Please Share YOUR Five (5) Fun Pics From Any Race You’ve Attended In The Last Fifty Years? Thanks!

Not so funny when you’re in first position..

Loretta’s 2013 w/ Andy Bristol (He’s on the right). Andy podiumed the 450A Class. Epic week


Andy has since passed. Sad deal don’t want to say much about his passing other than he was an amazing talent and great dude. We went to the race in a late 1970’s camping trailer a mutual buddy drove behind his pickup and sponsored us with for the week. I knew who Andy was but we had never actually met before the trip. We were two local guys in Central New York going to the ranch that got hooked up thru a mutual friend to all go together. I got picked up by those guys at a rest stop on the NYS thruway and off we went to Tennessee that night. Our ride down was filled with lots of laughs and excitement. Got there early morning next day and parked between several factory type set ups way way in the back of the area 3 parking lot, farthest pit away you could be in the entire ranch, that was us. Andy was so chill he had never even been to Loretta’s before and had no idea what to expect...he just hung in the trailer and played Xbox the first couple days we were there and we didn’t even walk the track till the evening before practice which is this picture above. Andy had a couple air filters, a grocery bag or two of some clothes, a few random parts and tools, and 2 jugs of race gas. His bike was not pretty to look at, thing was worked and could tell it was ridden hard. His tires were also complete shit and he had no extras or means of getting a new set really. Andy and me were both on a show string budgets. But after practice his times were right near the top of both his classes and I couldn’t see this kid go to the line with those tires.... I’m like “dude Im off to the Dunlop truck i need to get you some tires” first time in my life I’ve bought someone else tires but I had too. Took the credit card out and rode the pitbike up there and got him a set of freshys and did the best I could to help him all week. I’ll end the story here before I keep dragging on but he did it!! Andy crushed it and he was this guy running with the next factory riders that most of the pits prolly never even heard of before that week. Andy made the podium in arguably the fastest class in his first time ever going to Loretta Lynn’s. All week we had just two CD’s in the camper... a Led Zeppelin and an Eminem. Those cd’s were on blast all week on a rigged up stereo system we had going in the trailer. People parked around us had no idea what to think of us especially after seeing Andy battle the nations fastest A riders. Every time I hear led zepplin now I think of Andy and that trip. What bittersweet memorys. I’ve got some hilarious stories from that trip but I’ll hold off on those, don’t want too incriminate anyone else lol. We had allot of laughs that whole week! Ride on Andy your a legend in my book kid! Miss that dude and within one week and one trip he became a great friend that I’ll never forget. What a trip that was!!!

Thanks RupertX for the kind words. Andy was talented beyond words. He was tall skinny and would ride way back on the bike with his elbows all low and funky looking. A style all his own but very fast. Amazing rider

His moto scores in 450A that week for 3rd overall

Found another pic in my phone. That’s Andy and his very worn KX450

Millville 17 had a blast

Great idea for a thread! Here's a local Nor-Cal race at Argyll from February 10, 2008. Some of you folks may recognize big Jim Moe of Dirt Diggers, the org that hosts Hangtown every year...

Sorry only four from Arco Arena, February 23, 2008. Filmies!

Okay, you did say "any race", so here are five from the drags. July 25, 2008.







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That Ricky Carmichael shirt had to have been passed down to the kid haha. I'm 23 now and there's a pic of me with my dad when I was about 7-8 years old with the same shirt (2004)

I've shown some of these before, but they don't get any worse with repeated viewings....

In 2007, I was a a music gathering with some friends near Davis OK. I looked at the SX schedule and realized that Arlington was just 2 h away AND the SX was happening that night. My oldest son was HUGE dirt bike fan and had never been to a SX. He had some severe health issues (undiagnosed hemolytic anemia which eventually took his life in 2012, at age 11) which made it difficult to travel. We were this close already and so I seized the moment and said to the music group. "I'm going to the supercross race tonight!" My friend Dick said "Me and Joey wanna go!" So we went.

At the race/pit party, we were walking around a couple of really fun things happened:

Passing the KTM Kids tent, we were just admiring the bikes when the manager walked over and said to David "Do you want to sit on one?" David lit up like a 100 watt light bulb and then the manager said "What number do you want?" That was an obvious choice. David was weak enough then that he had to be lifted up to the bike but once there he was obviously quite at home. I will forever be grateful to KTM for doing this.

The other fun story was over at the Asterisk booth. I stopped there 'cause I'd just bought a pair of their knee braces and broken a strap in a crash. The tall blonde booth lady came over and folded herself all the way down to David's eye level and said "And are you racing today, Mr. Carmichael? (Ricky had just retired...)" It took a lot to get the best of David but he blushed beet red and laughed.

Finally, we stopped at the Racer X magazine booth. I'd just been talking to their editor/owner, Davey Coombs, via e-mail about his dad's bass and here came Davey himself so I introduced myself to him. He showed David the card of the week and said "Who's this?" David replied immediately "Kevin Windham". Davey pulled out the whole stack of cards and questioned David one by one- he got them all. Coombs was impressed and then gave David a poster of the latest cover with Windham and that poster lived in his room for the rest of his life.

Moral of the story? If you get a chance to go, go.

Thank you KTM:


Joey, Dick, and David in the stands


Part 2: In 2016, David's younger brother, Derek, decided HE wanted to start riding dirt bikes. I scored us a TTR-230 (for me) and a CRF150F (for him). It was _clear_ to me that he had natural talent and before long we had a KX250F (me) and KX100 (him), followed quickly by an RM 125 (me) and KX125 (him) and then our current KTM's. Just three years after he started riding, I talked him into doing an enduro with me- something I've never done and for sure, something he'd never done. The results?





And here's one of my favorite shots... me chasing Derek. This must be the start because I'm pretty much never this close to him!!!

San Francisco SX January 2009...

Lommel GP 2011

Brian Alquist, Gared Steinke, Daniel Blair Arenacross 2014

Self explanatory

AX 2015 Aaron Pippon from England

Moto-Armory--gotta check it out!

Shoot, I doubled up on Dungey….

2010 MXoN

Dirt Bike Mike I have never seen that type of a pisser !! Must be a Euro thing lol...don't be shy

It's not the Big Boys just a lot of good times with riding buddies !!

Copying forty with the CO MXON

This was a cool shot I took at last year’s Vegas Supercross! Definitely a fun time.

Is Henry still racing?

I wish I had gotten into photography back in the late 70's.

So many awesome memories that I would love to document.

Watching magoo turn the finish line at '83 gator back into a step up.

Standing at the fence at six flags when bowen landed on hannah's arm.

Any race with glover and bailey on the 500s.

Only one video of me racing in about '87. And I never could afford to buy the photos that guys like Gary Crider would take and sell. Probably have about 50 pictures of me riding and racing. Most are 126 camera pix, so not highest quality.

So, don't let us older guys give you young guys a hard time for selfies, pics, and video.

Use them.

Organise them,

Back them up.

And enjoy the hell out of the in 30 years.