I made it, but I never found anybody. I had a contact number for Nocage but lost it when I stupidly deleted some PMs, so not having met anybody yet, I had no way of finding anyone.
I got up Saturday morning pre-dawn, found it raining. Looked at the radar, it we were just inside the trailing edge of the squall line, and it was clear behind it. I slowed down my preparation and left a few minutes later, although I packed the bike in the rain.
Got to the track just before noon, by the time I picked up credentials and parked the bike in one of the fanzone lots, I got to the D&H tent to find it pretty much empty. They had dogs left, no burgers, so I had a coupla dogs. I wandered, took some pictures, embarrassed myself by calling out "Anybody here FJRFORUM?" a couple of places on the hillside.
Gave up and pulled the camera out, took some shots along the back straight, then moved around to the hill overlooking turns 1 and 2. Met my brother afterwards and headed for the campsite at 29 Dreams. If anybody was there and was annoyed by the guys at the back, on the Hawk's Nest area, that was us. Sorry! Personally I was quite well-behaved. Actually, I wasn't even there most of the night, and to run to Wal-Mart as I'd forgotten my warm sweatshirt for sleeping! When I got back I took some campfire shots experimenting with the D50 I'm thinking of buying from a friend, ended up with better shots using my Sony point-and-shoot. (That's not because it's a better camera, it's because I know how to use it.)
Along Hwy 25 to 29Dreams saw some dust on the roadside where someone apparently had been down, and the next morning saw where something else bad had happened, skid marks of a car spinning across the road. I made it through safe and sound every time through the road this time! No crashing, yay!
Worked Sunday at the flagging station just inside the track from the pit entrance, riders are making a downhill right before the left onto the front straight. Got some good pics there, the station is right against the course. After Sunday's work, my brother and I headed to 29 Dreams to break my campsite (his had to come down that morning to go back on the truck the group brought up from Pensacola) and headed for his friend's house in Gardendale. Came home today.
So. Pictures. Sorry if you're dial-up, I haven't had a chance to resize to smaller. I've cropped and sized these to my screen-saver-slideshow size. When I get a minute I'll make reduced copies and link to those.
Saturday, interesting stuff in the bike parking areas:
Anybody we know? Left a bunch of stuff lying on the bike, I actully had the nerve to borrow some sunscreen. . .
Just a couple of shots during qualifying sessions on the back straight. I have a 55-200mm lens, and these were still quite far away, only these two out of 30 or so were useful.
Moved to the turn 1 hill, did better. Was here for Superbike Race 1 and the Formula Extreme race.
I tried a few shots to get a "wave" effect of different leans going into the turn, these are the best.
Almost looks riderless:
Honda teammates had it out for a bit:
Tearoff:
Formula Extreme start: Damn, that's a lot of bikes!
More Honda teammates:
DUCATI !!!!!!1111!!1!!!!111!!
Spotted on the way out:
Sunday's pics, morning warmups. There were sessions for superbike, supersport, and superstock.
I was pushing the limit for shutter speed, mostly using 1/250th to keep a bit of motion blue in the wheels. (My AHRMA pics with my film camera were "frozen" because I'd stupidly taken 800-speed film, and frozon race pics are boring!!!) Anyway, if your pan doesn't pace the bike you don't get a good picture. Which bike was I following in this one?
My cohorts attempting to assist a Supersport rider after he lost the front end. He walked into the pit lane, leaving us to deal with it.
More Supersport and Superstock pics:
These are the first and second-place bikes in the Red Bull Rookie Cup, riding KTM 125s. They were like this the entire race, and pulling away from the field. Most of these kids aren't old enough to ride on the street!
