I was on my way home from the SCORE Primm 300 when I decided to stop by Glen Helen to check out the final round of the AMA Motocross series and maybe shoot some photos. My original plan was to go to Glen Helen all day to shoot and do some interviews for etnies, maybe work on finding some more freelance work. But the Desert Assassins offered a free hotel room, plenty of drinks, and cash for shooting a new team poster at Primm. Well, I can never seem to pass up a trip to anywhere with a casino where I can loose all my money and drink for free – especially while getting paid! But that’s beside the point – the point is that we made it to Glen Helen just in time for the start of 125 moto two.

Walker’s bike laying on Tedesco’s
bike.

With all my camera gear, I made my way to the infield and posted up to shoot a corner right after the start where there would be some good action. After the lead pack went by I moved across the infield to another spot so I could catch some more of the first lap battle. I got lucky! Mike Alessi took out Ivan Tedesco and proceeded to stand on Tedesco’s bike while trying to get to his competitors kill switch and dragging his own bike on to Tedesco’s wheel. Then I experienced a WWF tag-team flash-back when Tedesco’s teammate, Matt Walker, turned around on the track to help out. When Walker dropped his bike to “help out”, it landed on his Tedesco’s front wheel and ended up costing his teammate a couple more seconds!

Drama

Afterward, I looked around expecting to see photogs chimping all over the place, but I didn’t see any big name photographers in the area…no Cudby, no Hoppen, no Garth, nobody. It was the biggest drama of the season and I got the shot at the final, and the only national I attended all year. Lucky me.

I sat on the photos for a couple days to feel out the internet vibe and see if any other photos turned up. There was a lot of talk, a pretty solid bootleg video of the whole thing, but no photos. I sent my stuff to Davey Coombs of RacerX and he seemed really pumped. They ran a full page shot for the opening of a feature story by Eric Johnson, and a couple other photos. Check out my tear sheets. Now that the mag is out and the whole deal has kinda blown over, I posted all the photos you didn’t see, and won’t see anywhere else, in the Glen Helen Gallery.

I am also building up my desktop wallpaper section slowly but surely, now I have two! I added an Alessi/Tedesco wallpaper for those who are interested. Enjoy.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 6th, 2005 at 1:13 pm and is filed under Motocross, Photography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.