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| Indianapolis Supercross layout |
Indianapolis Supercross was a very interesting night for both classes. With tons of injuries this season, things are getting more and more interesting (possibly less interesting in fact). Instead of simpily giving a race report I'm going to fill you in on the day in the life of covering Supercross as a photographer as well.
I will start off by saying, LONG DAY.. Working freelance for a sponsor doesn't offer perks of travel or accommodations so I chose to drive to the event early in the morning, and drive home when it was over. I left home at 6am for Indianapolis ended up finding somewhere to park and got into the venue around 10am. I started off the day covering the outdoor pits and indoor pits to get some behind the scenes photos since it was a closed pits for the Indy event.
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| Rockstar Energy team hanging out |
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| Kyle Chisholm's bike in the pits |
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| Rock River PowerSports rig |
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| Outdoor pits at Indy Supercross |
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| Indoor puts at Indy Supercross |
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| JS7's motor home and Monster Energy Rig outside the Lucas Oil Stadium |
From there its straight to shooting everyone's practice laps. I messed around with settings, and checked out all the spots we were able to stand. The first spot I walked up to according to the track map we are given was somewhere I was suppose to be able to shoot from, but I quickly was told otherwise by a track official. I got this shot from the first place I went.
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| Sean Lipanovich |
I got my settings dialed in within 5 shots, this arenas lighting was very nice! I didn't even use a flash the entire night and never got over 800iso. As it turns out later on in the day while up in the press box we watched someone case the jump right in front of where I was shooting, go flying off the track, right through the block I was standing behind and landed at the bottom of the podium, so high five to the track officials out there keeping everyone safe!
The Indianapolis track was very lacking in angles and places the media was able to shoot from. It was very frustrating for everyone all night, half the time there would be 5 of us shoulder to shoulder against a wall because there was just no good vantage points.
I used my practice time to hit every spot we were able to shoot from, as well as making sure I got photos of the riders I was covering in case they didnt make it into the night race. From there its up to the press box to download memory cards and check on photo quality. There was no dedicated media elevator like we had in ST. Louis so waiting for the elevator to get upstairs ended up taking close to 10 minutes! I just grabbed my crap and just setup shop out in the VIP parking lot because it was such a nice day!
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| My digital darkroom in the Indy parking lot. Photo by:MX Matt |
Once we got done clearing out all the memory cards, it was time to grab some lunch, wander around the giant arena. The walk to get from the parking lot all the way down to the arena took forever, it took forever to get anywhere in this place it seems! I found myself back up in the Press box anyways to eat lunch and watch the end of the practice sessions. I was messing around with
MX Matts 8mm Fisheye and grabbed a shot of our view from up there.
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| Hanging in the press box doing work! | | | |
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| Waiting for the elevator that never seems to come! W/ Luke LP Parameter |
Waiting for the heat races to start I found myself out on the floor a bit more, and out in the pits again grabbing some behind the scenes shots while I went back to the car to download all my photos again to have all fresh memory cards for the nights races.
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| Ryan Villopoto's bike outside in the pits |
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| Blake Whartons bike out in the pits |
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| RV checking out the monster girls |
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| Cameron Lansing hanging in the pits |
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| MUNN Racing in the pits |
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| Riders getting ready to head out on the track |
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| Carl stones the man |
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| Micheal Lang and Tyler Bowers stepping up from arenacross |
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| Monster girl! |
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| Practice over, leaving our tiny area we could shoot from on this side of the track |
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| Darryn Durham Talking with fans outside |
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| James Stewart in practice |
After the what seems like 20 minute walk back through the rat corridors of the arena I got back to track to catch the heat races. In James Stewarts heat race right in the first turn he gets sketchy over a jump and lands right in the way of Kevin Windham and they both go down in the landing. Jimmy Albertson lands the jump with nowhere to go and ran directly into Stewarts leg and pushes it into his bike, Jared Browne also gets caught in the crash. Stewart was unable to finish the race and received a DNF. The injury also kept him from making it to the main event.
In St. Louis I shot the opening ceremonies from the 1st row next to the floor, and got some decent shots, but the spot light guy screwed me a couple times, and nothing was terribly spectacular. This night I decided to go all the way up to the terrace level of the stadium, I would have went to the press box, but there was glass up there with sections in between and I figured shooting through it would cause problems. I was standing up there in the stairway waiting for the ceremonies to start and I would walk up to the railing, get a few shots and back off again. Even when I did go out to the railing I wasnt standing in anyone's way because there was about 5 rows up behind me to clear the hallway for the stairs. I still got yelled at for standing there, but I got my shots and got back down to the floor.
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| National Anthem Indianapolis Supercross |
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| Bombs going off during National Anthem, Indianapolis Supercross |
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| Final Fireworks before the start of the show! The house was PACKED! |
Off to the races!!
Lots of happening through-out the night, made for quite interesting mains on both sides!
The 450 main started out with Mike Alessi taking his Tuf Honda off the line for the Nuclear Cowboys holeshot for 1500 big ones.
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| Mike Alessi taking the Nuclear Cowboys holeshot award, Indianapolis Supercross |
Justin Brayton was in the lead for 16 laps holding on for all he had, but Villopoto was able to work his way up after his bad start to pass him and hold on for the win. Brayton stuck it out for 2nd which was his best Supercross finish to date! Davi Millsaps was able to battle it out and come out with a 3rd place finish, getting JGR up on the podium once more! Brett Metcalfe was able to fend off Cole Seely to get 4th with Seely getting his first Supercross top 5 finish! Kevin Windham suffered another crash and got back up on his bike trying to keep going, ultimately pulling off the track for medical attention.
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| Villopoto Crossing the line for the W! |
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| From the left (Monster Girl) (Davi Millsaps) (MonsterGirl) (Ryan Villopoto) (Miss Supercross) (Justin Brayton) (Part of a Monster Girl) |
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| RV working the pack to get up to the front |
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| Cole Seely going through the sand section of the track which was an interesting addition to the track this weekend |
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| Justin Brayton catching some air off the triple, with RV right behind him |
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| Windham trying to get going again, but cant make it. |
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| The mechanics getting their riders to move! |
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| Joe Gibbs out to catch Davi Millsaps grabbing a podium for JGR |
The 250 race was probably the most eventful race of the evening! It was certainly entertaining, so much happened! Barcia was tearing up qualifing, his top time would have put him in 6th place in the 450 class. He had a bad start and Roczen got out front for the holeshot, when on lap 5 Kyle Cunningham had a hard crash that brought out a red flag. Instead of going back to the gates AMA had them start in a single file staggered restart, the first in Supercross history!
Roczen took off and started completely checking out on everyone. Out of nowhere he lost his front wheel and fell off, which sent his bike ghost riding off the next jump without him on it! He had to run over the hill and back to his bike effectively ending his night. Blake Wharton fought hard and held on to cross the line for his first supercross win in 3 years! Darryn Durham putting on a great showing took 2nd and even with a bad start, plus a tip over, Barcia was still able to take a 3rd place finish on his GEICO Honda. Blake Baggett managed a 4th place finish while Jake Canada rounded out the top 5 in fifth place.
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| From the left (Justin Barcia) (Blake Wharton) (Darryn Durham) |
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| Ken Roczen Taking the Nuclear Cowboys holeshot check |
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| Wharton chuggin some Rockstar after his first Supercross win! I would personally want some water, but hey |
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| Blake Wharton after his first Supercross win |
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| They started at the line next to each other and finished on the podium together | | | |
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| Roczen and Barcia hitting the triple |
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| Kyle Cunningham being taken care of by the great medical team, ultimately causing a red flag |
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| Justin Barcia |
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| Tyler Bowers Arenacross champion holding on to a top 10 finish |
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| Ken Roczen coming over the bridge |
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| Micheal Lang |
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| Kevin Markwardt |
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| Jeff Gibson had a hard night, but is putting down some great times! Team Faith's Kelly Smith and Kevin Johnson made a good showing tonight as well! |
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| Barcia tipping over and getting back up to finish on podium in 3rd |
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| Thanks to flag crew for keeping everyone safe out there! |
What a long and eventful day. Starting off the morning at 6am, I got out of the races around 11pm and it was pouring hard outside! My civic was not happy about this and was acting up the entire way home. The only bonus is that Indy is an hour ahead of me so I got home around 2am my time after sitting in traffic to get out of the arena.
I got home and moved all my photos from the laptop to the desktop and actually sorted out all my keepers before going to bed at 4am, up for 22 hours!! I slept all day and got up and worked all day Sunday to get my sponsor photos out. Then I worked to put together press photos to send out to various people for them to check out. This process lasted till about Wednesday. It was a lot of hard work, and I put every bit of that effort into everything I do. Shooting sports goes well beyond hitting a shutter button, I spend more time in front of this computer than I do anything else that's for sure. Hope you enjoyed reading what a day is like for a sport shooter keep checking back for all my coverage this summer!
Final Results for Indianapolis 2012:
Supercross class results
1 1 Ryan Villopoto
2 10 Justin Brayton
3 18 David Millsaps
4 24 Brett Metcalfe
5 34 Cole Seely
6 800 Mike Alessi
7 38 Marvin Musquin
8 25 Broc Tickle
9 54 Weston Peick
10 50 Nico Izzi
Supercross class - Points
1 1 Ryan Villopoto 246
2 5 Ryan Dungey 192
3 7 James Stewart 177
4 18 David Millsaps 151
5 14 Kevin Windham 146
6 10 Justin Brayton 143
7 24 Brett Metcalfe 142
8 21 Jake Weimer 134
9 22 Chad Reed 128
10 800 Mike Alessi 128
Lites east results
1 956 Blake Wharton
2 35 Darryn Durham
3 1 Justin Barcia
4 12 Blake Baggett
5 57 Jake Canada
6 49 Justin Bogle
7 60 Matthew Lemoine
8 74 Tyler Bowers
9 46 Les Smith
10 714 Shawn Rife
Lites east - Points
1 1 Justin Barcia 120
2 35 Darryn Durham 98
3 956 Blake Wharton 97
4 12 Blake Baggett Grand 80
5 70 Ken Roczen 80
6 57 Jake Canada 72
7 49 Justin Bogle 61
8 19 Kyle Cunningham 43
9 37 Malcolm Stewart 42
10 927 P Larsen 38
