The Weenie Wagon rises from the abyss!!!

The infamous "Weenie Wagon" has been taken out of storage and will make an encore appearance on September 12 at the Jerry Richert Memorial. I'm not certain at this time if the owner, my brother-in-law Mark, will be joining us but I want to thank him for this generous MDTR sponsorship. I guess sponsorship is what you call it when somebody takes their motorhome out of the barn, power washes the dust off of it, checks that the tabs are still good for another month and throws a spare battery in it to get it going. Tajmahal it ain't but I think it will get me through the night and that's what counts. A bunch of family is coming out including the annual racing appearance of the non-race-fan wife. It should be a good time for all.

I got into a bit of a funk after the USA Nationals and my sour mood lasted for about three weeks before a banzai trip to Grand Forks reminded me why I love racing. The trip had it's challenges but I was introduced to an awesome track and Craig Dollansky scored his second win of the season. In retrospect my meltdown can be attributed to the realization that we all come to at a certain point each season when racing is approaching it's conclusion here in the upper Midwest. Do you guys get that "now what am I going to do" feeling too? I can't afford to travel to exotic places like Florida (funny I once lived in Jacksonville but now it's an exotic destination) in the winter. I'm not complaining because I've got it pretty good. I don't get upset when I miss a race or two, Lord knows I've seen plenty of them in my lifetime.

The Grand Forks race reminded me what being a dirt track fan is all about and an aborted run to Rice Lake concluding at the CLS season championship drove the point home. Imagine if you will sitting in the Rice Lake concession area talking to Steve Sinclair and Sam Hafertape Jr. after visiting with Brooke Tatnell, Travis Whitney, Jerry Richert Jr. and Bill Balog in the pit area as drizzle forced me to seek shelter the nearest hauler. Turn the clock ahead a couple hours and I'm standing in victory lane at Cedar Lake taking a photo of Greg Nippoldt winner of the Cedar Lake Pro Stock track championship. Race winner Tim Borgeson appeared to be a shoe in for these honors at the start of the season but his highs were too high and his lows were too low which allowed Nippoldt to snatch the crown. Now that, my friends, is an oxymoron of an evening if I've ever seen one.

Racing has been a lot of fun this season but I spent the first half of the year getting accustomed to a more rigorous schedule than I'm used to. I lost the Ranger back in June to terminal rust but she carried me to a lot of races during the six seasons that I owned her. Even though she was old, underpowered, sagging in a few places and looking like she was ready to fall apart I still loved her. I stroked her along as far as I could take her but the tired ol' gal gave out and reached a premature climax.

I got way behind posting to the blog and now that the season is nearing it's end I'll see if I can't pick up where I left off and get something on here more often.

There are a few racing weekends left, it's Thursday night and I'm getting ready to go. See you at the Navy Davy Memorial race.

20,000+ unique visits, 31,000+ hits in July

Thank you all for visiting the gotomn.com website during the month of July. I don't have any click banners or advertising so I don't make anything from the increased traffic but I prefer to keep the site banner free.

Over 20,000 people visited gotomn.com at least one time during the month of July. What promoter or advertiser wouldn't want to reach 20,000 people?

Of that 20,000+ over 11,000 people came back for a second visit. What promoter wouldn't want a crowd of 20,000 and for 11,000 of them to come back again?

My website gets more visits than a lot of sites with advertising. I would consider a sponsor deal if it was a good fit. I'm not talking about a dozen $50 per year banners like I used to do. I had more of a one exclusive sponsor deal in mind. It's probably never going to happen but I can wish can't I?

It's August, where did the time go?

Well, I made it into August and I'm still making it out to the races. I've had a bit of a rocky road the past month or so but have made it to all the races on my schedule up through the USA Nationals. I was originally planning on going to the UMSS race at Kopellah on August 8 but the UMSS canceled so considering the forecast I opted to stay home instead of going for their regular classes. It proved to be a wise move as two of the Features rained out after running several in a steady mist. Steady mist might be tolerable for hearty fans but not for thousands of dollars worth of camera equipment. This morning it rained hard in Forest Lake, the ditch is full of water, there are flash flood warnings nearby and all racing is canceled. CLS and Rice Lake canceled early and the last holdout within easy reach, Ogilvie, canceled at 2pm. Deer Creek as far as I know is still racing but I don't need to see a race so bad that I'm going to drive that far tonight.

I'm looking at what remains of the racing budget and it looks like I'll be able to do the rest of this season with a few adjustments. After that I'm going to have to regroup and take a close look at what the prospects look like for next year. I need to be sure of what I'm going to do before making a commitment to the media sources I contribute to. I'm listed as one of several track photographers at one track and as a series photographer. That probably sounds good on paper but people aren't buying many photos from me this year so I'm not making enough to justify the added expense. In the past the only Friday night races I'd attend were big events such as the Masters, USA Nationals, and the Jackson Spring Sprint Spectacular but aside from a few specials I only went on Saturdays and would take an occasional Saturday off as well. This year I have been going every Friday and Saturday with no breaks and that is causing some problems with the family.

I'm not complaining, we all have a limit to our resources whatever our role is in this sport. The difference being a fan or racer is that when funds get depleted they can take a couple weeks off to regroup and nobody is going to notice but for me when I commit to a media source for the season I feel obligated to see it through. I'll finish out this season pretty much as planned except for a question mark regarding two nights that require a motel room. I know I won't sell anything to pay for that trip and it will be tiring to drive back and forth two late nights in a row. I'm probably going to have to find a replacement unless some photo orders come out of nowhere to help defray the cost of a motel room. The unexpected demise of the Ranger changed everything for me. The Merc doesn't have a trailer hitch and the camper isn't licensed so camping at the Jerry Richert Memorial is up in the air. I'm too old to be sleeping in the back seat of a car so that tradition might have to wait until next year.

This year I'm on a pace to hit 50 races and for a person who only ever went to 25 that is a big increase. I thought I could do it but when the Ranger didn't make it through the summer that set me back too far. In addition to the added expense I'm doing a proportionately greater amount of racing related work during the week to the point I barely have time to even cut the grass. Changes will have to be made to cut down the number of races to a level that fits my budget and vacation but I'm sure that's what you all do so I'm no different than anybody else. I just have to do my best to estimate what I'm going to be able to handle prior to making any commitments next time. I still plan to shoot but probably not from the first green to the final checker because there's no incentive to stay down there. Like I said, I'll finish this year out business as usual but I'm way too busy to keep up this pace. I'm not sure of the extent of my interviewing, photos, and writing but I'll figure that out after the season is over.

There are some other reasons for cutting back next season besides money. At 50 races I barely have time to cut the grass let alone do any home projects. The wife and I want to get the house in shape to sell because we'd like to move into a town house. There are some projects that will take a do-it-yourselfer like me all weekend. I can't very well remove a window and leave a hole in the side of the house for a week just so I can go racing. I'm not a contractor by trade so everything takes me twice as long as a professional and some of these projects are things that can't be completed on a week night. Certain adult children must think I have a revolving door and that's been disruptive for my wife and I so that's another reason we'd like to move to a smaller place. Sorry, no room! LOL. My more ambitious than usual racing schedule has also cheated my wife out of our Fridays nights together and that has been hard on our relationship. Having the privilege of taking photos is not worth sabotaging a relationship over.

My lack of success at selling is not the fault of any track or series and I'm sure they would want to see me do well as I would think that they appreciate the media support I bring to the table. I would think that writing for a racing paper and doing the racemn.com and dirtcast.com interviews would be some added incentive for them. Photography is something I am passionate about so if I was restricted I'd be forced to find places that are willing to accommodate my part time schedule. I understand why the tracks would want a commitment and they have all treated me great but there comes a point where I have to recoup some of my expenses to make doing this worth my time. I should make it clear that it is not my goal to make a living or even a profit from my racing photos. I'd simply have to find a way to cover a portion of my expenses for the additional races.

I have heard of cases where someone will win their first Feature and there was no photographer to take the victory lane photo. You'll hear the racers complaining that nobody was there to take their photo but they need to put themselves in our shoes. If they won a race at a track where there wasn't any photographers present then there was probably a reason. There's probably no sales opportunities at that particular track and it's costing the photographers more to go there than they're making in sales. Us photographers aren't the smartest guys out there so we'll go to a track once, twice, maybe three times and eventually if there aren't any orders we'll probably stop going. That doesn't mean we don't like the track or you the racer, it means that it's not cost effective and we we're not going to just show up "for the love of the sport." I think the competition among photographers for a dwindling share of the racer's photo purchases is another factor. This year I have seen more guys traveling hundreds of miles to weekly shows at my local tracks than ever and you never used to see that. Evidently sales must have dried up at the tracks close to where they live. I'm at a competitive disadvantage because I'm doing other things besides photography and I don't have time to walk the pits selling photos. That's nobody's fault but my own. I'm not good at sales or getting my name out there and apparently the racers aren't seeing my contact information on the track and series websites. The links aren't always very prominent so it's pretty hard to beat the old tried and true method of walking through the pits with a portfolio. It isn't possible to do my media tasks and sell photos, there is only so much time in a night of racing.

What I'm looking at next season is probably around 20-25 big shows. Say for example there's a multi day show where this year I attend three or four nights I might only go one or two nights next season. If there are no special events on a particular weekend I will stay home and work on projects. I can do the phone interviews during the week and my regular routine of photos and interviews at the races I do attend.

Every year at this time it seems like I get frustrated and I think about finding another hobby that isn't so expensive and demanding. In fact I have said this so many times that nobody takes my annual dog days of August burnout seriously. All I can say is that the numbers aren't very good and the wife is more fed up with our family resources being donated to dirt track racing so we'll see what happens over the winter. It's hard to really do much planning for racing right now with plenty of racing left on the schedule.

One thing I can say is that I don't have any plans of stopping my website. I've got two free domains besides gotomn.com and unlimited space so rather than take gotomn.com down I'm actually considering adding some kind of non-racing website. I'm looking for something that would appeal to a larger audience and would allow me to incorporate my photo, graphics and multimedia skills. I'm thinking about something that is big and appeals to such a large number of people where there aren't any restrictions on photography or extensive travel and lodging required. I've got some ideas so I might take a closer look at that over the winter.

Later,
Stan

Stan's mid season report

In may of 2009 the gotomn.com website logged 16,689 unique visitors. Unique visitors means that 16,689 persons visited my website at least once during the month of May. During that same period the website welcomed 25,605 total visits. That means of the 16,689 who visited MDTR at least one time during the month 8,916 returned to visit the site more than once.

Here are screen prints of my website statistics verifying the May 2009 totals.







As I type this on Saturday morning June 27 gotomn.com is on pace to hit over 15,000 uniques and exceed 25,000 total visits. To put those numbers in perspective imagine a track hosting a race with that kind of attendance and you can begin to see how impressive those numbers are. There are many sponsored racing websites that don't receive even close to that many visits per month. Unfortunately it's difficult for an individual like myself to make this clear to potential advertisers who tend to overlook gotomn as a hobby site not worthy of their support. I tried selling ad banners but had problems with advertisers requesting that I change their banners in the middle of the season (the price was too low for me to have to drop everything and redo their banner) and others who felt their $50 gave them the right to dictate how I ran my website. Consequently, I decided to discontinue the banner program because I wanted to be able to call my own shots and didn't have time to redo their banners half way through the year.

Here are the June statistics as of 10am Saturday morning June 27. As you can see, the uniques are currently 14,729 and total visits are up to 23,397. I'm confident that we'll see over 15,000 uniques and 25,000 hits this month:





Photo sales so far this season have been very slow for me. There is no question that my work is of good quality. My photos have appeared in The Midwest Racing Connection, Hawkeye Racing News, the Sprint Car magazine Flat Out Illustrated, Dirt Late Model, All The Dirt, National Speed Sport News, The Cedar Lake Speedway, Kopellah Speedway, RACEMN.COM, DIRTCAST.COM, The Upper Midwest Sprint Car Series website, and my personal website at gotomn.com as well as various other tracks and media sources too numerous to list.

I have had several inquiries for photo cards (aka hero cards) that the drivers pass out after the races. I know how to do those and don't do a half bad job at the artwork. Unfortunately now that I'm doing internet interviews I no longer have time to do the art and must defer those requests to others. The only thing I have time for this season will be standard 4x6, 5x7 and 8x10. I don't have a low cost processor for larger sizes so I have to mail order those which makes my turn around time slow.

My photography skills are not the problem. I get plenty of my photos in the racing papers and magazines and get excellent feedback on the quality. There are several reasons that I'm not having my usual success (I was doing great at this time last year). First, as I already mentioned I had to sacrifice doing the artwork due to the time spent on the interviews so I had to defer my Hero Card business to others. Another reason is that after every race I rush home to meet the photo deadlines for racing papers and press releases. While I'm at home tending to that many of the other photographers are still at the track hanging around and having a few cold ones with the racers. Who are they going to remember when they want a photo, the guy they shared a beer with or the one that left as soon as the races ended? Yet another reason is my timing getting my work online. Only after filling the needs of the publications, writing my column for MRC, answering last minute email requests for the tracks and papers do I finally find time to upload the previous night's photos to my gallery. I commented earlier this season that I would not be posting on the message boards when my photos are uploaded to my website. The reason for that was that by the time I got around to uploading photos the other photographers that were at those events have already posted.

After giving the matter some thought I decided to "throw out all the stops" and continue to announce when my photos are posted. In addition to announcing my photos I am also including a list of the media sources I contribute to. There are some photographers using the press credentials of the publications to get in and I have heard of cases where they did not send any photos to the publisher that setup their credentials or call to thank the publisher that set them up after the race. You probably guessed what I'm getting at by now. In my mind photographers that do that are like vultures out to make a buck of the racers, tracks and publications without giving anything back to the sport. Fortunately there are just as many guys out there working hard and giving their all to the sport. I'm not saying that the salesmen don't do a good job because many have the best photography equipment money can buy and are very good at what they do. I'm just pointing out that they have a different approach that I personally find distasteful. It takes all kinds to make the world go round so the vultures are here to stay. Unfortunately those squeaky vulture wheels get the grease or in this case the photo sales. In my case I'm not shooting for the moon but it would be nice to be able to recoup a portion of my expenses so I can make it to the end of the season.

My racing budget suffered two major setbacks this past week so that's going to make things even more difficult for me going forward. First, the 1993 Ford Ranger pickup I have been driving since 2003 has terminal rust problems and was deemed unsafe by my brother-in-law/mechanic. I was driving down Hwy 61 near the Blacksmith and the front driver side leaf spring bracket broke dropping the rear end four inches and ramming the loose spring into the bottom of the bed. When they got it up on the hoist they found multiple problems that would have been too costly to repair considering the truck's age and general condition. Secondly, my daughter lost her job a couple of days ago and will be moving back in with her daughter. Without going into a lot of details about my personal finances either of these things alone would have been a major hit but both happening together at the mid point of the season are like the "perfect storm" for me financially. To add to the mess my wife is still rehabbing from her shoulder surgery so I'm having to make insurance co-pays every week for her physical therapy.


My son Les opening a cold one in front of the Ranger at the 2003 Jerry Richert Memorial

I've got a borrowed minivan for the weekend and will be buying an 89 Merc Marquee with a 302 V8 from my brother-in-law. It's 20 years old but he says it's solid, runs good and everything still works. This will be a "one payment" car and admittedly will be a bit of a gamble because the only driving it's seen has been a shop loaner for customers. We'll find out how the mileage is (the Ranger got 23 on the highway and I expect this to be close) and how well it runs next weekend when I drive it up to North Central Speedway. Some of you are probably laughing and calling me a cheap SOB because I won't go out and buy something newer. Again without getting too much into my personal finances the wife doesn't work and I maintain a '98 Olds that she drives. That along with helping out family made it come down to a choice between spending my money on racing or taking out a loan and making car payments. I chose the old car and racing over the new car payments and sitting home on weekends tending a garden.

This has been the best and the worst of seasons. The best in that I'm having fun and seeing some great racing, yet one of the worst financially. Hopefully giving 110% in support of racing will pay off somehow and allow me to continue at the level I'm doing now. Nobody owes me anything, I try to do a good job and give something of value back to the racing community in terms of media coverage and some nice photos. Prior to the start of the season I evaluate my budget and try to match my media commitments to my budget as best I can so that I can fulfill those commitments. Unfortunately circumstance doesn't appreciate my media commitments and sometimes deals up mountain like obstacles in the middle of the season.

All I can do is keep plugging away and do my best which is what I plan to do. Thank you for reading this mid season update.

Exhausted on a Monday night

The weekend finally caught up with me and I am exhausted tonight. The races got over at a fairly reasonable hour both nights but I had to do several hours of work when I got home from the races both nights and four more hours Sunday morning. I did manage to get outside yesterday afternoon for a few hours and cut the lawn for the first time. I was thinking about going out there with the bag on the mower to pick up some mulch left over from last fall but I ran out of steam thinking about it.

I'm going to take the night off tonight and get busy with interviews and getting the camera ready for the weekend starting tomorrow night. I have to check my camera sensor to see if it needs cleaning and I should get my solution out and clean all of the lenses. I've got a sensor scope kit with a lighted magnifying scope and some special swabs and solution for sensor cleaning. The kit comes with a little battery or USB operated mini vacuum that works great for cleaning the dust out of the little impossible to reach places. So far it has been a dusty season which makes cleaning on a regular basis very important.

I'm going to comment on some of the feedback I have been getting recently.

Email: "Is it really true that you haven't sold any pictures this season? I don't get it, your pictures are awesome."

Stan: Yes, it is true, I haven't sold anything. I had three requests for drivers cards that I deferred to another photographer because I don't have time to do the artwork. I had one inquiry about an 8x10 and another about a couple 4x6's and a 5x7. 8x10's cost me $3 each for processing and the going rate is $10 so I make $7 each so I might make $7 this weekend for my first sale. I say "might" because sometimes people ask me to have pics made up and never hear back from them so I don't count any sales in advance. The person that inquired about the 4x6's and 5x7 never replied back to me so they must have gone to somebody else. So the answer to your question is that I haven't made a cent this year but I might make $7. One photo is hardly worth the trouble of having to drive over and pick it up. At this time last season I was already getting multiple orders so I am not doing well at all. Matter of fact, every photographer I have talked to is doing well so far this spring so I don't know what has gone wrong. The publications have been contacting me and requesting more of my photos each week, they love my work and are keeping me very busy after the races.

I have a theory on my lack of sales. The other photographers that put their emphasis on selling take mostly single car standard shots whereas I do a lot of multi car stuff at a variety of non-standard angles specifically intended for the publications. That and the fact that I decided to forgo the post race celebrating and get online as soon as possible after the races to send to a rapidly growing distribution list. Whatever the reason for my lack of success at sales it is what it is so I had to make some adjustments. I convened an emergency MDTR chairman of the board meeting and made some budget cuts just like the big companies have had to do. I cut out the motel and all but possibly one of the camping weekends and will be coming home after all the events to save on expenses. Of course I will hang onto the old truck for another year and I shuffled things around to free up some more money out of my savings. I'm not complaining but just telling it like it is and saying that money appears to be tight for everyone compared to last year. Bottom line, the racers need to spend every last cent on their cars and I can understand what it's like to have to do that. No complaints here, we'll keep plugging away and do our best.

Here's a few samples from Saturday night.









Someone else asked this question:

Email: Why do you only do your interviews at ##### #### and how come you don't interview at some of the ####### tracks?

Answer: See above, it takes gas money to travel around to other tracks that are a further distance from home. Also, I don't have one of those ####### passes so I can't get into most of their tracks. The interviews take time and preparation during the week to do properly. I do my best to give back to the sport and make a contribution but I'm maxed out in both time and budget so I'm forced to stay close to home most of the time. Also, as I mentioned above, I can't afford motel rooms and even if I could the wife is attached to her laptop computer and has all her work on it so I can't take it with me to do my work in the motel after the races even if I could afford to travel. I'm giving 110% of what I have back to the sport but it's never enough for some people. If they don't like what I'm doing and think they can do a better job by all means go ahead. This kind of feedback is discouraging but I have to pick my chin up and let it roll off my back.

On the up side I have been getting some positive feedback from the interviews that I have done. That is encouraging and makes it worth while to take on this new task. I'm doing it to give the racers around our local area some exposure and not for my own personal interests. It's time consuming and nerve wracking to do the cold calls and approach people about this so it's a work in progress for me. I'll just keep going by the feedback and I do accept constructive criticism but I won't take a beating for things that I am not able to do.

I hope this helps to answer these two most asked questions.

Well, that's going to about do it for tonight.

Later!

I am kinda wore out for no apparent reason other than that it's Tuesday...

I was thinking about doing an interview tonight but I kinda' hit my wall and lost my ambition about an hour after dinner. I'll have to double up tomorrow night and see if I can do a couple of them. I'm still getting used to the more intense routine and have been brushing up on speech training, writing notes and gathering information. Been doing quite a bit of photo editing and working on the next MRC column so this has been an intense first few weeks of the season. I'm sure that when it warms up and I don't have to fight this lousy weather I'll have more energy because the cold takes some of the wind out of my sails. I should have asked Doug Wolfgang how he deals with the aches and pains after his injuries but I think I already know the answer to that. Anybody that followed his career knows that he was always into conditioning probably more than most of the other Outlaw drivers. I think he still gets out and does as much as he can to this day but I didn't get an opportunity to talk to him about it. My window of opportunity for keeping myself in that kind of condition have probably passed but I'm getting out and walking and trying to eat better so that helps. Some guys like Doug had enough insight to do that when they were younger and that sure has to help a lot. Anyways, I see where Saturday will be another 60/40 (around 60 for a high and a low of 40)so it's kind of hangin' in there just a little cooler than I'd like to see it.

I got a call tonight about my photos and that made me feel pretty good. I already knew that my work is good and that I'm doing some unique stuff but I don't try to compete for sales and I don't post an announcement on the message boards everytime I upload photos. You can pretty much count on me uploading anywhere from 1-3 galleries every week, usually the day after the race.



I don't think there's a need to announce that I posted to my gallery. People know where it is, they know my work and they'll let me know if they like something.

My typical race weekend goes something like this. Go to work all day Friday, stop home and pickup my camera bag, change shoes, grab a hat and sweatshirt and head to the track. I go around talking to people, maybe take a few portraits in the pit area and whatever other special assignment I've got. Take photos all night until the final Feature has been run and get out of the track and on the road as soon as possible. When I get home I'll upload the photos to my computer, go through them and pick out the victory lane shots. Send the victory lane and maybe a couple action shots to several publications and the tracks, burn two CD's, one for myself and one for the track. By the time this is done it's usually 2am and I'm ready for bed. I'll get up in the morning, finish up any photo work for the publications that I was too tired to do the upload to my gallery. Then I'll go out and try to do a few hours of yard work until around 2 or 3 on Saturday. take a shower, organize the camera bag, load up the batteries and head out to the track. The Friday routine is repeated again on Saturday night except if the Features are done early enough I'll stop at one of the convenience stores in Osceola and get a 12 pack. Go home, repeat the photo routine (if it's early enough I'll down a couple beers) and go to bed.

Sunday I get up, repeat that same routine of uploading the gallery and finishing up any photo work. Burn CD's and put one in the truck for the track, do laundry, clean out the litter box, grille for the wife or go out to dinner and DVR the NASCAR race if I remember. If I'm done early enough I'll buzz through the race on fast forward to see who won so I can give the wife the TV before her Sunday night shows start. Maybe I'll hang on the computer for a little while checking out results, load up my MP3 player with fresh podcasts and take a break. If the deadline for my column falls on that weekend then I'll put the photo work off and finish/send my column.

This season I'm doing the interviews so I'm getting into the routine of organizing my materials and writing an outline during lunch and breaks at work and doing the actual interviews Tuesday thought Thursdays. That piece is kind of flexible but I'm trying to do two per week to start and will add more as I get used to the routine and doing the actual interviewing. You wouldn't think that it would be very intense to sit and talk to somebody on the phone but there's a certain protocol to follow and in spite of reciting the introduction and conclusion whenever I'm driving anywhere I still can't rattle it off. I have been listening to some public speaking podcasts and practicing so that come around. I get the same panic feeling at the start of an interview that I used to get when I'd speak in front of a couple hundred people. That feeling eventually subsided before public speaking as I'm sure it will with a little more podcasting experience. I think that trying to direct the conversation with another person involved is what makes it more intense because you never know what they're going to say. You can't stay too close to your notes or you're going to panic when the subject of your interview goes in a different direction than you expect. It's structured to some degree but in another sense it's very much by the seat of my pants because I have to adjust. For example, if my notes so to ask a certain question and the interview subject volunteers that information before I get around to asking the question I have to strike that question on the fly. In some cases they may only partially cover the subject so then I might still revisit it later in the interview with a slightly different twist.

And, uh, ummm, I'm uh, ya know, I'm uh, still working on eliminating those bad patterns that we all fall into in our everyday conversation without even knowing that we did it. That is a big challenge for me, ya know? LOL

It has been busy lately and I'm still trying to figure out how to break it to the wife that she's going to have to take over the yard work. On second thought it would probably be better for my health and well being to continue to do that myself. ;-)

Woke up on the wrong side of the bed...I know my work is good

My work is outstanding and that is evident by the number of photos I get published in papers and magazines on a regular basis. Actually the problem is that I'm not a very good salesman. It doesn't come natural for me. I'm very busy this year so in addition to being a lousy salesman I'll never have time to improve in that area as long as I'm so busy.

I'll just have to hope that some manna falls out of the sky by the middle of the summer.... ;-)

What's wrong with my work?

photo was randomly selected to illustrate my work and not meant as criticism of those pictured

What's wrong with my work this season? I'm having beyond a miserable year supplementing my gas and hot dog budget. So far a big fat $0 (compared to the other photographers I know who all report that they have done well so far). I'm not sure what the solution is or even if there is one but I'm funded for a couple more months so I hope things improve.

Isn't the sharpness clear enough?

Is there a problem with composition?

Does the color balance look off?

Your feedback is encouraged, please send to: mndirt@hotmail.com

As always my work is done primarily in support of the racing publications and tracks.

I'm afraid we're gonna' get hammered this weekend

I'm afraid that the rain is going to be the big winner this weekend. It's so darned dry that for sure we need the rain but the timing could be better, not just for racing fans but for everyone who enjoys the outdoors.

If we go get a race in this weekend I'd say the best chance is going to be on Friday. I'm hearing terms such as isolated and scattered in regards to Friday night with showers continuing until at least 1pm Saturday and temps struggling to reach 50. You can pretty much bet that a race is not going to happen under those conditions. I see that Cedar Lake has a rain date for the Billy Anderson Memorial this year and I am thankful for that.

A good weekend right out of the box...

I took the camera out of the cabinet for the first time in six months this past weekend. Everything looked good right out of the box and the new lens produces some great images. I'm extremely happy with the results. Here is a small scale sample:

Writing about my weekend so far, but wait, there's more to come...

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, 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....

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.

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.

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

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...

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.

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!!!

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:

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