send them a photo of your favorite car and they make a wall vinyl out of it. After hearing about it I decided to check out their website to see what they're doing to protect the photographer's copyright. They mentioned copyright but how do I as a photographer know that they're not going to gain access to one of my images without my knowledge? Fans and race teams can send them photos that they'll create a wall sticky out of and they can put their images up for sale and make commission on them. How do I know that I didn't sell somebody a photo and they in turn are making money from my work through this wall sticker company? I don't. There's no way that I'll ever know. For that reason I don't like it because I don't want somebody telling them it's their photo but actually they're making money off my work. There's not much I can do about it, it's a lot bigger than me and my limited influence, but I'm sure the other photographers would agree with me. It appears to me that it would be easy to pull the wool over their eyes and use photos that you don't have authorization to use. Aside from my concerns about my work they look pretty cool.
Speaking of using photographer's photos it bugs me when people post things like this on message boards: "I'm (fill in the project), send me photos". Now I don't mind contributing photos for advertising, t-shirt design, etc., but the thing that rubs me the wrong way is when people demand that we send them photos. Stop and consider, previous season's photos are stored on CD by event. If someone requests for example all the Cedar Lake Late Model or Mod photos of a particular driver I'm supposed to volunteer hours of my time to go through my files and send some stranger that I don't even know free photos? Get a clue!!! It's time consuming, I have an investment in time, work and equipment and I don't give photos away to strangers. That doesn't mean that I never contribute a photo to a specific person for a specific purpose but I won't send pics to people I don't even know because they made some reference to their "project" on some message board. People that make those kinds of demands are clueless because if they knew how much work it is they'd offer to pay for the pics as a courtesy.
I was pretty excited when they started doing those driver interview podcasts and I have downloaded and listened to just about every one of them. There are two associated websites doing the interviews, one nationally which I really like because they do high profile Sprint and Late Model driver interviews and another one concentrating on our local area. Unfortunately, the local one has gone in a direction that I'm not crazy about and I should have known was coming. Only two Sprint Car drivers have been interviewed so far and both divide their time between Modifieds and Sprints so they're not exclusively Sprint Car drivers. In fact, the interviewer put the emphasis on the Modified and only mentioned the Sprint Car in passing. These guys are so clueless about Sprint Car racing that they don't even know what kind of questions to ask a Sprint driver.
Also, the podcasts have an obvious "big W" agenda and that is no surprise considering that the one doing the interviews is a "big W" writer. Don't take what I'm saying the wrong way, the podcast interviews are well done but they're ignoring Sprint Car racing and putting the emphasis on the "big W." There's a lot of other racing around here, Sprints of various sanctions, NASCAR tracks, USRA Mods, IMCA at some of the Minnesota tracks, two World of Outlaws Sprint Car drivers live in Minnesota as well as a former IRA Champion. Matter of fact, one of the interviewers asked me for contact information for Sprint Car drivers and I send them email addresses and phone numbers over a month ago but still no Sprint interviews. That's bullsh*t when they go ga, ga over some 16 y/o Street Stock driver but ignore Craig Dollansky, Brooke Tatnell, Travis Whitney, Jerry Richert Jr., and a host of other talented drivers. It's a shame that they're ignoring Sprint Car racing.
Wake up people!!! It's not a sin to not pledge one's allegiance to the "big W" and it's OK to like Sprint Cars. There, I said it...whew, I feel better already.
Well, that's probably enough venting for the time being.
Questions? Comments? Cat Calls? I respond to criticism at mndirt@hotmail.com
Sunday, March 08, 2009
Enjoyed the UMSS meeting, working on the Olds, studying my successes...
I attended the Upper Midwest Sprintcar Series (UMSS) meeting at the Settlement just north of Somerset yesterday, March 8, 2009. The meeting went well, it was good to see everyone after the long winter. I'll be writing more about the UMSS as the beginning of the season draws near.
Does anybody who works on cars know if I have to disconnect the motor mounts and roll the motor forward in order to replace plugs on a '98 Olds Intrigue 3800 V6? The scanner says that I've got a misfire in cylinder #3 (#3 is middle front but I might as well replace them all). I swapped the coils and the misfire is still in #3. I'm also getting a second code, open injector circuit but the injector sounds like it's working so I think that code was caused by the miss. Email me if you know if I can reach the rear bank of plugs.
Now that we're getting close to the racing season it's almost time to review my successes and failures. Pretty soon I'll be going through all my 2008 photo CD's using a program that provides camera specific information. Often times I'll get home and see that I caught a really awesome shot and I'll go through the settings in a graphics program called "Polyview" that quickly shows focal length, shutter speed, ISO and f-stop. If there are some pics that really suck I'll make note of the settings on those and see what the difference was between the good and bad ones. I'll even do this for familiar tracks because I'm never satisfied, I always want to find a way to do better every time I go out.
Most of the time I have to pretty much put the race out of my mind and concentrate on shooting photos because I can't do a good job if I'm watching the race closely. If it's a really awesome race maybe I'll skip taking a shot for a few laps so I can watch some of the action but for the most part I have to concentrate.
I'll type more later this week...
Does anybody who works on cars know if I have to disconnect the motor mounts and roll the motor forward in order to replace plugs on a '98 Olds Intrigue 3800 V6? The scanner says that I've got a misfire in cylinder #3 (#3 is middle front but I might as well replace them all). I swapped the coils and the misfire is still in #3. I'm also getting a second code, open injector circuit but the injector sounds like it's working so I think that code was caused by the miss. Email me if you know if I can reach the rear bank of plugs.
Now that we're getting close to the racing season it's almost time to review my successes and failures. Pretty soon I'll be going through all my 2008 photo CD's using a program that provides camera specific information. Often times I'll get home and see that I caught a really awesome shot and I'll go through the settings in a graphics program called "Polyview" that quickly shows focal length, shutter speed, ISO and f-stop. If there are some pics that really suck I'll make note of the settings on those and see what the difference was between the good and bad ones. I'll even do this for familiar tracks because I'm never satisfied, I always want to find a way to do better every time I go out.
Most of the time I have to pretty much put the race out of my mind and concentrate on shooting photos because I can't do a good job if I'm watching the race closely. If it's a really awesome race maybe I'll skip taking a shot for a few laps so I can watch some of the action but for the most part I have to concentrate.
I'll type more later this week...
Thursday, March 05, 2009
I like Sprint Car racing...
I like Sprint Car racing! I like Sprint Car racing! I like Sprint Car racing!
Those are probably some of the most unpopular words that any writer/photographer/webmaster that lives here in the upper Midwest could ever say. I am convinced that if I would have renounced my love of Sprint Car racing and jumped on the bandwagon with everyone else around here back in '99 when I started the gotomn.com website that it would have been 10x more popular. Not that it's too shabby as it is because the stats are pretty good for what it is, a static photo and links page. Here's some recent statistical data:
Unique visitors (number of unique visitors during the month):
January 14,273
February 12,146
Page views (total number of pages visited during the month = hits):
January 23,248
February 18,959
It's not unusual for the hits to drop off a bit after the GRP trivia contest is wrapped up but as the season draws closer they will pick up substantially. As you can see, we're still sustaining a decent number of regular visitors each month and that's what I look for. A lot of websites would salivate over that many visitors including many of the series and track websites.
As long as my site is relevant and people are still looking at it that's good. It's still fun for me, the work and expense are justified by your visits and the costs to keep it online are minimal at around $100 per year. In addition to gotomn.com I have two additional domains available with this account and over 100 gigs of website space. Even at the rate I'm slamming photos on the site each season if I were to leave them on there I'd be about 95 years old before I have to even think about running out of web space. The bandwidth is never going to be an issue because it's a static photo and links page, by that I mean there isn't any multimedia. Actually, this blog isn't a part of my hosting account (although I could bring it in house) so anything I put on here doesn't count towards my space. In other words, as long as I'm able it will be business as usual. Mostly I'm providing the site to display some of the history of racing in this area, some convenient links and of course my photos which I hope a few people will purchase because that helps a little with my expenses. I'm not asking for a stimulus package, the photos add some value to the walls of your home or shop when framed. LOL
Anyways, I love Sprint Car racing. I enjoy the other forms of dirt track racing and have made many great friends in all forms of the sport but Sprints were my first love and one always remembers their first with a special fondness. This season is going to be a great year for Sprint Car racing with the UMSS series. There are cars being built, drivers coming out of retirement, and a great deal of excitement is in the air regarding this series. In view of all the negative things we see in the news this is probably one of the biggest day brighteners of the year for me and many others. The thing that I really have to commend the 360 Sprint Car people for is that they finally took a look around them and realized what the "lay of the racing land" is around here. They made one of the wisest decisions I think anyone in the top divisions has made in a long time, they decided to limit the engines and to come in with a purse comparable to the Modifieds. That might not sound like much and some people were resistant at first but when one considers the excitement that Sprint Cars provide and that now tracks can book a UMSS show at a lower cost than a Late Model or Modified special I believe that their purse structure is going to put them at a competitive advantage. Yes, there is still a niche for the big boys like the Outlaws and IRA when they come around but week in and week out we needed something like this. It promotes interest among the fans and gives drivers a reason to want to get involved with a Sprint Car.
I look at these deals like the Rumble Series where local Late Models that we see every week were coming into the same tracks they run weekly and demanding a $10,000 to win purse and I could see that was not good economics for the promoters. I heard from several reliable sources that they lost money when they brought those races into tracks around western Wisconsin and tried to raise the ticket prices. Stop and think about it, fans see most of those drivers at places like Red Cedar, Cedar Lake, Deer Creek, and Rice Lake every Saturday night for $10 to $12. They're going to think twice about a $20 ticket and in some cases a weekday race to see the same guys they can see every weekend. Sure, it's probably a big deal when those drivers race somewhere like western Minnesota, the Dakotas or Montana but this is their home territory and we have been watching them race since they started in Street Stocks. The logistics of trying to build on that kind of a foundation just weren't making any sense and it became manifest at the gate. It takes someone like a Scott Bloomquist or Billy Moyer to get people around here excited enough to put down the extra money. And those kinds of high admission shows aren't something people can afford to do as often anymore. Wise promoters have been listening at the promoters workshops and are finding ways to build on their weekly shows and local audience. The UMSS will help them to do that.
The purse for the UMSS is very competitive and promoters have been advised not to raise the ticket price for the fans no more than a buck or two over a weekly show if they feel that they have to raise it. The organizers of the UMSS would prefer that tracks do not raise the ticket price so the weekly fans will still come to the races. After talking to one of the organizers during the past couple of days I think people are going to be surprised at how many cars they will draw. If this series does well in the first year and generates fan interest my prediction is that it's going to be hard to hold them back. Young fans who are into extreme sports and will see that Sprint Car racing offers a unique brand of excitement and action. With time people's preferences tend to swing back and forth like a pendulum and we have been on the Stock Car side of that swinging pendulum for about 25 years. I think that the time is right for Sprint Car racing to stage a strong comeback around the east Metro and western Wisconsin.
The UMSS will contest ten of their nights of racing at the new Kopellah Speedway. The reason I'm saying "new" Kopellah is that owner Marguerite Lindblom has enlisted the services of Chris Stepan of FYE Promotions to run the business and promotions end of the Kopellah Speedway. Sprint Car people might not be familiar with Chris but I can guarantee that they will come to appreciate him in short order. Chris is admittedly a fan of the Late Models and Modifieds but this is an excellent opportunity for the local Sprint people to get to know Chris and work with him to make the Kopellah UMSS races a success. I guarantee that if they give Chris their full cooperation and put on a good show for the fans that it can only lead to good things for the UMSS. As Chris said in his Kopellah press release he plans on "making Kopellah the place to be on a Friday night" and you better believe that's what's going to happen. If the UMSS puts on a good show and has good car counts it could result in opportunities to participate in other FYE events. I'm probably getting a little bit ahead of myself but I know a good promoter when I see one and Mr. Stepan is a rising star in that field.
As you can see I'm very excited about the UMSS and the new things that are taking place on the local racing scene. I'll be writing more about this in the coming weeks and months.
Those are probably some of the most unpopular words that any writer/photographer/webmaster that lives here in the upper Midwest could ever say. I am convinced that if I would have renounced my love of Sprint Car racing and jumped on the bandwagon with everyone else around here back in '99 when I started the gotomn.com website that it would have been 10x more popular. Not that it's too shabby as it is because the stats are pretty good for what it is, a static photo and links page. Here's some recent statistical data:
Unique visitors (number of unique visitors during the month):
January 14,273
February 12,146
Page views (total number of pages visited during the month = hits):
January 23,248
February 18,959
It's not unusual for the hits to drop off a bit after the GRP trivia contest is wrapped up but as the season draws closer they will pick up substantially. As you can see, we're still sustaining a decent number of regular visitors each month and that's what I look for. A lot of websites would salivate over that many visitors including many of the series and track websites.
As long as my site is relevant and people are still looking at it that's good. It's still fun for me, the work and expense are justified by your visits and the costs to keep it online are minimal at around $100 per year. In addition to gotomn.com I have two additional domains available with this account and over 100 gigs of website space. Even at the rate I'm slamming photos on the site each season if I were to leave them on there I'd be about 95 years old before I have to even think about running out of web space. The bandwidth is never going to be an issue because it's a static photo and links page, by that I mean there isn't any multimedia. Actually, this blog isn't a part of my hosting account (although I could bring it in house) so anything I put on here doesn't count towards my space. In other words, as long as I'm able it will be business as usual. Mostly I'm providing the site to display some of the history of racing in this area, some convenient links and of course my photos which I hope a few people will purchase because that helps a little with my expenses. I'm not asking for a stimulus package, the photos add some value to the walls of your home or shop when framed. LOL
Anyways, I love Sprint Car racing. I enjoy the other forms of dirt track racing and have made many great friends in all forms of the sport but Sprints were my first love and one always remembers their first with a special fondness. This season is going to be a great year for Sprint Car racing with the UMSS series. There are cars being built, drivers coming out of retirement, and a great deal of excitement is in the air regarding this series. In view of all the negative things we see in the news this is probably one of the biggest day brighteners of the year for me and many others. The thing that I really have to commend the 360 Sprint Car people for is that they finally took a look around them and realized what the "lay of the racing land" is around here. They made one of the wisest decisions I think anyone in the top divisions has made in a long time, they decided to limit the engines and to come in with a purse comparable to the Modifieds. That might not sound like much and some people were resistant at first but when one considers the excitement that Sprint Cars provide and that now tracks can book a UMSS show at a lower cost than a Late Model or Modified special I believe that their purse structure is going to put them at a competitive advantage. Yes, there is still a niche for the big boys like the Outlaws and IRA when they come around but week in and week out we needed something like this. It promotes interest among the fans and gives drivers a reason to want to get involved with a Sprint Car.
I look at these deals like the Rumble Series where local Late Models that we see every week were coming into the same tracks they run weekly and demanding a $10,000 to win purse and I could see that was not good economics for the promoters. I heard from several reliable sources that they lost money when they brought those races into tracks around western Wisconsin and tried to raise the ticket prices. Stop and think about it, fans see most of those drivers at places like Red Cedar, Cedar Lake, Deer Creek, and Rice Lake every Saturday night for $10 to $12. They're going to think twice about a $20 ticket and in some cases a weekday race to see the same guys they can see every weekend. Sure, it's probably a big deal when those drivers race somewhere like western Minnesota, the Dakotas or Montana but this is their home territory and we have been watching them race since they started in Street Stocks. The logistics of trying to build on that kind of a foundation just weren't making any sense and it became manifest at the gate. It takes someone like a Scott Bloomquist or Billy Moyer to get people around here excited enough to put down the extra money. And those kinds of high admission shows aren't something people can afford to do as often anymore. Wise promoters have been listening at the promoters workshops and are finding ways to build on their weekly shows and local audience. The UMSS will help them to do that.
The purse for the UMSS is very competitive and promoters have been advised not to raise the ticket price for the fans no more than a buck or two over a weekly show if they feel that they have to raise it. The organizers of the UMSS would prefer that tracks do not raise the ticket price so the weekly fans will still come to the races. After talking to one of the organizers during the past couple of days I think people are going to be surprised at how many cars they will draw. If this series does well in the first year and generates fan interest my prediction is that it's going to be hard to hold them back. Young fans who are into extreme sports and will see that Sprint Car racing offers a unique brand of excitement and action. With time people's preferences tend to swing back and forth like a pendulum and we have been on the Stock Car side of that swinging pendulum for about 25 years. I think that the time is right for Sprint Car racing to stage a strong comeback around the east Metro and western Wisconsin.
The UMSS will contest ten of their nights of racing at the new Kopellah Speedway. The reason I'm saying "new" Kopellah is that owner Marguerite Lindblom has enlisted the services of Chris Stepan of FYE Promotions to run the business and promotions end of the Kopellah Speedway. Sprint Car people might not be familiar with Chris but I can guarantee that they will come to appreciate him in short order. Chris is admittedly a fan of the Late Models and Modifieds but this is an excellent opportunity for the local Sprint people to get to know Chris and work with him to make the Kopellah UMSS races a success. I guarantee that if they give Chris their full cooperation and put on a good show for the fans that it can only lead to good things for the UMSS. As Chris said in his Kopellah press release he plans on "making Kopellah the place to be on a Friday night" and you better believe that's what's going to happen. If the UMSS puts on a good show and has good car counts it could result in opportunities to participate in other FYE events. I'm probably getting a little bit ahead of myself but I know a good promoter when I see one and Mr. Stepan is a rising star in that field.
As you can see I'm very excited about the UMSS and the new things that are taking place on the local racing scene. I'll be writing more about this in the coming weeks and months.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Too busy to post for a while
It's March 3rd already and I have been very busy lately so that's my excuse for not posting. My wife had rotator cuff surgery on February 24th so I had to take a couple days of vacation to help her and have been doing all the hosehold chores. She will have to wear a sling for five more weeks and it will take up to a year for the shoulder to return to normal. In the meantime she can't work or do much of anything besides her therapy in a special motorized chair designed to raise and lower her arm. Today she took an improvised shower/spounge bath and when she was done she couldn't get her arm back in her sling so she had to call someone to come over and help. She has another unrelated procedure coming up that we're anxious about so this has been a difficult winter for Deb and I.
A few weeks ago I had an intake gasket and water pump put on my wife's go. Prior to having the work done the check engine light had come on but the car was running alright. When I had it in for the repair I had my friend who did the work put it on his scanner and found out it needed a $60 MAP sensor. I fixed that and it was running great then the Sunday prior to my wife's surgery the oil pressure light came on. I took it in and had a new sensor put on for that and again it was running great. This past Sunday I was half way to the grocery store (maybe the problem is that I shouldn't be going grocery shopping) and all of a sudden it started running rough. The check engine light flashed then it stayed on so I parked it in the garage and haven't touched it since. I called my brother-in-law and he said that it sounds like a coil pack. A friend of mine is going to let me use his hand held scanner so I can get the codes and he will let me know what the problem is. He said it sounded like a coil pack so that's two people telling me the same thing. I'm going to borrow his scanner for this repaid and will have to get my own basic OBDII scanner so I can do my own diagnosis the next time this kind of thing happens. I've got a lot of "coaches" that I can call for free advice and the basic scanners are under $100 so it would be a good investment.
My truck needs a little bit of work as well but it's nothing that has to be done right away. They were known for the bushings between the tank and fin tubes leaking in cold weather but it only leaks in below zero weather and once the weather warms it doesn't leak a drop all summer. Nevertheless, I think it would be a good idea to replace it.
Speaking of placing old worn out parts I had my annual physical today after work. I had the lab work done a couple weeks in advance, my cholesterol was a little higher and I need to drop a few pounds and watch what I eat but everything else looks good. I have to go back and get it checked in six months and have been walking and trying to eat better. My neck hardware and arthritis in my back and shoulders limit me from jogging like I used to do but I'm cleared for walking long distances. I live next to a walking patch so I don't have any excuses except for the ice, snow and snowmobiles going by at 50mph. when it warms up and the path is safe to walk I'll get back out there. In the meantime I'm walking 40-60 minutes per day in the skyway and will walk down by the river during my lunch break when it warms up in a month or so. This season I'm going to make an effort to avoid the fried foods at the races and try to find something on the menu that's better for me. Good luck on that one. Cholesterol medication can affect your liver and that would mean no beer so there's some real incentive to control my cholesterol. LOL
But enough about the cares of life, let's talk some racing. Check out my "Inside Dirt" column in the latest issue of The Midwest Racing Connection as well as all the fine articles and photos. I downloaded the latest issue, saved the pdf file to my flash drive and brought it to work so I could read it during breaks.
The UMSS meeting will take place this Saturday at the Settlement in Somerset. Details about the spec engine that we built by Wheeler Racing Engines of Blaine will be revealed aw well as more information about the rules package. I plan on attending so I can keep up with what's going on as the series takes shape.
You have probably heard by now that the Sandbox races have been canceled due to not enough pre-entries. It was going to be a Karting and Legends extravaganza this year, no Midgets, so it would have been an unfamiliar form of racing for me. Those divisions put on some good races last year and it would have been nice to get out and shake out the camera equipment but now I'll have to wait another week. I'm looking forward to the outdoor season and hoping for decent weather early in the season.
You're probably wondering why I write about everything under the sun here on the blog. The reason is that even though my website is dedicated to racing this blog has morphed into an informal chat with friends. Think of it as us sitting around the campfire after the races having a few beers and talking with friends about whatever comes to mind. Just because I'm a racing writer and photographer doesn't mean that I don't have other things going on in my life. I've got plenty of other concerns, worries, challenges, likes, dislikes and opinions. Jotting them down on the blog is good therapy for me and if somebody doesn't think this type of thing has anyplace on a racing website, well they don't have to read it if they don't want to.
We've got kids, in laws, outlaws, grandkids, pets, jobs, cars, trucks, homes, apartments, hobbies, cares, worries, health issues and all kinds of other things going on in our lives besides cars going in circles on dirt. Any racing writer, photographer, driver, promoter, or anyone else involved in the sport that leads you to believe otherwise is either in denial or full of sheeeet.
Type to you later!!!
A few weeks ago I had an intake gasket and water pump put on my wife's go. Prior to having the work done the check engine light had come on but the car was running alright. When I had it in for the repair I had my friend who did the work put it on his scanner and found out it needed a $60 MAP sensor. I fixed that and it was running great then the Sunday prior to my wife's surgery the oil pressure light came on. I took it in and had a new sensor put on for that and again it was running great. This past Sunday I was half way to the grocery store (maybe the problem is that I shouldn't be going grocery shopping) and all of a sudden it started running rough. The check engine light flashed then it stayed on so I parked it in the garage and haven't touched it since. I called my brother-in-law and he said that it sounds like a coil pack. A friend of mine is going to let me use his hand held scanner so I can get the codes and he will let me know what the problem is. He said it sounded like a coil pack so that's two people telling me the same thing. I'm going to borrow his scanner for this repaid and will have to get my own basic OBDII scanner so I can do my own diagnosis the next time this kind of thing happens. I've got a lot of "coaches" that I can call for free advice and the basic scanners are under $100 so it would be a good investment.
My truck needs a little bit of work as well but it's nothing that has to be done right away. They were known for the bushings between the tank and fin tubes leaking in cold weather but it only leaks in below zero weather and once the weather warms it doesn't leak a drop all summer. Nevertheless, I think it would be a good idea to replace it.
Speaking of placing old worn out parts I had my annual physical today after work. I had the lab work done a couple weeks in advance, my cholesterol was a little higher and I need to drop a few pounds and watch what I eat but everything else looks good. I have to go back and get it checked in six months and have been walking and trying to eat better. My neck hardware and arthritis in my back and shoulders limit me from jogging like I used to do but I'm cleared for walking long distances. I live next to a walking patch so I don't have any excuses except for the ice, snow and snowmobiles going by at 50mph. when it warms up and the path is safe to walk I'll get back out there. In the meantime I'm walking 40-60 minutes per day in the skyway and will walk down by the river during my lunch break when it warms up in a month or so. This season I'm going to make an effort to avoid the fried foods at the races and try to find something on the menu that's better for me. Good luck on that one. Cholesterol medication can affect your liver and that would mean no beer so there's some real incentive to control my cholesterol. LOL
But enough about the cares of life, let's talk some racing. Check out my "Inside Dirt" column in the latest issue of The Midwest Racing Connection as well as all the fine articles and photos. I downloaded the latest issue, saved the pdf file to my flash drive and brought it to work so I could read it during breaks.
The UMSS meeting will take place this Saturday at the Settlement in Somerset. Details about the spec engine that we built by Wheeler Racing Engines of Blaine will be revealed aw well as more information about the rules package. I plan on attending so I can keep up with what's going on as the series takes shape.
You have probably heard by now that the Sandbox races have been canceled due to not enough pre-entries. It was going to be a Karting and Legends extravaganza this year, no Midgets, so it would have been an unfamiliar form of racing for me. Those divisions put on some good races last year and it would have been nice to get out and shake out the camera equipment but now I'll have to wait another week. I'm looking forward to the outdoor season and hoping for decent weather early in the season.
You're probably wondering why I write about everything under the sun here on the blog. The reason is that even though my website is dedicated to racing this blog has morphed into an informal chat with friends. Think of it as us sitting around the campfire after the races having a few beers and talking with friends about whatever comes to mind. Just because I'm a racing writer and photographer doesn't mean that I don't have other things going on in my life. I've got plenty of other concerns, worries, challenges, likes, dislikes and opinions. Jotting them down on the blog is good therapy for me and if somebody doesn't think this type of thing has anyplace on a racing website, well they don't have to read it if they don't want to.
We've got kids, in laws, outlaws, grandkids, pets, jobs, cars, trucks, homes, apartments, hobbies, cares, worries, health issues and all kinds of other things going on in our lives besides cars going in circles on dirt. Any racing writer, photographer, driver, promoter, or anyone else involved in the sport that leads you to believe otherwise is either in denial or full of sheeeet.
Type to you later!!!
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Manual focus lens practice
I'm anxious to get out and try this 135mm f2.8 manual lens at the races. This thing is supposed to be an f2.8 but I noticed that I have to use a slower f-stop than I do with my other fast lenses under the same conditions. Apparently this lens is rated at f2.8 but in testing it appears to be faster than it's rated. That's a good thing for night racing shots. Depth of field looks good, all but the last photo were taken at iso200, f16, 1/320th auto white balance. The clouds thickened up a little when I was setting up for the last shot so I had to set the f-stop at f8.
This lens is entirely manual, the Nikon digital camera metering does not function when used with this lens. All settings must be set on the camera and if I'm shooting flash that has to be set manually as well. The manual focus is smooth and precise as you can see in these test shots. I took six test shots, these five turned out and the sixth was a little out of focus. That's a good average for a manual focus lens. Of course the action will be quite a bit faster at the track than it was for these still shots but based on my limited test results manual focus is not going to be a liability on this lens. This is a niche lens, it won't be used all night but it will be useful in some lighting and distance situations.
My lens lineup for 2009 is going to look something like this:
500mm fixed f8 manual lens used for long outside the track shots over the top of the fence with available light.
70-300mm f4.5-5.6 auto focus used for outside the track shots and infield long shots in available light as well as fill flash shots till dusk. This lens has produced more magazine and newspaper shots than any other lens I have. It's a budget lens but within certain focal lengths it produces images comparable to professional lenses. If I am careful to stay within those parameters this can be a very productive lens. I especially like how quickly it locks into focus for head on shots. Like they say in racing, "it ain't the chrome that makes it go."
135mm f2.8 manual lens (this was today's test lens) can be used from dusk through B Mains for single car shots with flash. Not a good victory lane lens but it's going to be awesome for closely cropped single car shots.
85mm f1.8 auto focus my workhorse lens used at night for flash action shots, 4 wide salute and victory lane at some tracks. Nikon makes an 85mm f1.4 but that lens is over $1,000, this one was gray market (no US warranty) and cost me less than $400 delivered. F1.8 is plenty fast, open it up and slow the shutter down and this baby does a great job of catching those 4 wide salute to the crowd shots.
28-105mm f2.8 auto focus used for Feature races and victory lane as an alternative to the 85mm at some tracks depending on how roomy victory lane is. This was my most expensive lens at over $800 and probably the biggest disappointment. In retrospect I'd have bought a Nikon 80-200mm f2.8 for approximately the same price. Last fall I discovered that when I put this lens on I need to turn the iso one speed faster and it does a much better job. I had the 85mm on then switched to this one for victory lane and thought I'd try some adjustments to see if I could get better performance. I was pleased with the results and now I know that I can use it during the Feature if victory lane has tight quarters.
As you can see, I'm not crazy about zoom lenses anymore. There are some situations where I have to use them but I shoot the majority of my photos now with prime lenses. If this manual focus lens produces the desired results (it appears that it will) I am going to add more of them to my collection. Some of the Cedar Lake banquet slide presentation outside the track shots were taken with the 500mm manual lens from up on the hill. All of my film camera shots up through 2003 were taken with manual focus lenses and all manual camera settings. Last season I finally gave in and started using shutter priority early in the evening when the sun starts going down. The reason for that is because the lighting conditions change so rapidly that it's difficult to keep up with adjustments. Aside from that half hour or so when the light is changing all of my settings are done manually. I prefer that because I feel like I can control things much better.
Here are the samples:
This lens is entirely manual, the Nikon digital camera metering does not function when used with this lens. All settings must be set on the camera and if I'm shooting flash that has to be set manually as well. The manual focus is smooth and precise as you can see in these test shots. I took six test shots, these five turned out and the sixth was a little out of focus. That's a good average for a manual focus lens. Of course the action will be quite a bit faster at the track than it was for these still shots but based on my limited test results manual focus is not going to be a liability on this lens. This is a niche lens, it won't be used all night but it will be useful in some lighting and distance situations.
My lens lineup for 2009 is going to look something like this:
500mm fixed f8 manual lens used for long outside the track shots over the top of the fence with available light.
70-300mm f4.5-5.6 auto focus used for outside the track shots and infield long shots in available light as well as fill flash shots till dusk. This lens has produced more magazine and newspaper shots than any other lens I have. It's a budget lens but within certain focal lengths it produces images comparable to professional lenses. If I am careful to stay within those parameters this can be a very productive lens. I especially like how quickly it locks into focus for head on shots. Like they say in racing, "it ain't the chrome that makes it go."
135mm f2.8 manual lens (this was today's test lens) can be used from dusk through B Mains for single car shots with flash. Not a good victory lane lens but it's going to be awesome for closely cropped single car shots.
85mm f1.8 auto focus my workhorse lens used at night for flash action shots, 4 wide salute and victory lane at some tracks. Nikon makes an 85mm f1.4 but that lens is over $1,000, this one was gray market (no US warranty) and cost me less than $400 delivered. F1.8 is plenty fast, open it up and slow the shutter down and this baby does a great job of catching those 4 wide salute to the crowd shots.
28-105mm f2.8 auto focus used for Feature races and victory lane as an alternative to the 85mm at some tracks depending on how roomy victory lane is. This was my most expensive lens at over $800 and probably the biggest disappointment. In retrospect I'd have bought a Nikon 80-200mm f2.8 for approximately the same price. Last fall I discovered that when I put this lens on I need to turn the iso one speed faster and it does a much better job. I had the 85mm on then switched to this one for victory lane and thought I'd try some adjustments to see if I could get better performance. I was pleased with the results and now I know that I can use it during the Feature if victory lane has tight quarters.
As you can see, I'm not crazy about zoom lenses anymore. There are some situations where I have to use them but I shoot the majority of my photos now with prime lenses. If this manual focus lens produces the desired results (it appears that it will) I am going to add more of them to my collection. Some of the Cedar Lake banquet slide presentation outside the track shots were taken with the 500mm manual lens from up on the hill. All of my film camera shots up through 2003 were taken with manual focus lenses and all manual camera settings. Last season I finally gave in and started using shutter priority early in the evening when the sun starts going down. The reason for that is because the lighting conditions change so rapidly that it's difficult to keep up with adjustments. Aside from that half hour or so when the light is changing all of my settings are done manually. I prefer that because I feel like I can control things much better.
Here are the samples:
Friday, February 20, 2009
2009 plans and a surprising statistic...
I'm going to take a few minutes to talk about my 2009 racing plans. Of course nobody can make any plans to go racing without transportation to get them to the track. I'll be driving the ol' Ranger for the seventh consecutive racing season so as to put off car payments for another year. I only drive about a mile per day to a park & ride and take a vanpool back and forth to work so that makes it possible for me to hang onto my vehicles longer than most people would. I have been in car pools, rode the MTC bus or rode in vanpools for going on thirty years now, not for environmental reasons but mostly for cost savings and convenience. It's nice to be able to buy a vehicle in 2003, still be driving it in 2009 and only have put about 34,000 miles on it in six years. My truck will probably rust out before the mileage hits 150,000, it's 16 years old and currently at about 139,200 miles. The last brake rebuild was a year ago, the exhaust and battery about two years, the starter a year, and it was tuned up a year ago. The tires are a few years old but they still look like new. The rubber on the sidewalls will probably start cracking before the tread starts to show any wear.
The old girl needs is a new radiator so I'll try to do that before the racing season begins. I could probably get by without replacing the radiator, the Rangers had problems with grommets leaking between the tank and fin tubes in cold weather. It leaked a little bit when the weather was below zero there for a couple weeks but has since stopped. Apparently radiator replacement due to this problem was covered under one of the recalls for this particular model but I'm long past taking advantage of that. It's a 5 speed with no air and a manual transmission so the radiator has four bolts holding it in, two hose clamps and a quarter round plastic shroud held on by a couple of screw/clip fasteners. Even I should be able to handle that job when the weather gets a little warmer. Perhaps the Saturday that the canceled Sandbox race was scheduled for would be a good day to do the repair. It has been leaking like this only in sub zero weather for a couple of years and as soon as the weather warms up it doesn't leak a drop all summer. I could probably let it go and keep dumping anti freeze in but I hate having to go out and do that when it's 20 below. At the rate I put miles on my vehicles this truck could last a couple more years so it's probably a good idea to get it done.
I'm not advocating that everyone drive tired iron but so far that has worked for me.
So now that I've got a way to get there let's take a look at my schedule. I'm planning on getting out to both nights of the Cedar Lake opener. It's going to be exciting to see the Late Models, Modifieds, Midwest Modifieds and Super Stocks take to the track for the first time in 2009. I've got all ten UMSS races at Kopellah on my schedule. The Billy Anderson Memorial at Cedar Lake, CLS School bus night, the Masters, all the CLS Sprint races. The Masters, the Firecracker, the Outlaws, the USA Nationals, Richert Memorial and Legendary 100. Forgive me if I missed anything.
The Elko Dirt Nationals, Deer Creek, Jackson and Brainerd vacation list and budget willing. Two IRA stops at Rice Lake. Possibly some Princeton and a visit to the new track in Ogilvie. It's going to be a stretch this year but I'll even try to take in the Fireman's Nationals at Angell Park and Roger Rager's induction into the NSCHOF at Knoxville.
Traveling beyond the nearby tracks might be more of a challenge this year but I'm pretty confident I'll be able to stick to most of my proposed schedule. I've got enough money in the budget to do about 40 races close to home, CLS, Kopellah, Elko, Ogilvie and possibly Princeton. Rice Lake won't be a problem, Deer Creek, brainerd, Superior and Jackson are a little further and require a motel stay so those will depend on car pool opportunities and photo sales. I tuned up our Olds and the only things left to do are a stabilizer bar and alignment which I'll tend to before the season starts. I'm looking forward to getting past the planning stage and getting outside doing something. These winters start to get kind of oppressive by the time March rolls around.
I was going through my files the other day and happened upon a strange statistic. I have sold 410 and 360 Sprint Car photos, Modified photos, Midwest Modified photos, Super Stock photos, Street Stock photos, Pure Stock Photos, Hornet photos, and even Kart photos. But I have never sold a Late Model photo. That's kind of a strange irony considering that up to 75% of the races I attend each season were Late Model shows.
The UMSS races combined with nearby IRA and World of Outlaws shows along with Jackson and Arlington will make it possible to reverse my trend of spending more time at fendered than open wheel race. I've still got my Late Model friends that I'll be seeing whenever I've got a free Saturday night but I'll be putting a little more emphasis on the Sprints this year. I've still got my favorite Late Model shows etched in stone on the schedule and I'll be watching the NASCAR Late Models every free Saturday night I get. I'm blessed because I enjoy a wide variety of racing have the opportunity to fill that need for variety without having to travel very far. What's nice about the Sprint shows up here is that when I follow them to the various tracks I get to see a lot of drivers in the support classes that I wouldn't get to watch if I always stuck to one routine. I like the variety, all of these racers regardless of what class of cars they drive all love the sport.
Well, that's going to do it for tonight's thoughts. I'm ready to kick back and watch some television for a while before I hit the sack.
Later
The old girl needs is a new radiator so I'll try to do that before the racing season begins. I could probably get by without replacing the radiator, the Rangers had problems with grommets leaking between the tank and fin tubes in cold weather. It leaked a little bit when the weather was below zero there for a couple weeks but has since stopped. Apparently radiator replacement due to this problem was covered under one of the recalls for this particular model but I'm long past taking advantage of that. It's a 5 speed with no air and a manual transmission so the radiator has four bolts holding it in, two hose clamps and a quarter round plastic shroud held on by a couple of screw/clip fasteners. Even I should be able to handle that job when the weather gets a little warmer. Perhaps the Saturday that the canceled Sandbox race was scheduled for would be a good day to do the repair. It has been leaking like this only in sub zero weather for a couple of years and as soon as the weather warms up it doesn't leak a drop all summer. I could probably let it go and keep dumping anti freeze in but I hate having to go out and do that when it's 20 below. At the rate I put miles on my vehicles this truck could last a couple more years so it's probably a good idea to get it done.
I'm not advocating that everyone drive tired iron but so far that has worked for me.
So now that I've got a way to get there let's take a look at my schedule. I'm planning on getting out to both nights of the Cedar Lake opener. It's going to be exciting to see the Late Models, Modifieds, Midwest Modifieds and Super Stocks take to the track for the first time in 2009. I've got all ten UMSS races at Kopellah on my schedule. The Billy Anderson Memorial at Cedar Lake, CLS School bus night, the Masters, all the CLS Sprint races. The Masters, the Firecracker, the Outlaws, the USA Nationals, Richert Memorial and Legendary 100. Forgive me if I missed anything.
The Elko Dirt Nationals, Deer Creek, Jackson and Brainerd vacation list and budget willing. Two IRA stops at Rice Lake. Possibly some Princeton and a visit to the new track in Ogilvie. It's going to be a stretch this year but I'll even try to take in the Fireman's Nationals at Angell Park and Roger Rager's induction into the NSCHOF at Knoxville.
Traveling beyond the nearby tracks might be more of a challenge this year but I'm pretty confident I'll be able to stick to most of my proposed schedule. I've got enough money in the budget to do about 40 races close to home, CLS, Kopellah, Elko, Ogilvie and possibly Princeton. Rice Lake won't be a problem, Deer Creek, brainerd, Superior and Jackson are a little further and require a motel stay so those will depend on car pool opportunities and photo sales. I tuned up our Olds and the only things left to do are a stabilizer bar and alignment which I'll tend to before the season starts. I'm looking forward to getting past the planning stage and getting outside doing something. These winters start to get kind of oppressive by the time March rolls around.
I was going through my files the other day and happened upon a strange statistic. I have sold 410 and 360 Sprint Car photos, Modified photos, Midwest Modified photos, Super Stock photos, Street Stock photos, Pure Stock Photos, Hornet photos, and even Kart photos. But I have never sold a Late Model photo. That's kind of a strange irony considering that up to 75% of the races I attend each season were Late Model shows.
The UMSS races combined with nearby IRA and World of Outlaws shows along with Jackson and Arlington will make it possible to reverse my trend of spending more time at fendered than open wheel race. I've still got my Late Model friends that I'll be seeing whenever I've got a free Saturday night but I'll be putting a little more emphasis on the Sprints this year. I've still got my favorite Late Model shows etched in stone on the schedule and I'll be watching the NASCAR Late Models every free Saturday night I get. I'm blessed because I enjoy a wide variety of racing have the opportunity to fill that need for variety without having to travel very far. What's nice about the Sprint shows up here is that when I follow them to the various tracks I get to see a lot of drivers in the support classes that I wouldn't get to watch if I always stuck to one routine. I like the variety, all of these racers regardless of what class of cars they drive all love the sport.
Well, that's going to do it for tonight's thoughts. I'm ready to kick back and watch some television for a while before I hit the sack.
Later
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Middle of the week already!!!
Where did the past week go? Time sure flies when you're having fun. There was even a three day weekend (President's Day) and it's gone by already.
Some people might not agree but I think that after over a decade it's safe to think of myself as a writer and photographer. My work has appeared in quite a few publications and I write a regular column so I think it's appropriate to think of myself as a member of the racing media. If you type the search words "dirt track racing" in Google my website comes up at the top. I would expect a good ranking when I include "Minnesota" in the search but to see it come up at the top of the listings when I type in "dirt track racing" is awesome. With all the commercial dirt track sites out there I never expected mine to hit the top of the list. Barry Braun of the Dirtcast.com told me that longevity is a factor and gotomn has been online since 1999 so he makes a good point. I listen to a podcast called "Weekly Web Tools" which focuses on the self taught do-it-yourself web designers like me. They said it's important to have the proper keywords in your META TAGS as well as good text links on your pages. I have always made it a point to try to make navigation simple for visitors so evidently it has paid off in other ways.
I've got some pet peeves about some of the racing websites so I might was well list a few while I'm on the subject. I'm not trying to say mine isn't without fault but there are some things out there that I find especially irritating. One is all the pay sites for dirt track racing that have come online the past few years. If their goal is to make money from the sport (something I find distasteful) they should get enough sponsors so that they can offer free content. I don't know about you but it's important to me to pay my credit card down in this economy. $4.95 per month for this website, $29.95 per season for that website, pretty soon a person could rack up $100 or more just on dirt track sites alone. Add that to my monthly satellite bill and it's just too much to justify for entertainment. The way I look at it is if I can visit streaming online movies and TV shows for free why should I pay $29.95 per season to subscribe to a dirt track site? So I think you hear where I'm coming from, I can watch the NFL, MLB, and NASCAR on network TV for free so where does a little ol' niche sport like dirt track racing come off charging me for content? Some would say to me "there's a simple solution, if you don't like it you don't have to watch." I agree 100%, I don't like it and I don't watch.
With the exception of message boards which I understand have to require registration for security purposes I shouldn't have to sign up with a website to view content. For example, there are driver websites out there that require visitors to setup a user name and password to view the driver's schedule and photo gallery. Let's see now, I've been online since 1996, during that time I have collected a full notebook of user names and passwords to numerous sites. Nope, with all due respect to those drivers I don't have that urgent of a need to know where you're going to race. Certain things on websites like schedules, viewing links pages, and looking through photo galleries should not require registration. When I come across a racing page like that I click out and move onto something else as fast as I can. Don't waste my time making me sign up because all you're doing is farming my personal information. Same goes for tracks and sanctioning bodies, trust me, you tracks and sanctions want to make your information easily accessible. Requiring registration is NOT easily accessible.
Cedar Lake canceled their Sandbox Arena race so I had to remove it from my schedule. Evidently they didn't get enough entrants to justify the expense of building the temporary track. I heard that there's still some issues with the ventilation for the bigger events like the Midgets so that's on hold for the time being. Hopefully they'll be able to resolve the issues but I'm not real optimistic when it comes to spending money on the building right now. For my own selfish reasons I really wasn't looking forward to the Karts and Legends so I'm not too upset by the news. I'd have enjoyed it once I got out there but it's not likely I'd have sold many photos and I'm not into those types of racing so it would have been a lot of time and effort doing something I'm not crazy about. The average fan doesn't see this but when one writes and shoots for publications you're bound to work some events that aren't as high on your list as others. No offense to the participants but it would have been a long weekend. I'm looking forward to the outdoor opener, that's what turns me on, the first two nights of Late Models, Mods, Supers and Midwest Mods on the big track.
Well, that's going to do it for tonight. Next time I post well take a fun look ahead at some of the big special shows this season.
Some people might not agree but I think that after over a decade it's safe to think of myself as a writer and photographer. My work has appeared in quite a few publications and I write a regular column so I think it's appropriate to think of myself as a member of the racing media. If you type the search words "dirt track racing" in Google my website comes up at the top. I would expect a good ranking when I include "Minnesota" in the search but to see it come up at the top of the listings when I type in "dirt track racing" is awesome. With all the commercial dirt track sites out there I never expected mine to hit the top of the list. Barry Braun of the Dirtcast.com told me that longevity is a factor and gotomn has been online since 1999 so he makes a good point. I listen to a podcast called "Weekly Web Tools" which focuses on the self taught do-it-yourself web designers like me. They said it's important to have the proper keywords in your META TAGS as well as good text links on your pages. I have always made it a point to try to make navigation simple for visitors so evidently it has paid off in other ways.
I've got some pet peeves about some of the racing websites so I might was well list a few while I'm on the subject. I'm not trying to say mine isn't without fault but there are some things out there that I find especially irritating. One is all the pay sites for dirt track racing that have come online the past few years. If their goal is to make money from the sport (something I find distasteful) they should get enough sponsors so that they can offer free content. I don't know about you but it's important to me to pay my credit card down in this economy. $4.95 per month for this website, $29.95 per season for that website, pretty soon a person could rack up $100 or more just on dirt track sites alone. Add that to my monthly satellite bill and it's just too much to justify for entertainment. The way I look at it is if I can visit streaming online movies and TV shows for free why should I pay $29.95 per season to subscribe to a dirt track site? So I think you hear where I'm coming from, I can watch the NFL, MLB, and NASCAR on network TV for free so where does a little ol' niche sport like dirt track racing come off charging me for content? Some would say to me "there's a simple solution, if you don't like it you don't have to watch." I agree 100%, I don't like it and I don't watch.
With the exception of message boards which I understand have to require registration for security purposes I shouldn't have to sign up with a website to view content. For example, there are driver websites out there that require visitors to setup a user name and password to view the driver's schedule and photo gallery. Let's see now, I've been online since 1996, during that time I have collected a full notebook of user names and passwords to numerous sites. Nope, with all due respect to those drivers I don't have that urgent of a need to know where you're going to race. Certain things on websites like schedules, viewing links pages, and looking through photo galleries should not require registration. When I come across a racing page like that I click out and move onto something else as fast as I can. Don't waste my time making me sign up because all you're doing is farming my personal information. Same goes for tracks and sanctioning bodies, trust me, you tracks and sanctions want to make your information easily accessible. Requiring registration is NOT easily accessible.
Cedar Lake canceled their Sandbox Arena race so I had to remove it from my schedule. Evidently they didn't get enough entrants to justify the expense of building the temporary track. I heard that there's still some issues with the ventilation for the bigger events like the Midgets so that's on hold for the time being. Hopefully they'll be able to resolve the issues but I'm not real optimistic when it comes to spending money on the building right now. For my own selfish reasons I really wasn't looking forward to the Karts and Legends so I'm not too upset by the news. I'd have enjoyed it once I got out there but it's not likely I'd have sold many photos and I'm not into those types of racing so it would have been a lot of time and effort doing something I'm not crazy about. The average fan doesn't see this but when one writes and shoots for publications you're bound to work some events that aren't as high on your list as others. No offense to the participants but it would have been a long weekend. I'm looking forward to the outdoor opener, that's what turns me on, the first two nights of Late Models, Mods, Supers and Midwest Mods on the big track.
Well, that's going to do it for tonight. Next time I post well take a fun look ahead at some of the big special shows this season.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
An alternative to Miller Lite
Times are tough so I'll give you a tip. If you're looking for an alternative to Miller Lite try a twelve pack of Milwaukee's Best Light. It's made by the Miller Brewing Company and has a taste similar it's higher priced big name cousin but only nicks me for $6.25 per twelve pack tax included at Wine & Roses in Forest Lake. They don't sell it in cases but two twelve packs only comes to $12.50 so you can't go wrong for at price.
I ran my cell phone through the wash machine. It sux when you do that because even with my upgrade option it still ended up costing me $100 bucks after rebates by the time I got a car charger and a holder to carry the phone on my belt. My wife's phone was overdue for an upgrade too so it I had to get two new phones but it was worth it because we were both overdue. Aside from the phone I had to do some work on the car and truck. The Olds needed intake gaskets, a water pump map sensor and is in line for a stabilizer bar, alignment and new battery. The Ranger needs a new radiator before racing gets underway so I'll have to dust off my tools and do that one myself. Routine annual maintenance.
Practice with the new lens has been coming along quite nicely. It has to be controlled 100% manually but I like the results.
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I ran my cell phone through the wash machine. It sux when you do that because even with my upgrade option it still ended up costing me $100 bucks after rebates by the time I got a car charger and a holder to carry the phone on my belt. My wife's phone was overdue for an upgrade too so it I had to get two new phones but it was worth it because we were both overdue. Aside from the phone I had to do some work on the car and truck. The Olds needed intake gaskets, a water pump map sensor and is in line for a stabilizer bar, alignment and new battery. The Ranger needs a new radiator before racing gets underway so I'll have to dust off my tools and do that one myself. Routine annual maintenance.
Practice with the new lens has been coming along quite nicely. It has to be controlled 100% manually but I like the results.
_2-8-09_iso800_f5.6_1-320_1-1m-flash.JPG)
Friday, February 06, 2009
New/Old look to gototmn.com website
I made some eye pleasing, ease of navigation type changes to the gotomn.com website. The page is all white and we went back to one of the older logos that I like better than the one I was using. No fancy innovations or anything like that, just the same old photo, history and links page that's been out there for over ten years. Kind of like an old pair of sweats, easy going and comfortable but nothing fancy.
There has been a lot going on with me lately so I haven't made many blog posts. The wife is going in for shoulder surgery later this month so I'm going to be busy. I've been having some car repairs done recently. Things like intake gaskets, water pumps and a MAP sensor on the Olds. An upcoming radiator replacement on the Ranger. It's tired old iron but it's paid for and they've been running pretty good so I'm going to invest a couple more years in the current fleet.
I'm looking forward to the upcoming racing season. I ended up buying another lens to add to my collection. It's a prime lens, a manual focus 135mm f2.8 third party lens that was marketed by a distributorship known as Kalimar that started in St. Louis in 1952 and was in business through the mid 90's. As close as I can trace it's origins the lens was probabaly manufactured by Sigma for marketing by Kalimar. I got this lens off eBay for less than $100 but in it's day it was a $400 lens (mid '90's dollars) when it was being marketed for film cameras.
This thing was a rare find. It's a solid build by what I would consider the best third party lens builder, Sigma, and was marketed by Kalimar to stores such as JC Penny, Sears and others of that genre. It's a manual focus lens but it's pristine and produces excellent images. It's not something I'd use all night long but there's a niche for it during certain lighting conditions.
I tested this lens out by pointing it out the front door and taking a couple of shots across the road. I was impressed by this lens' sharpness and clarity which in my opinion rivals that of much more expensive professional lenses. You just can't go wrong with prime lenses, they're a pain in the ass to carry around in the dust and the weather but they flat out rock when it comes to photo quality.
I am thinking about doing a video version of this blog so that I don't have to type the blog anymore. I've got a webcam that would be up to the task and it would be a quick edit so I might do that when I feel like talking more than I feel like typing. A carpal tunnel saver for sure!!!
I'll type (or talk) to you again real soon...
There has been a lot going on with me lately so I haven't made many blog posts. The wife is going in for shoulder surgery later this month so I'm going to be busy. I've been having some car repairs done recently. Things like intake gaskets, water pumps and a MAP sensor on the Olds. An upcoming radiator replacement on the Ranger. It's tired old iron but it's paid for and they've been running pretty good so I'm going to invest a couple more years in the current fleet.
I'm looking forward to the upcoming racing season. I ended up buying another lens to add to my collection. It's a prime lens, a manual focus 135mm f2.8 third party lens that was marketed by a distributorship known as Kalimar that started in St. Louis in 1952 and was in business through the mid 90's. As close as I can trace it's origins the lens was probabaly manufactured by Sigma for marketing by Kalimar. I got this lens off eBay for less than $100 but in it's day it was a $400 lens (mid '90's dollars) when it was being marketed for film cameras.
This thing was a rare find. It's a solid build by what I would consider the best third party lens builder, Sigma, and was marketed by Kalimar to stores such as JC Penny, Sears and others of that genre. It's a manual focus lens but it's pristine and produces excellent images. It's not something I'd use all night long but there's a niche for it during certain lighting conditions.
I tested this lens out by pointing it out the front door and taking a couple of shots across the road. I was impressed by this lens' sharpness and clarity which in my opinion rivals that of much more expensive professional lenses. You just can't go wrong with prime lenses, they're a pain in the ass to carry around in the dust and the weather but they flat out rock when it comes to photo quality.
I am thinking about doing a video version of this blog so that I don't have to type the blog anymore. I've got a webcam that would be up to the task and it would be a quick edit so I might do that when I feel like talking more than I feel like typing. A carpal tunnel saver for sure!!!
I'll type (or talk) to you again real soon...
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
I'll start making some blog posts soon...
I was taking a break from the blog but now that racing has begun down in Florida I'll get busy and make some posts.
During my break from blogging I have been busy filling photo orders, writing for a couple of the publications and making some changes to the gotomn.com website. They're mostly design changes to clean up the website so it's easier to navigate and more pleasing to the eye. Nothing fancy, just the same basic text and photos that I've been doing for over ten years.
I'll announce it when I'm done.
During my break from blogging I have been busy filling photo orders, writing for a couple of the publications and making some changes to the gotomn.com website. They're mostly design changes to clean up the website so it's easier to navigate and more pleasing to the eye. Nothing fancy, just the same basic text and photos that I've been doing for over ten years.
I'll announce it when I'm done.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
It's been a h*lluva couple of bittersweet weeks...
It's been a h*lluva couple of bittersweet weeks since the first of the year. Navy Davy left us unexpectedly. Whether it was shooting the shit in the Cedar Lake infield or filling in for my missing shipmate at Kopellah, I realize now that I took him for granted and should have spent more time hanging out with him. There comes a time in one's life, this is now for me, that one realizes they have done some things right, made some mistakes and continue to learn something new each and every day. Sometimes the problem is actually putting those lessons in action after the emotions and the pain of loss get back in check. As a tribute to Navy Davy I have gone through this entire blog and saved all of the "Navy Davy's Shot of the Week" that he shared with me. I will be creating a section on the gotomn.com website and posting all of his photos as well as a few others. The Navy Davy tribute section will be be left on the gotomn.com website as long as I am able to host and maintain the site. Hopefully one of the younger photogs will feel the need to preserve some of the work that I'm doing on my site when I'm done.
I talked to my friend Bill Taylor a couple of weeks ago. Bill took ill at Bonneville last summer where he was doing his usual duty as a starter on one of the courses and had to return home early. He told me that he's feeling better after a few visits to the doctor but he's got to slow down his pace a little. Bill sent me some information about the ARDUN flat head to Hemi engine conversion. Taylor was the first man to put a machine powered by an Ardun in the 200mph club in 1969 driving one of the model T bodied roaders. It's a very interesting read and I learned some interesting things about Bill's past that he has talked about before but I never made the full connection until I saw it in print.
I am listening to the Chili Bowl as I type this blog post. It's pretty cool to hear a race broadcast in the dead of winter. Tomorrow night is the CLS banquet so that should be fun to see the awards presentation and chat about racing.
In case you haven't heard, the 10th Annual GRP Racing Trivia Contest has begun and will be running for a week so be sure to enter.
Well, we're working our way through the alphabet at the Chili Bowl and the broadcast is getting more interesting. Later!
I talked to my friend Bill Taylor a couple of weeks ago. Bill took ill at Bonneville last summer where he was doing his usual duty as a starter on one of the courses and had to return home early. He told me that he's feeling better after a few visits to the doctor but he's got to slow down his pace a little. Bill sent me some information about the ARDUN flat head to Hemi engine conversion. Taylor was the first man to put a machine powered by an Ardun in the 200mph club in 1969 driving one of the model T bodied roaders. It's a very interesting read and I learned some interesting things about Bill's past that he has talked about before but I never made the full connection until I saw it in print.
I am listening to the Chili Bowl as I type this blog post. It's pretty cool to hear a race broadcast in the dead of winter. Tomorrow night is the CLS banquet so that should be fun to see the awards presentation and chat about racing.
In case you haven't heard, the 10th Annual GRP Racing Trivia Contest has begun and will be running for a week so be sure to enter.
Well, we're working our way through the alphabet at the Chili Bowl and the broadcast is getting more interesting. Later!
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
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'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
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
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
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
Sunday, December 14, 2008
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............."
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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............."
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Sunday, December 07, 2008
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........................"
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........................"
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
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!
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!
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