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An undercover Modified Class....
I asked how "Modified" they can go, and they said cc is limited, and no nitrous or superchargers, but anything goes.
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D.J. Eckstrom, Driver Extraordinaire |
An undercover Modified Class...
I'm not sure if this is the one, but one of the sleds was just insane, and even the Pro drivers told me they were astounded, and not everyone was ready for it. It was like Mach 4. |
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The guts of a racing Polaris |
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PlanetX Track is open to anyone with $100 per day, per rider, to test their shit. |
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I kept asking how much a Bombardier Grooming Machine costs, and nobody would tell me. |
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Starting to set up the Equipment Group photo |
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Jeremy Meyer directing equipment display positions according to my camera lenses... |
"Move this sled closer, and bunch those up into a three-three-three pattern! No gaps!" |
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It is supposed to look mean. |
Actually, that is probably the 2nd Consideration. It is actually just meant to be fast. |
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Team Boss, Steve Scheuring in the middle, trying to relay to his Team where all of the equipment needs to go. |
This was for an AMSOIL "poster" shoot, so we wanted AMSOIL logos everywhere we could stick them, actually. |
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See what a Canon 550EX flash does even on a bright and sunny day?! |
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Jeremy Meyer, our Team AMSOIL Racing Director, moving equipment around... |
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I was only going to get a few different angles from the boom-truck, so I was being picky, and made them line them up in proper angles. |
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The first wide-angle of the total collection |
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Being in the bucket 40 feet up was part of a lifelong goal in life. The actual dream-goal was running the controls up there, but they were all run down below. 9/10th's of the Dream then... |
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One of the better group photos |
Nobody had a camera from below...
If I could have gone higher, it would have been a better photo spread.
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Team Boss, Steve Scheuring |
My crane boss below? I asked him to move me forward ten feet, and then backwards ten feet for different shots, and he was an expert! |
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The other "Tony" making a move... |
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There is a drag straightaway that is frequenty groomed for hole-shot practice. |
I positioned myself behind an 18"-diameter light tower every time for these, so if one of these guys ever fucked up they would at least disintegrate their machine frame before it hit me. They were going 80mph in about 2 point something seconds, and it was just nuts to be that close to them! Some of these machines are truly insane how powerful they are. |
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A Quaint Hoyt Lakes City Logo on a grader... |
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Photographer's Note: This was a "practice" oval, but especially in the last hours of the day shown here, these guys were going so hard and so fast that it actually scared the shit out of me while I was taking photos. I kid you not. They were pushing harder and faster than I have ever seen while taking photos of focused racers when they were actually racing. I guess that is the point: to push hard and fast as hell and see if anything fails. But I was just astounded at how hard everyone was riding. The slogan: "Go hard or go home!?" If you ever have the opportunity to watch these pros practice, they go hard!!! If you see them actually race? They go that much harder!
Photographer's Note Part II: When the Boss (Steve), and then everyone tried to flag the Team AMSOIL drivers down to stop? It took literally five laps, and Jeremy almost got in their way on the track to get their attention and wave his arms. I heard The Boss mention twice, "Frickin' total tunnel vision on the track, man!"
When they finally saw the wave to come in and stop, Steve just rolled with it, and no reprimand. They were both totally focused and not seeing anything outside of the track! Natural Born Racers, man! Of course they would never see us waving our arms at them...We could have fired pyrotechnic rockets at their helmets and they probably would not have noticed...
They were focused on where they could rocket through a new line...
Amazing.
--Tony
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