There Ain't No Chicken's In This Bunch

That's what the Public Address Announcer said during Sunday's Honda SuperBike Classic at the Barber MotorSports Park in Birmingham, Alabama.


Not only were the riders braving the wet and storming conditions that Mother Nature was throwing at them, thousands of die hard motorcycle racing fans endured the heavy rains, lightning, and even tornadoes that passed through the area on Saturday and Sunday.


All three of Sunday's events were delayed by a couple of storms that moved through, so officials had to shorten each of them to make sure they had enough daylight to get them all in.
They may have been shortened, but I think the outcome in each race would have been the same.


As the SuperSport Bikes were on the grid and ready to take the track, the track announcer came over the P.A. and said that a tornado warning had been issued for the immediate area, and one was spotted on the ground a few miles west of the track and everyone should take immediate cover.
Well....I was loading up my gear to go shoot at my truck, so I just put it all back and decided to wait it out there when it started to pop lightning all around.


I was still sitting in my truck, trying to capture a cool lightning strike, when the rains started falling harder.
I managed to get this image of a close lightning strike through my rain soaked windshield.


You can see the storm front passing just east of the track behind the scoring tower.
It rained harder than I have seen it rain in a long time.
From my truck, I couldn't see across the track, and the scoring tower and media center were just dark objects through the rain.


After the storm passed, a light rain fell for about thirty more minutes, but you could begin to see more activity in the paddock and on pit road.


The teams started to bring the bikes back out and set up their equipment in the pits again.
Fans begin to wander around and it slowly started looking like a race was going to happen.


But the track and pit road were still soaked and would need a lot of attention to get race ready.


Even as the light rains continued to fall, riders came out, anxious to check out the track conditions.


Just a light rain was falling, so that would mean rain tires would be on the bikes and riders would need to be a little more cautious.


Everywhere you went, it was hard not to step in a poodle...uhhhhh I mean puddle.


Track workers tried their best to sweep the excess water off the track.


Even the fashionable got their boots wet.


Storm clouds and rain couldn't keep these SuperSport riders from putting on a good race.


Not even a giant spider could keep these rain soaked fans from Sunday's activities.


This group of bikes speeds into turn two.


It didn't take long before my 'Inner Getty' came out.


American SuperBike riders Mat Mladin (7) and Blake Young (79) lean into turn three.


Daytona SuperBike rider Mark Crozier catches a wheel as he comes out of the hairpin.


American SuperBike rider Neil Hodgson on his Honda CBR1000RR checks out the traffic behind him.


The skies opened back up during the SuperSport race, but it looked like the riders were having fun despite the wet conditions.


These guys hardly slowed down, and put on a good race between themselves.


At least I could seek shelter if the rain got to be too much. The TV camera pointers are stuck there all day.


Russ Wilke (5) on his Suzuki GSX-R600 leads Ricky Parker,s (96)Yahama YZF-R6 through the hairpin.


The Yahama YZF-R6 and RED BULL rider Josh Herrin.


The rains fell during most of the SuperSport race on Sunday. Too bad I was limited to the west side of the track.


As the track started to dry out, the clouds were still hanging out during the Daytona SuperBike race.


There were still wet places on the track, but that didn't slow down these riders at all. This is the section of the track where you carry the most speed, and these guys never slowed for the water.


Jamie Hacking (88) on his Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R leads the Suzuki GSX-R600 of Martin Cardenas (36). Hacking would get passed three laps from the finish by Cardenas to finish second.


Tommy Hayden (22) and his Suzuki GSX-R1000 leads Michael Laverty (8) on his Suzuki into turn 15.


Mat Mladin (7) leads Blake Young (79). Didn't we see that earlier?


The Beull 1125R of Michael Barnes.
See......Harley's are welcome here, too!


Aaron Yates rides his Michael Jordan sponsered Suzuki GSX-R1000 ahead of Gulfport Mississippi's Josh Hayes' Yahama YZF-R1.


A cool image of race winner Mat Mladin on his Suzuki GSX-R1000.
FYI.......Mladin has won ALL 7 American SuperBike events this season.


Wouldn't you know it.....when all of the races were over, the clouds broke, the skies cleared, the golden afternoon light came shining through, and all I had left to shoot was the scoring tower with the final results.


I just had to throw this one in there.
Nope......it wouldn't be one of my three wishes, either.

Well gang, please forgive me for the later than usual post.
I was staying up late last night, and had posted images down thru the scoring tower, just above the last image, when I lost all info I had spent hours working on.
Everything just went blank.
An empty page.
By the time I figured out how to recover my nights worth of blogging, autosave had saved the empty page and I lost everything I had been working on. Forever.
So I did a do-over.
Kinda.
It's close to what I had originally posted.

Enjoy.