Wednesday Wallpaper: Mille Mile

Wednesday Wallpaper, Part Deux.  'Tis the season for giving, so here's another big'n.  Hank Wiles, again, on the Aprilia flat tracker at the Indy Mile.  Click and make big.

Wednesday Wallpaper: Ben Spies

Wet AMA Superbike practice at Road America, Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, 2008.  Ben Spies.

Wednesday Wallpaper: Red 46

What racing motorcycle is red, has the number 46, a tasteful splash of yellow, and gets the faithful all worked up?

A brakeless, suicide-shift, hard-tail, flat-head Indian flat-tracker, of course.

Duke

I love this photo.  It was taken (and developed) by a newspaper photographer with a new camera to test.  The subject is my paternal grandfather.

Framed

Seems strange to say it, and maybe others don't need the reminder like I do, but in this digital age it's helpful to make prints and have an analog experience with your photos.  This morning I was home with Jack, in the midst of a fearsome Sorry! Sliders contest, and I noticed the window light moving across a small framed print on the wall.  So I grabbed a camera and the lens that happened to be attached to it.      

  

Game interrupted, Jack went with the flow.  And we had a talk about about the sun's movement, the low angle of winter sunlight, and shadows.

Then we resumed our game.  He won.

Wednesday Wallpaper: Casey Stoner

I have a suspicion that next year Casey Stoner is going to be a blur streaking into the distance, with everyone else wondering which way he went.  But here he is, captured for an instant, for your viewing pleasure.  Click and make big.

Wednesday Wallpaper: Henry Wiles & Aprilia

Continuing the flat-track trend for another week, here is a shot of Hammerin' Hank Wiles on the Lloyd Brothers Motorsports Aprilia from 2008.  The location is Hagerstown, the session qualifying, the late afternoon light golden, and the Italian v-twin sound reverberating off the concrete wall and up and around the clay bowl electrifying.  Click and make big.

   

Wednesday Wallpaper: Lima

Lima is in Ohio.  Ohio is in America.  America is home to flat-track racing.  For this I am thankful.

This photo first appeared in the pages of Sideburn Magazine, issue #5, for which I am also thankful.  Click and make big.

Wednesday Wallpaper: Candles

Not just any candles.  Candles on my mother's dining room table, which is always one of my favorite places to be, especially this time of year. 

Yes, I know it's Thursday.  Click and make big.

Wednesday Wallpaper: Joe Kopp

This week's wallpaper features 2000 AMA Grand National Champion Joe Kopp.  In 2010 Kopp won three times, twice on the venerable Harley-Davidon XR750 and once on the Lloyd Brothers Ducati Hypermotard 1100 to open the Twins season at the Yavapai Downs Mile in Prescott, Arizona.  At the end of the season he announced he'd be retiring from full-time competition.

My photo is from the Indy Mile in 2008.  Click and make big.

Not Motorcycles: Leaves

Wednesday Wallpaper: Nick Hayden

I had another image tee'd up for this week's wallpaper but heeding to popular demand here instead I offer a big'n of Nicky Hayden from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2009.  Click and make big.

Wednesday Wallpaper: Josh Hayes

2010 AMA Pro Racing American Superbike champion Josh Hayes powers up and out of Road Atlanta's Turn 5. Click and make big. 

 

Randy Texter Memorial Race

Path Valley Speedway Park
Spring Run, PA
16 October 2010

Jake Johnson. Grand National Champion.

Congratulations to Jake Johnson (#5), winner of the 2010 AMA Pro Flat Track Grand National Championship.  Next year it'll be his #1 plate everyone is chasing.

 

Visit to the Barber (Motorsports Park)

Not Motorcycles: Aluminum Overcast

Aluminum Overcast is one of fewer than 15 Boeing Aircraft Co. B-17 "Flying Fortress" heavy bombers currently flying.  Delivered to the U.S. Army Air Corps 18 May 1945--too late to see any action in World War II--the plane is now owned and operated by the Experimental Aircraft Assoc. (EAA) and demonstrated around the U.S.  This weekend it's based at Leesburg Executive Airport, in Leesburg, Virginia, so I went to check it out this morning.

First, the tanks must be topped up . . .

. . . and the windshield cleaned . . .

. . . before the four 9-cylinder 1,200hp Wright Cyclone radials can be fired up.

Then it was time roll out . . .

. . . and taxi to the north end of the runway.

Tail up . . .

. . . and the Fortress is flying.

Aluminum Overcast over Leesburg

*   *   *

In the afternoon I returned for a closer look.

Aluminum Overcast travels with two pilots, a flight engineer, and mechanics.  A lot of the required maintenance and many repairs are addressed in the field.  The plane is based and winters in Osh Kosh, Wisconsin, home of the EAA.

Learn more:  B17.org

Under the Bubble Forever

Shoya Tomizawa, 1990-2010

Chris Carr. Indy Mile.

Nicky Hayden. Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Pedrosa FTW. And Spain.

Raceday at the Speedway.

Jorge Lorenzo leads morning warm-up.