So I won some VIP tickets to the AMA races this weekend in California at the California Speedway from the online contest at sportbikes.com. I fly all the way out there and boy am I glad I did. I spent 600 on a new telephoto lens, another 500 in accessories, and about 1000 in airfare and hotel at the last minute.

I get there and meet the fella's of sportbikes.com and got the tickets. The VIP tickets still had some restrictions though, but I got to talk to the guys cause I had this whole nice camera setup (Canon EOS Rebel XTi with a few lens) and they gave me a full media press pass for the whole weekend! That means unrestricted access to anywhere on the track!

Boy did I have a field day. I had three 2GB CF cards and my laptop with me just incase I needed to unload some pics on the spot. I ended up taking 14GB worth of pictures from noon to 6pm. That's about 3000 pictures. I condensed that to about 1120 good quality pictures and here's just a little teaser of what the practice/qualifying round was like.



Our hot model for the weekend. :smoke:


Currently, the umbrella girls won't arrive till tomorrow...


Media pass means full access to the staging and hotpits areas. I'm between the staging area and the track.





unrestricted means I can get to advantage points and take pics of the racers like 5ft away!







The exclusive pass also came with a scary perk, this guy low sides a few feet from me! My heart was pounding.


motorized pit stool for two.

btw, all of the pictures are not cropped down so they are still in full 10mp glory. I'm gonna take loads more pics tomorrow and sunday. Thanks to Rich and Mike at sportbikes.com for being sooo cool.

 

dude, that is too cool. I'll bet that was the experience of a lifetime. Congrats.

thats an awesome sequence watching that suzuki eat it!

surely you got some real close ups of the umbrella girls when they got there?

 

I will today and tomorrow, the real races are then. Yesterday was just practice and qualifications. I actually got a photoshoot with Tara, our model today that'll be fun.

 

Congratulations on your incredible present. Your pictures are awesome, very captivating. I stared at them for like 15 minutes easily. Umbrella girls are over-rated (lol). This was a chance of a lifetime. Man, what a catch.

 

Nice pics!
Anybody else notice the Geico insurance bike skipping across the pavement? irony? no?

 

I'll be there in my 600RR.net beanie tomorrow, Gonna be a great Sunday of racing. I'll be looking for 69.

 

Sucks about him going down, but those have the be THE UGLIEST set of leathers I've ever seen! He looks like dipstick from Teletubbies.

 

Naw,hes a huge version of those little green plastic army men...

 

Since my friend and I have full media passes, we don't need our general admission passes anymore. We still have to figure out how to pick them up since their ticket office kept ****ing it up. If any of you guys get there, look for an asian guy with an orange vest with the number 069, that'll be me

 

Went through about 1/3 of the pics so far, but here are just another small teaser of Saturday's race.