So I won some VIP tickets to the AMA races this weekend in California at the California Speedway. 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 from where I won the tickets and was handed the VIP 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 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.


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. That ebay one can suck it.

[Edited on April 28, 2007 at 4:50 AM. Reason : ]

4/28/2007 4:47:45 AM

Fucking awesome man. Keep the pics coming.

4/28/2007 10:04:07 AM

hell yeah, that's awesome. not sure if i'd be willing to drop that kinda $$, but damn cool anyway.

4/28/2007 10:20:19 AM

man them pics you take are great! you need to give up on riding and become a photographer

4/28/2007 12:44:05 PM

^no cuz then he'll never get laid

nothing personal jeff haha good shit i wish i had that kinda $$ to blow

4/28/2007 12:53:56 PM

^ ditto

4/28/2007 1:10:19 PM

nice pics

congrats!

4/28/2007 4:54:38 PM

haha badass pics on that crash you got lucky on your location. or unlucky depends how you look at it.

4/28/2007 4:56:41 PM

wow I loved the crash... more crash pic please!

4/28/2007 8:59:20 PM

Quote :

"^no cuz then he'll never get laid"

actually, those girls are very very photogenic when you have the "official CAS PHOTO" orange vest on. I got some very nice revealing pictures. Man it was amazing today. Got there around 8:30 and just left around 5pm. I took over 4300 pictures today too! And I got some better pictures because I found a better advantage point.

4/28/2007 9:14:20 PM

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

4/29/2007 2:22:23 AM

your skanks arent skanky enough.

Quote :

"I spent 600 on a new telephoto lens, another 500 in accessories, and about 1000 in airfare and hotel at the last minute."

you spent 1100 on something you cant drive. wtf.

4/29/2007 3:50:42 AM

Quote :

"your skanks arent skanky enough. "

I'm holding back

And if you notice, I added the JBaz photography logo. A fellow photographer suggested I trademark my pictures. I've talked to a lot of photographers and other contacts because I'm at the right place at the right time. I could have jobs lined up for me right now if I didn't live in NC. Pretty much, word spread around the track of a "dedicated kid from the east coast who flew all the way to be here". I was interviewed a couple of times.

Apparently, the AMA isn't as big as I thought since there was a much smaller crowd than I anticipated. If I had to take a stab at the number, I would say, not even 10,000 people there for the main event. And Mike, the owner of the website, pretty much knows everyone in the industry. He was able to get interviews with most of the racers there.

4/29/2007 4:28:40 AM

finally you post some real pics instead of the typical squid pictures.
these are what these bikes are meant to do, maybe one day y'all will give up the little wheelie poppin and burnouts for some real seat time

[Edited on April 29, 2007 at 2:11 PM. Reason : still waitin to see this race at 5]

4/29/2007 2:10:26 PM

on a plane ticket and hotel accomodations to CA $1000.00
on a lense of some sort to take pictures of hoes $600.00
for the hoes $2.00
Pics of hoes on bikes: PRICELESS




jk

4/29/2007 2:42:04 PM

Seriously man, I am blown away.

I have a family friend who does television motorsports work and he has always told me that video/photo work on bike races is one of the hardest to pull off well.

You should SERIOUSLY try to get in as a motorsports photojournalist. If you can pull off consistent shots like that on a small bike race, with last minute equipment, you could do some wicked shit with good prep time.

Keep it up man!!


BTW, I think you mean "vantage point" not "advantage point"

4/29/2007 4:44:11 PM

jeff-
Those are some wicked pics you took... sounds & looks like you had a hell of a time.

just my thoughts/suggestions:
I think tagging your photos is a great idea, but I think your logo is too big. It's interfering with your pictures too much Your text & everything is actually pretty good, but like I said... smaller would be 100% better (I'd say 1/2 to 3/4 the current size... hard to tell without seeing the difference).

4/29/2007 5:22:57 PM

Quote :

"these are what these bikes are meant to do, maybe one day y'all will give up the little wheelie poppin and burnouts for some real seat time "

to each its own. thats like basketball palying telling a soccer player "why are you kicking that ball, balls are made to be dribbled"

id like to do some track days at some point, but the time and money commitment is hefty for a college student to do it at this point.

a day at the lot is a shit ton of fun and gets my heart pumpin pretty hard.

just my 2c

[Edited on April 29, 2007 at 6:54 PM. Reason : .]

4/29/2007 6:54:19 PM

Totally got wicked pictures today. Lots of umbrella girls this time around. Apparently they only come out during the main even and then leave asap.

The funny thing is that I posted these pics on various other bike forums as well and I actually was yelled at by people on the 600rr.net, sbw and cbr forum. They were like "hey look its JBaz!" lol. I'm famous.


OH, btw, today was a crazy ass day too! The superstock event before hand had like 5 or 6 different crashes and had to be prostoned to let the AMA superbike race start. Since the AMA race was on the speed channel. And I was on TV! I was at one of the video platforms and they found a huge hive of bee's and showed it before the race started.

Anyhow, the superstock race had one wreck during warm-up lap taking out 3 bikes, then they restarted and in the 1st lap, another bike wreck taking out another 3 or 4 bikes at turn 2. After that, they let AMA race go. After that, they stated it back up around around 4. Then they had another warm up lap then 2 bikes go down around turn 9. Wait again to start up and again another warm up lap. This was like lap 3 so they were averaging one wreck per lap. lap 5 comes and I talk to the flag people saying "hey I think we are in the clear" then another big wreck happens, causing a bike to catch on fire around turn 12. That race was so crazy!

[Edited on April 29, 2007 at 10:58 PM. Reason : ]

4/29/2007 10:42:27 PM

i agree with ^^^, tone down the logo a bit. awesome pics though.

[Edited on April 29, 2007 at 10:49 PM. Reason : oh, and bring the blonde back with you, kthnx]

4/29/2007 10:48:27 PM

yeah, I'll resize the logo later, need to do an online exam now and study for my tuesday exam on the plane...

4/29/2007 10:59:12 PM

So now that the owner of the website and I are like buds, he said that he maybe able to get me a media pass for any other AMA races in the US using his credentials. So I'm planning on going back out to Cali for the AMA & motoGP race days, VIR, and the one in Atlanta, GA.

[Edited on May 2, 2007 at 12:37 AM. Reason : ]

5/2/2007 12:37:01 AM

holy legs

5/2/2007 12:41:32 AM

What lens did you go with btw?

5/2/2007 12:49:42 AM

Canon 70-200 EF L f/4. If I get these passes, the VA and GA looks like a good chance, I might spring for a 5D and a new lens.

5/2/2007 1:45:44 AM

beautiful!

5/2/2007 2:05:18 AM

you forgot to post your interview with that slut http://sportbikes.com/contestlanding.aspx?id=28072

[Edited on May 2, 2007 at 10:37 PM. Reason : 1]

5/2/2007 10:36:40 PM

HAHAHAHAHAHA

5/2/2007 11:08:07 PM

HAHAHAHAHAHA

5/3/2007 12:35:50 AM

yeah, they just posted that today.

Planning on going out there for the AMA weekend in 2 weeks and a couple of photo shoots with the hot models. Talking to the owner to do a calender or some other collateral pieces.

5/3/2007 12:38:36 AM

did she live it, RIDE IT and race it?

5/3/2007 12:51:45 AM

hahaha that video is some funny shit.

AKA JBAZ

you're a funny dude.

i hope you actually paid a barber to cut your hair this time.

5/3/2007 8:17:06 AM

you should have given a shoutout to the Tdub, f00l

5/3/2007 8:19:51 AM

hahahaha that was good for a laugh.

5/3/2007 8:24:23 AM

Quote :

"i hope you actually paid a barber to cut your hair this time."

haahhahahahahaahahahahahahahaha

5/3/2007 8:37:08 AM

^3 yeah we raised this kid!

5/3/2007 10:25:55 AM

i mean it was an interview for sportbike.net, they need to recognize we run the internetz around here

5/3/2007 10:35:10 AM

I like the one with the guy looking behind him, it's so nonchalant. "Yeah, going 100mph through a turn, my body is 2 feet from the pavement, but hey, I wonder what's going on behind me..."

5/3/2007 10:40:12 AM

that first chick is busted

5/3/2007 10:43:43 AM

I got one where a rider was looking directly at me when he leaves the pits. Was sweet. finished processing only half of day 1.

5/3/2007 11:57:40 AM

^ he was prob looking at that haircut...

5/3/2007 12:03:02 PM

or maybe he was wondering why my camera wasn't as cool looking the real photographers...

5/3/2007 4:07:45 PM

Finally went through day 1 pictures. Here's what I added.

5/5/2007 4:34:49 AM

thats cool that you got a pic with Duhamel, you got any more of Mladin

5/5/2007 11:58:04 AM

I got tons of both Mladin and Spies going at it on day 2 and especially day 3.

5/5/2007 1:54:04 PM

Nice pics Jeff.

5/6/2007 12:24:06 AM

very nice photography Jeff

5/6/2007 12:33:19 AM

Damn nice pics, man. Keep it up!

5/6/2007 1:11:57 AM

i was watching it today on Speed tv. did you see that major crash? The dude flipped and hit the guy behind him and the he flipped and bounced on the track. it was crazy

5/7/2007 2:22:06 AM

SuperStock or SuperBike race? race 4 or race 5? There were two major wrecks on the superbike race 5 and about 6 major wrecks for the superstock sunday race.

5/7/2007 8:22:55 AM