Following my dreams on the road to atlanta

I guess before I really get into this specific adventure I should start at the beginning. Back in 2022 my buddy Brian “Tuna” Mullins reached out to me and another friend Rob who have all been friends for well over 10 years through motorcycles. Tuna asked us if we were still into making motorcycle content with our little side project Because Motorcycle. He had a crazy idea he wanted to run by us. If Tuna has a crazy idea you listen and that we did.

Tuna had been racing motorcycles since well before we knew him and he was always into new projects. As we chowed down over some Mexican food he told us about a guy that had a wrecked Triumph 765R that he’d sell him for cheap. Tuna’s plan was to build it into a race ready bike to ride in the MotoAmerica Supersport Class for the least amount of money possible. Rob and I thought it sounded like one hell of a project so it didn’t take much convincing to get us on board.

You can follow our 2023 journey on our YouTube channel and see the trailer below.

After following him to Road Atlanta and Road America last year we had a long off season ahead of us. I honestly didn’t talk to any of the crew much, but I always had that question in the back of my head….were we going to do it again? As MotoAmerica announced the 2024 schedule the group chat came alive once again and I knew we were in for another great summer.

What’s all this following your dreams stuff?

Well it isn’t quite my dream, but it’s adjacent for sure. Ever since 2010 I have been into photography and I quickly found myself at home at the track. It started with drifting and evolved into motorcycles as my interest changed over the years. I had always had a dream to make a living traveling to racing events and taking photos every weekend. I actually made a pretty good run at it in 2013-14 where I quit my job for a while and racked up a bunch of credit card debt chasing that dream. Nothing really hooked up, but I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything. Not long after that my interest in photographing racing waned a bit. It was expensive to buy and maintain my gear with no money coming in and I was spending time away from my friends and family back home even though I had my track friends. So, when Tuna made that call back in 2022 I knew I was about to get hooked again and I was.

The paddock at MotoAmerica Road Atlanta 2024

Even though I wasn’t making money this time around just being with my friends, enjoying sharing stories, working towards a common goal and just doing what I loved is enough for me. But, every time I find myself at the track that itch keeps coming back…”I should do this for a living.” I have a decent portfolio, I’m well traveled and I’m pretty professional. The only thing holding me back is me really. I just need to make a plan, find people to work with and execute it. Don’t get me wrong, I’d much rather be with my buddies cracking a beer after a day shooting at the track if it meant not making a dime, but there is definitely some surplus time out there in different classes that I could be getting my name out there more.

Road Atlanta 2024

Sadly my partner in crime, Rob, was not able to make the trip this year so I was running solo. I could have road in the RV with the rest of the crew, but I like to be in control of my time and I knew it would be beneficial to have a vehicle at the track. (More on that one later). On the trip down I powered through some podcasts and recorded a few clips on my way. I intended to do a vlog style video of everything, but ended up not doing it as there would have been too many parallels in the final video. I do plan on using some of that footage in the recap video though.

I arrived a few hours before the rest of the crew which was a good thing. They were going to miss their window to be able to get credentials. I was able to grab them, go to the rider’s meeting for the team and then I headed into town to find somewhere to eat. Road Atlanta is actually in the town of Braselton, GA and even though I had been there many times I almost never venture away from the track. This was a rare opportunity to do some exploring. If you know me the first thing I did was look up “breweries near me” on Google and boom, there it was Braselton Brewing Company.

The brewery was only a few min away from the track, when I got there I was pretty much alone minus a few staff members. It was like 4pm on a Thursday which is weird, but oh well. I grabbed a few beers and a sandwich to eat. Their offerings were pretty solid. The sandwich was messy in a good way. I’d definitely go back if I found myself with surplus time around the area again. I looked at my phone and the RV crew should almost be there so I headed back to the track and decided to wait for them near the gate. I parked my truck near the registration area as people frantically pulled up learning that they had missed the check-in window. If only they had had a good friend to get there early and pick them up. I popped my chair out of the back of the truck, cracked a beer and waited. The wait did not last long. I looked up and there they were coming around the corner in all their glory. The Wreckers to Checkers Team. I tossed them their credentials and then we were onto the challenge of figuring out where the hell we were supposed to pit.

See, even though I was able to get our credentials we were WAY past the window of having someone to be able to show us where they wanted us to park. We kind of drove around the main paddock area looking for where we could squeeze in and we finally found a MotoAmerica official. We pointed out a spot we were eyeing and they said go ahead if your neighbors didn’t care. We set up pretty fast and settled in for the night. As I hadn’t talked to anyone of them in person for months we sat around, told stories over a few beers and tried to decide if we wanted to work on the bike or save it for the morning. The latter one won as I expected. As we turned in for the night we realized the RVs AC unit was no longer working….great. This one was going to be a hot one in Hotlanta.

We woke up early on Friday to get the bike to tech. Tuna was still catching some Z’s so Myself, Mike and Jamie pushed the bike to tech. We had a few things that we got dinged on, I grabbed the wrong helmet, we needed a drain plug in our oil pan and we were missing a few stickers. A quick jog back to our pits rectified everything and we were good to go.

Energy was high for the whole team as it was our first race of the season. Last year went well, but we were still missing a lot of power. The electronics we had to run really brought the bike’s power down as it was made for a built engine. Something we didn’t have last year. Through the videos I made for Because Motorcycle someone reached out to Tuna wanting to help. It’s so refreshing being in the motorcycle community. Just about everyone will help you with anything. From borrowing tools, to helping you set your suspension up or even, in this case, buying you a whole damn engine. Tuna takes that to a whole new level. He’s the kind of guy who will give you the last shirt he owns off his back to help you out and his track family shows up when he needs some help.

We were out on the track for practice at 10:10am so the team finished up our preparations and I studied the track map to see what corners I wanted to get to even though I had been to Road Atlanta many times. It’s always good to strategize. 30min sounds like a long time, but when you’re trying to get to at least 2 or 3 corners it can be tough. Not to mention you never know if Tuna is going to pull off because of an issue or just to have a quick chat with the team.

If you’ve ever been to Road Atlanta you know she’s one hilly track. Luckily I purchased a Honda Grom (it’s a little 125cc motorcycle) after the Atlanta round last year so I could get around easier. It’s a great tool to have. The only thing I need to work on is being able to transport my photo and video gear easier. At the moment I have it all in my backpack and I have to whip it out each time I stop wasting precious time. Had I thought about it before I purchased the Grom I should have got a scooter or something I could brace my tripod/camera on the base of. I’m still working on it. That’s going to be my 2024 project.

Practice went well, Tuna felt warmed up and was able to communicate what changed the crew needed to make to the bike before qualifying at 1:10pm. It pained me to not be on track shooting the other classes. Photography is in my blood, but my focus was on Tuna and the Wreckers To Checkers Project. It’s an alien feeling to be focusing solely on video. My Because Motorcycle Counterpart, Rob, didn’t make it to this round so I was pulling double duty. It was very daunting knowing that 100% of the footage that would be in our recap video would be mine. I had to make sure I captured as much as possible.

Qualifying 1 was not kind to us. We had a lot of time to make up the next day. MotoAmerica has a 103% rule where you have to be within 103% of the fastest rider meaning if a faster rider throws down a super fast lap it can bump you from the race. We had been waiting on a data logger which would allow us to dig in to how Tuna was riding. It can show you throttle and breaking in the corners and all kinds of fun stuff. It was supposed to be delivered to the track, but it never made it. That data would have been valuable to know where we could pick up more time.

Once I captured video around our pits and people started winding down I headed back out to the track to shoot King of the Baggers qualifying. If you’ve never heard of King of the Baggers it’s an absolutely insane class where riders are on full Harleys and Indian cruisers bags and everything. It’s super fun to watch and crazy to think it’s even a thing. My main hope in shooting other classes was to get some shares from bigger riders and teams. This was going back to following my dreams and being able to make a living doing this. I would never abandon my friends at the track, but if I could get some more teams on board that I could shoot for to put some extra money in my pocket that would be pretty cool.

Saturday was our last chance to qualify. The heat was on and the air was tense around the pits. We’ve been here before. We were actually in the same exact position last year at Road America. As I glanced at the track map once again I decided to take a risk and go on the outside of turn 1. Somewhere that I have never shot from before. It was a big risk as it’s really hard to get anywhere else quickly. In hindsight I should have scouted it out during another session that Tuna wasn’t in, but oh well, go big or go home. Tuna went around maybe once or twice and then I didn’t see him for a long time. Any time that happens you have to think, did he pit in because of an issue? Did he crash? I knew if I texted Jamie, our crew chief, he would be too busy to respond. I waited….and waited….and waited. I started to worry that something bad happened so I decided to text Jamie to see what was up. He responded and said Tuna was about to be back out, his exhaust had fallen off. Great. I looked at the time and I knew he had maybe 1-2 laps before the session was over. My heart sank. This was do or die time. See, when you pit out or pit in those times don’t count. So you’re wasting precious time when you aren’t on a hot lap. I crossed my fingers as I readied my camera for his first time around since he pitted in. If my memory serves me correctly he got 2 hot laps in which was awesome, but we would have no idea where he landed until we got to parc ferme. Parc ferme is an area that all bikes are required to go to after a qualifying session or a race where officials will inspect all the bikes for any off spec parts or violations. If someone had something on their bike that was not approved they could be disqualified. We have access to a live timing app so we have a good idea, but it’s normally while we’re waiting for the bike to be released when they print out the official timing sheets.

Tuna didn’t make it within the 103%, but that wasn’t the end of the story. MotoAmerica has the ability to grid a ton of bikes and they do give provisional spots from time to time if people are close. He was .8 seconds from making the show. To me, that didn’t sound like a lot. Tuna and Jamie talked to the MotoAmerica rider rep to see what we could do to get in. Sitting in the pits wondering if our weekend was over or not wasn’t the best feeling. We got the call from MotoAmerica and they decided against letting us into the race. I was gutted…. we were gutted. All of our hard work was for nothing, well, not for nothing. We got the bike dialed in and we were better prepared for the next round, but it was just a crummy feeling all around. I don’t want to make excuses, but from what I was told it took a MotoAmerica tech rep forever to get to the hot pits to clear the bike to go back out onto the track. I know I sound like a dead horse, but every second of time during qualifying is precious. I can only imagine what would have happened if Tuna was able to lay down more hot laps and fall into his groove.

So, what did it mean for the rest of our adventure? We didn’t drive all that way for nothing. Tuna has a knack for finding local dirt tracks because when he’s not racing bikes he and one of his daughters race dirt cars. Lo and behold he found one, called them and found out they were running that evening. So the team cleaned up, ate, and we all hopped in my truck to drive about 20min down the road to wind down and watch some dirt car racing. I have only been to a few races myself local to Cincinnati so it was a cool experience to see what a rural south dirt track experience was like. As we pulled into Winder Barrow Speedway I knew we were in for a fun time. The track was kind of sunk into a hill so it was like walking into the bowl of a colosseum. I had never seen anything like it. The stands were packed and the energy was high. You could tell this was the highlight of the week for the people who were there. I have no idea what people do for fun around that area, but I assume it involved a lot of racing. We all had a blast chatting with the locals. Tuna was in his element talking about the cars he raced as we tried to decipher the classes they ran in that part of the country. I was a little bummed there was no beer because if you know me you know I love a cold brewski. Now that I think of it the county could have been dry, who knows. I didn’t need it because the announcer stole the show chatting with fans in line for food, calling the kids foot race and just generally being entertaining. As the last race ended and the two teams literally fist fought because of a spin out we headed back to the truck for our trip back to Road Atlanta.

I had never been to a race weekend on a Sunday with literally nothing to do. The video was over. I had no responsibility other than to enjoy the day which was super weird. I took the opportunity to go shoot more photos. I was super rusty with my panning skills, but the rust shook off pretty fast. I shot a few races and picked some angles and corners I had never shot before. When you only make it to a track once a year or so you always have to be looking for those new shots. Posting the same angles year after year does get a little boring. My favorite spot was shooting the riders coming under the bridge after turn 10a/b. I had never shot from there before, but it was a diamond of a spot. You’re able to catch the bikes mid wheelie a lot of times when they are hammer down about to come into the last turn. I actually took one of my favorite motorcycle racing photos I have taken to date.

After a while it started raining so I headed back to our pits to see what everyone was up to. Like always, people were coming and going to say hi to Tuna and Jamie. They have both been in this racing community for a long time so every time you’re at the track our pits become the communal hang out spot. Even though it was raining Tuna suggested we enjoy watching a few races before we had to break down the pits in the rain. We headed up to the hill above 10a/b and chilled up there for a few races. I tapped out after a while because even though I had a rain jacket my pants were soaked through and through. No one wants to drive home in sopping wet pants. I headed back to the RV to change and hung out for a while until everyone returned. Luckily the rain dropped off as we packed everything up. Getting the trailer loaded is like playing an advanced game of tetris. Everything has it’s own spot and has to go into the trailer in a certain order. Tuna had to catch a flight to a job his company was doing so right as we were finishing he said his goodbyes and the rest of us were not far from leaving ourselves. I helped Jamie get the trailer hooked up to the RV and helped him navigate through the pits for a clear shot for the road out of the track. We said our goodbyes and it was my turn to hit the road….after I stopped at McDonalds. I somehow didn’t eat anything all day and it hit me like a ton of bricks as I sat in the drivers seat.

On my 8 hour drive home I strategized how the video was going to go together. Reflected on the weekend and thought about how to continue growing my Because Motorcycle brand. Any time I’m fresh off a weekend at the track my creative juices are flowing like a tsunami.

The Video

As I’ve said before I am very much a photographer first, but with this project over the past 2 years I am starting to like video more and more. As I dove into the footage I already knew where I needed to make improvements. More B-roll, more crowd and spectator shots. I just needed more content to set the pace for the video in general. I couldn’t get more race footage of Tuna as I had already been working at max capacity during his time on track. Some people may have been discouraged at the lack of footage, but I was not only able to shape a good video, but it was a good learning experience. After shooting drift events for over a decade I knew that each race my content would get better and better. This would be no different.

Reflections

I freaking love what I do. If I could I would be at the track every weekend of my life. The people are amazing, it’s full of adrenaline and it’s some of the most fun content to shoot whether it be video or photos. I’m amped for the rest of the track days I have left in 2024 and I am hoping I can add more that aren’t already on my calendar.