2019 Year-end Photography Recap

As 2019 comes to a close, we wanted to take a moment to update all of our moto friends with some of the excellent photography opportunities that Race Reels had this year. If you’ve been following us on Facebook or Instagram, you may already know what these opportunities consisted of over the last 12 months. Here’s a quick recap:

CLASSIC TRACK DAY – Now & Future

This year we continued to provide photography support to the Classic Track Day events hosted by Brady Walker of Ramming Speed Racing out at Willow Springs International Raceway. It’s a great group of riders and it’s always a good time seeing some familiar faces, as well as meeting a few new track riders along the way. If you didn’t attend one of the CTD Events this year (2019), you definitely missed out on some good times! One thing that Race Reels did this year to add even more value to the CTD photography service, was give out 10-15 FREE photo prints at each event!!! We would pull our favorite snaps to print up and pass out to the riders in the shots, as a “Thank you” for having us out. We will continue to do this and potentially other value-added raffles in the future as it seems to be appreciated by all of the riders. 

Up until now, all of the CTD riders have had the choice to purchase the Race Reels Photo Package separately from Brady’s riders fee. Towards the end of October, Brady discussed the possibility of bundling the cost of our photos with the cost to ride on the track with all of the riders and they agreed that this would make things a lot easier. They’ve noticed the value that we’ve been providing with our photo package and didn’t want to see it go away. With that being said, starting December 15^th, 2019, all CTD race packages (Now $175 to pre-register) will include the On/Off Track Photo Package. Yeeew! Overall, we are just really excited that we’ve made a small impact on this group of riders and look forward to doing our part to grow this event for years to come! 

ALPINESTARS – Ride Day #Astarsrideday

Another supporter of the Classic Track Day events over the last couple years has been the reputable and always popular Alpinestars, who are one of the leading manufacturers of clothing and protective gear for motorsports. Heath Cofran and Alex Martino have been at all the CTD events to provide race leathers, gloves & boots to those that may be new to the track or just haven’t invested in them yet. They have added huge value to the new-comers experience in a BIG way! Keeping them safe and looking good is what they are all about. 

 As it turns out, Heath “the chief” Cofran hit us up to provide photography support for another amazing event this year. It was an event they’ve created called the Alpinestars Ride Day, where some of the best racers from all different backgrounds were invited out for a one-day VIP Track Day experience. Just to name a few of the riders in attendance were: Aaron Colton, Josh Herrin, Chris Fillmore, Justin Barcia, Tony Elias, Matty Rich, & more. It was pretty crazy seeing some of these heroes and idols up close and personal as well as cruising past us on the track. It really was an all-around incredible experience and we are praying this becomes a yearly event. 

DOFFO WINERY + MOTO BEACH CLASSIC 2019  

We were excited to be invited out to the 2019 Moto Beach Classic event back at Bolsa Chica State Beach to support Doffo Winery. Damian Doffo reached out to us to see if we could accompany them out to the event. Since they were one of the sponsors of the event, they were looking for some candid photos to be taken throughout the day as well as a shot list of things from their Marketing team to document their participation. We of course accepted. We love the Doffo’s.

The weather was perfect and the crowd had a chill vibe all day. We arrived on site around the noon hour and made our way through the event to get an idea of the layout as well as anything that may be needed for the shot list. Then, we tucked our camera bag away at the Doffo Booth and started clicking away to capture as much of the day as possible. It was a good time seeing Damian’s two sons, Marco & Lucca (Ages 3-5) race with the STACYC crew. Those tikes have so much fun on those little electric bikes, it makes us wish those had been around about 30 years ago…

We ran into a few moto friends throughout the day including tattoo artist, racer, and CRETIN Member, Wyatt Vandergeest. Wyatt had some of his flash on display in the moto-art section of the event. Wyatt has raced with us at the Classic Track Day and always shows up with a really rad bike. One of which was also on display at the MBC.

After getting quite a bit of photo coverage of the Doffo Winery booth, MOTODOFFO Clothing line, and their staff pouring wine, we continued down to the circle track to see some racing action. Instead of dirt, the racers were on cement this year so I am sure they were all adjusting to that, and it didn’t seem to help that there were a bunch of Palm Trees spread throughout the infield of the track, as well as at either end. It was creating a new obstacle for the riders that wasn’t anticipated. There were quite a few spills even in our short couple hours spent there. Then, the young STACYC riders got to go out on the big track and race around for a bit. Lucca ended up coming away with some 3rd place hardware, which was a nice way to wrap up the day.

We stuck around long enough to get some nice sunset shots and “wides” of the booth with their vintage string of lights on, as dusk hit. It was an overall productive day and we ended up coming back with some images that were some of our favorite moments of the year! Here’s to many more in 2020. Cheers!