2010 Loretta Lynn's Amateur National MX Championships

Well I had initially wanted to have this page done before Loretta's but my wife cut the end of her finger off, so I didn't have a whole lot of extra time. Fortunately for her anyway, the ended up not having to take off any more of the finger than she already had and was able to get some tissue and skin back over the bone. It's healing quite nicely now and her Doctor said with 3-4 weeks it should be all healed up. A little shorter, but all healed up!

So this post has now officially become a Loretta's wrap up blog!

Quite a week I'd say for the Team Moto-X-Foto guys, Broc Gourley came out with a National Championship in 250C Mod., plus a lot of others had great rides as well.

For Kody, Cody & Dillan Black, it was sit and wait right up until the gate dropped for their classes. None of the three made it in to the big show and all three managed to practice on Monday. Kody was the next alternate to be called for 450A/ProSport and Cody & Dillan were both 2 spots out. Jordan Durham did get the call and barely had time to prepare, even running the good ol' electrical tape numbers. That's how quick it happened for him!









#32 Broc Gourley came into Loretta's hot off of two Championships at Ponca. Broc won the 250 C Mod class with a 2/1/1 for the overall. Congratulations Broc!













Ryan Tracy, #85 from Lawrenceville, IL. Ryan had a 14th in +25 and a 24th in 450A/ProSport.
Jessica Litherland, #91 from Newburgh, IN - Girls 12/15 28th












Cody Black, Tennyson IN - Alternate 450C
#47 Kody Hamer, Oakland City, IN - Alternate 450A/ProSport













#21 Dylan Cox, Whitesville KY - 18th in 450B Mod, 2nd in Collegeboy 17/24
#35 Kyle Durham, Owensboro KY - 450C 2nd. Kyle tied for the Championship but lost on a tie breaker!













#77 Zach Greenwell, Newburgh, IN 450C 15th
#85 Justin Brockman, Newburgh IN - 450B Stock 34th, 450B Mod 35th













Dillan Black, Tennyson IN - Alternate 250A/ProSport
# 16 Logan Mattingly, Owensboro, KY - 450B 31st, Collegeboy 17/24 23rd













#91 John Redding, Henderson, KY - 250B 23rd









Brett Gourley, #34 Boonville, IN - 65 10/11 Stock 14th, 65 Mod 7/11 17th
#41 Brandon Gourley, Boonville, IN - 85 12/14 Stock 23rd, 85 12/14 Mod 29th




Other local riders results I didn't get a chance to get pics of:

250 B StockTrevor Ezell 25th
250A Chris Akaydin 23rd, Tucker Thrower 28th
250 A/ProSport Chris Akaydin 30th, Justin Easton 35th
250B Mod Trevor Ezell 24th, Donald Alford 33rd
450A Justin Easton 31st, Jordan Durham 41st
450A/ProSport Tucker Thrower 27th
450B Stock Donald Alford 18th
College B/C 17-24 Neil Borgic 32nd
+45 Steve Ezell 23rd

In closing...
Please take time today to say a prayer for family and friends of Ashlee Sokalski. Ashlee was competing at the Amateur National Motocross Championships at Loretta Lynns last week where she had a horrible crash. Tragically, she passed away from the injuries earlier this week. Godspeed #316

Gibson County Fair

Team 186 with all their tongue in cheek humor hinted that there would be a mud pit for the quads to run through. Well it started quite a rumble over at the SIMX forums and as things goes, it was rumored to have alligators even! Well here is the only gator seen near the track, excluding the John Deere variety! It had a name, but I missed it, but did want to mention that no blow up "dolls" were harmed at the fair this year!

Hats off to Steve & Alex at Team 186 and the entire crew of announcers, flaggers and all who helped at sign up. these fair races are a major undertaking all taking place in the course of just a few hours. It's hard to please a few people, let alone several hundred, but you have to try and build something that will not have kids being carted off in the ambulance every 10 minutes. Team 186's goal is absolutely no ambulance runs. Two years in a row they've accomplished that, and I'm sure a lot of the riders thinks the tracks are simple, etc... but it's a fair atmosphere and if you really need huge jumps, tables, etc... check out our local tracks for that action.

Here are a few action shots from the fair.
#963 is Cody Black, aboard the BBRC Suzuki.
#407 is Kody Hamer, riding the Team SIMX/Moto-X-Foto Kawasaki.
#94 is Matthew Bell aboard the JGR Toyota/Yamaha YZ85
#962 is Dillan Black is also riding a Team BBRC prepped Suzuki.
#726 is Derek Rankin on Rankin Racing's Kawasaki.

Last but certainly not least is the old man of the group, Jason Stills. Jason hung around and waited out all the rain, but not the mud and brought home some cash from winning the Open A Pro class this year. Jason has been involved in the local moto scene for a few years and knows what it takes to win the cash!

Again, thanks to everyone involved and hope everyone enjoyed the mud and especially the clean up after it was all over with!

New forums

Oh, I forgot to mention in the last post about the upgraded forum software.

Tres' Leonard of TNT-FX Custom Graphics had been really helping a lot in getting the phpBB software going. I had tried switching a year ago or so, but never could manage to get the databases loaded right, so I gave up.

The cost of my old site was becoming a pain in the rear, so Tres' offered up his assistance and off we went! We tested it for about 3 weeks with a few of the old board regulars, made some server changes and jumped right into last week.

So far, everything is going pretty good. I'm still updating sponsor and track sponsor artwork, but I'll get there soon. It's a pretty cool deal, and some may take a little getting used to it, but in the long run it was something that needed done a long time ago.

Check it out here, and let us know what ya think!

See there, two updates in one day!

July 2010

Well I have certainly not forgotten about the old blog, I've just been very busy here lately.
Kody graduated a while back, then 2 weeks later my daughter, Brittany was married. Between those two milestones, plus all the other curve balls life throws ya, the blog has been a little neglected!

We have been doing some racing though. Kody was till trying to get to Loretta's and there's an outside chance he may make it this year. He's currently on the alternate list in 450A/ProSport and we're keeping our fingers crossed. The regional wasn't his best showing, starts really hurt him, and the fact he hadn't ridden much lately didn't help either.

Right after the regional he join Elite Fitness at Princeton and has been working out 4-5 times a week with his cousin, Damon. Damon will be joining the Marines in August and has wrestled since he was knee high and is in wonderful shape. He's been pushing Kody pretty hard and he's ridden a lot here in the past 3 weeks as well.

Did get up to Princeton the other night for the annual Fair race. Team 186, aka Steve and Alex Hunter put the event on again this year. Oh, there was the usual bitching about the track, but honestly, it's the same for everyone, so just ride!

Unfortunately it came a huge storm about 4 moto's in, and everything came to a halt. Lightening lit up the skies for about an hour, but racing eventually resumed. They gave the "Pro" classes the option of getting their entry fee's back and a big majority did so, including my rider.

Here is a link to the Gibson pictures, and I'll promise to keep up a little more here!

Backwoods back in action!

My rider, #407 has successfully become employed! Unfortunately, for me now, he's working a lot of weekends, so Ol' Dad's left back on the sidelines again.

Last Sunday I decided to head down to Backwoods over near Tennyson, IN for their first race of the year. They had a pretty decent turn out and the weather was perfect. I've worked with Scott, Kara and his crew for several years now and you can't find a nicer bunch to deal with at a motocross track!

Also got to see some old familiar faces. Bumped into Jason Ashley, whom I hadn't seen in a few years. A few years ago, well maybe more than a few, Jason was one of the fastest guys around, especially during his "mini" days! Met some of the gang over at Tri-State Motorcycles. It's been a while since I had been to TSM, but back in my day, that was where all the Yamaha's came from, and I'm talking yellow YZ's, not today's blue ones! Very nice bunch who had a couple new YZ's on display and even offered up some free donuts. Looking forward to working with TSM, who will on board as a site sponsor very soon!

Racing action was fast and furious. Saw some good mini riders, as well as a couple of very talented up and coming 50 riders. Talked with the Black's some.Cody ran about 4 classes I think, while Dillan is still nursing a banged up leg.

I'll try and get a few pics added to this blog soon, and hopefully my rider gets a Sunday or two off here soon and we can get back into the racing action. Until then, I'll probably be the big, burly guy walking around taking pictures!

Planning on being at LSMX this weekend...rider or not!

Dirt Scooters Rule!

Man, I really love this time of year. Everybody is slowing getting back into things and the tracks are opening up, the weather is coming around, just an all around good time for motocross!

We were back down at Echo Valley on Saturday and the track was good, as usual. There were a few wet spots, but it all worked in pretty nicely. The weather was perfect for shooting pictures, a little cloudy and overcast, with some bright sunshine thrown in for good measure.

Not to be kicking a guy while he's down, but this blogs opening pictures is guy aboard, or off of the KTM. I'm not sure who he is, but usually when tip overs happen right in front of me, I tend to start clicking! No harm done, right? He was back up and gettin' it right away.

In all fairness, here is another image of the same guy, blasting around a Brad Rideout prepped corner! Awesome form and having fun!


It was also nice to see ol' Nick Waller and John Carpenter back out and riding again. John, shown here is back aboard a Yamaha YZ250F and looked pretty good considering how long he'd been off the bike. Nick was about the same way and both guys looked like they were having a blast.

#57 Zach Greenwell came out of the woods long enough to get in some track time this weekend as well. Zach was rockin' the 2-stroker and looked pretty good out there on the Suzuki RM 250.

In my camp, we've switched it up and have gone back to the 4-stroke. Kody has brought back his original #407 and is aboard a KX450F, and really enjoying the thumper. He raced the big hoss over at DuQuoin (DuQuoin Pics) a week or sao back, but didn't fair to well in the mud with several spills and some broken goggles. Needless to say, he was not happy with Smith, and now sports Scott goggles!

The last two pictures, I haven't a clue who they are, but they turned out really well through the lens!

Recently, I have been trying different shooting angles and basically, just trying to switch things up a little, so it's a little trial and error from time to time at moto-x-foto!

I'm planning on being over at SOIL MX this coming Sunday. Hope to see some of you there, and if you see me cruising by, say high!

Here is a link to the rest of the Echo Valley March 20th pics

2010 Season is here!

Welcome to the latest blog from Moto-X-Foto. I dropped the .com late last year because I basically just got lazy & tired of trying to keep up another site. It's a lot easier to manage here with the blog and I'm also working it on Facebook, at least the photo's and selling of images.

Well the season is officially upon us! The ABC Bluegrass Series kicks off this weekend at Ballance MotoX and Lincoln Trail Motosports has an official event scheduled for Sunday.

Two local practice facilities are open this weekend as well. Echo Valley MX in Poole, KY and SOIL MX over near Albion, IL. Granted these are both officially bikes only tracks, but I'm sure our quad brethren are out putting in the laps somewhere!

This blog will kind of have a old school, flashback kind of feel to if you will! From the featured pictures, to news of a couple of events and a revitalized KY track.

First up let's go with some riders... Dylan Cox #120, as most of you know,is a super fast amateur making a name for himself on the national amateur scene. We caught up with him at Echo last weekend, and as he claimed not to haven ridden much over the winter, it was hard to tell from the fast laps he was putting in on the perfectly prepped track. Dyan and family are heading to Texas this week for the lake Whitney races and Oak Hill MX events. Good luck Dylan!

How about a return to Linton Indiana for some motocross? Well a few weeks back I got a call from Scott Eichorst about the old Bakersfield bunch doing a event near the town's Park. Some of you may remember the Bakersfield track. Kody was on 50's when we raced there last and I remember The Sipes brother's on mini's and Ben Riddle just moving to big bikes, so it's been a little while! Anyway, the Eichorst brothers are putting on an event for the towns Freedom Festival April 10th & 11th. Practice is on Saturday with the actual racing on Sunday.

Also got recent word from Dustin "Big Pimpin'" Roberts that he was going to be doing some renovation of the old Daviess County, KY course know as Oakhill MX in Philpot. Sounds like Scott Black from Backwoods will be handling sign ups, etc... and they will be in action May 22nd! It is now officially called Lions Den MX!

More back in the day comebacks to announce...#99 Jerod Neal. Good to see Jerod out and riding his immaculately prepped KX450. I first met Jerob back at the old Steeltown course at Chrisney Indiana and have been friends ever since. Jerod and his parents traveled with us back then and we had a lot of good camp outs!

Another guy good to see back is Brandon Springer. Brando was like Kody last year and took a little break from the sport but is back aboard a new KTM 450 this year. Awesome to see the Springer family back on the scene as well. Kevin and Tammy have done a lot of good work for the FCA motocross community and are a welcomed site in anyone's pits.

One other blast from way back was #850 Ryan Tracy. Ryan is another one of fast guys from the Lawrenceville Illinois area and has raced Pro for several years now. He has done some night shows in the Supercross arenas, did the Arenacross circuit and ran several out Nationals. Ryan is always a lot of fun to talk with, and if something can usually go wrong on a bike during a race, Ryan has been there. I remember him losing a seat over the triple at Casey one year, or a grip at the St. Louis Supercross...

Lastly is the picture of my rider. Nothing too ground breaking, but more of a family, or "Kody" tradition. He got a new helmet for Christmas. It seems like as long as we've been doing this, he always wrecks ans rips the visor off, puts a huge scratch, etc... on the skid lid. I warned him all the way down, to not tear this one up. No problems on the track whatsoever, he just dropped it on the ground, breaking visor. At least this one didn't involve a trip to the hospital!