Closing in on 2009!

As 2009 gets closer, it's a sunny 52 degrees outside today in Southern Indiana. January 30th and 50's. Global warming? I doubt it, probably have a foot of snow on the ground tomorrow!

Supercross kicks off this weekend, and I'm actually looking forward to it this year. Could be Santa brought me a new 42" Sony TV for being a good boy, but I'm mostly looking forward to some good racing in the 450 class. Yea, I know Stewart's most likely going to win everything, but you never know for sure with Supercross. I think Villopoto, Reed and Windham will all get a win some time this year, but it for sure will be interesting.

...three more of my Top 12!

Matthew Bell, who I like to call "Madman"! This kid is fearless and one of the toughest kids I've ever known. I think he is made of rubber sometimes! One thing about Matthew is, he's a hard charger either in the front, or from the back of the pack.
This picture is in a big powder berm where Matthew came in hard. He hit the dry dirt and let 'er eat! His right front is dragging along kicking up a mini roost, while the rear wheel is throwing another roost, with a dust trailer. I shot this photo in plain old "sports" mode on my camera. All year long I have experimented with different settings, manual mode, etc... and just a lot of different things. This is probably my favorite of the year! Thanks, Matthew!


#4, Ricky Carmichael. Uh, wait, that only looks like the GOAT! Actually it's Kurt Kissinger racing over at Meade County MX late this summer. Mike Wheeler had invited Kody and I over to the new Meade County track several times and we finally got the chance late this year to check them out. I didn't really think we'd know anybody there, but was surprised to see the Kissinger's when we arrived. They had been there before, and said they really enjoyed the track, and we agreed, it's a pretty cool place.
This photo of Kurt is one of my three favorites of the year. I just liked the way the colors worked out, the background kind of blurred like I wanted it to, plus it's just a really sharp picture. Like I've said before, I get lucky sometimes and grab a good shot here and there!


This shot of Kody, was taken at Meade County the same day as Kurt's picture. It kind of clouded up that day rather quickly, and I thought it might even rain at times. In this shot, the skies had turned darker, and I was getting close to putting the camera away for the day. They have a pretty big triple there and it's kind of got a little bend in it. I was actually standing between the double landing and the triple landing just taking random shots when #407 hit it. There is just enough washed out color in the trees in the background to contrast his white gear. I especially was pleased with the focus in his eyes. I can't lie though, I did have to do a "little" Photshop work on this one, not much, but just a little!

Upon finishing, I just noticed these are the three photos I'm currently using on the main moto-X-foto website. I guess these are my Top 3? (Sorry Kody, I still like Matthew's pic as my Best of 2008!)

2008 is almost history!

Well, hope everyone survived the Christmas holidays! Not much to report, at least, moto-related that is. I did pick up a new flash for my camera. Santa bought me a new Speedlite 430EX II unit, and hopefully I can put it to use at a indoor here soon. I did take some family shots around the house and they really turned out nice, but I'd like to see some Arenacross results too!

I'll go ahead and add three more of my Top 12 and add a little 'insight" about the shots.

I got this shot at the Labor Day Race in Petersburg, IN. I miss out on a lot, well, almost all of the quad action here locally, but was fortunate to get to see alot of the quad gang at Petersburg. Corey Heath is from Wadesville and like so many of the area's fast quad racers travels through out the US racing the Nationals. Corey is the 2008 ATVA 50cc Sr. National Champion. I enjoy shooting quads, especially the little riders! He is sponsored by Heath Racing, Elka Suspension, BlingStar Ind., Liquid Performance, OMF Performance products, Moose racing, Smith goggles, Rath Racing, SixSixOne, Wiley Mods and SIMX.

Jalon is another SIMX quad racer! He usually doesn't have much to say, but does all his talking with the thumb throttle! He definately switches gear, when he gets on the track and is an aggressive little rider once the gate drops. In this pic he was waiting in pre-staging for practice at the Labor Day race. I was talking to Jason, Jalon's Dad, when he about ran us over wanting on the track. He has a pretty determined look in his eyes, and we quickly got out of his way!



Danny Rocke #89. The Rocke(t) Racing Team (Dad, Sean) has been around for a long time, and quite frankly, you couldn't ask for better people. Danny has been to Loretta's several times, and done his share of Ponca City as well. At this race, again at Petersburg, Danny had just recently moved to the A class and had traveled down for a share of some of the Labor Day Associations huge purse! In this photo, I like how you have the fairgrounds going on in the background, with a little, well OK, a lot of dust going on in the background as well. Danny is always exciting to watch, and over the years I've gotten several good shots of Ol' #89!

Hope everyone has a safe New Years, see ya in '09!!

MXF blog-a-rooski

Just getting into this blog thinga ma jig! What I plan on doing in 2009 is taking photos at whatever track I'm at and posting a few pics here in the "blog" with a little commentary about the rider, track, results, etc...

But until it thaws out I guess I'm stuck with commenting about 2008.

I recently posted my 12 best photos from 2008. I went back over several thousand pics, looking for twelve tack sharp pics, and found a few I liked. Now I admit, I'm not ready for National Geographic yet, but sometimes I do luck into a good shot here and there. What's that old adage... "even a blind hog finds an acorn every now and then", well that's me! Now many of you have never heard that, I know. I used that one on my daughter's basketball team a long time ago, and they all looked at me, "like, uh, what?" So that's for the "older" folks!

For now I'll just leave a link to the Best of 2008, and add some comments about 3 or 4 photos at a time until I get them all covered in more "blogs"

Here is a direct link to all of the photos

We had gone to Ballance to get Kody a little more track time in preparation for the Youth regional. There were a lot of people there that weekend. I usually try and get shot in corners, and try to zoom in for "eye" shots. I noticed several of the A riders railing this particular corner and set up shop. Cody Miller is #161 and a very talented kid on a bike. I've watched him ride for years, and never really known him, but enjoy watching him ride. This time through, he was on the gas, on the pegs and smokin'! It's really neat to set in a corner and observe how different riders attack different sections through out the day.


This photo was taken at Echo Valley during the FCA MX Camp. Five-time GNCC Champion ('98, '99, '01, '02, '04); 1988 Brazilian Motocross National Champion, ISDE Gold Medalist, Three-time AMA National Reliability Series Champ and five-time AMA National Hare Scrambles Champion Rodney Smith was the instructor. I had never met Rodney, but had heard a lot of good things from his long time friend, Rod Harris. I was really impressed by his passion for the sport and his ability to talk with every participant on their level. In this photo I like the way #810 Duke Martin is attentively listening. Duke, surrounded by beginners and intermediates alike, raced a few years back at several AMA Nationals and still is pretty active in the area motocross scene through his work with FCA Motocross.


This is one of my son, Kody Hamer. We have been doing this together for almost ten years now. I still cherish the countless miles we have put in together chasing this "thang" called motocross! This was also taken at the FCA Camp this summer. Rodney had worked with all the kids for quit a while getting them into the habit of using the ruts. Although "we" had worked on ruts before, it seemed like having someone other than Old Dad explaining it, made it easier to do. It's funny how true that is, ask any of the moto Dads and they'll probably give you the same advice..."go tell my kid to try this, he'll listen to you!"

That's about it for this time. Please feel free to add your comments, etc... I'm not sure how this blog thing is supposed to work, but surely if we can do a four stroke top end, we can figure this out!