[day 7 of] flooding the facespace with pictures that pertain to motorpickles.
DESTRUCTION.
my first track event i EVER shot was 2006…maybe april or something? but in 2006, i shot round 1 of AFM at the buttonwillows. that was the first time i met barb…i was scared of barb for a long time after that. like, YEARS even. but barb is another story better told over a good book and a glass of wine. :P
before that event, i’d seen lots of bike crashes. i mean, i’d already been riding for many years…so i’d seen my fair share of dudes sending it for reasons unknown to me in my rear view a ton of times…but i’d never actually CAPTURED a crash in photos. well lemme tell ya something; it’s exhilarating that first time. and the second. and the 53rd. and the 347th. it isnt’ until around the 612th time that you’ve watched someone cartwheel their shit into oblivion that you start thinking “wut. the. fuck. bro. you could have made it.”
i’ve literally (and the REAL “literal”, not that new fucking snowflake definition that “literally” now also means “figuratively”) caught THOUSANDS of motorcycles upside down and inside out on camera. i used to collect crash photos in a gallery to show off and make people “ooh-ahh” all the time…now i don’t even give a fuck because i’ve caught so many. it’s gotta be something REAL special for me to take note these days and add it to the gallery.
these day, it’s just a process for me when someone augers in:
1) are they dead? no…
2) are they hurt? eh…i mean, crashing hurts, but they’ll live
3) do they require my immediate assistance? …no
4) “this mother fucker better buy pics now!”
i only have 4 steps because i’m really partial to the number 4.
crashing sucks. yes. i’m the first to admit it, because i used to prefer learning lessons the hard way… i’ve crashed in pretty much every which way, even going so far as to torch my beloved YZF600R to the ground (i prefer the highside according to past record). i’ve walked away from some big ones going “well that was dumb” and i’ve been pretty fucked up in a few of em as well…also dumb. although, i swear, the in-flight nurses and even the pilot that scraped me off the road all looked like fucking ANGELS…all that being said, i haven’t thrown a bike on the ground at the track since 2010! and my last street crash was 2008! i don’t like learning the hard way anymore. it’s stupid….so if you want some riding advice…i’ve seen it and done it all! haha!
post caveat: i’m a god damned reporter. no one died in these photos (i have those ones tucked away, hidden from the public). everyone lived. some of em took much, much longer to recover than others….but all of them can still walk, talk, and fuck….so as far as i’m concerned (and i know), we’re all in the clear to “ooh-ahh.” but then again, my moral compass is questionable…even so, feel free. i’ll take the blame for you.
