2008 Starvation Ridge 24 hour race!

*Note* All the images from this race are available for viewing and purchasing HERE

This weekend I headed out to Goldendale, WA for the annual Starvation Ridge 24 hour Dirt Bike race. This was my first time out there and I was impressed! So much fun. Basically they build a totally custom 22 mile race course in an area of about 800 acres (the middle of nowhere). The course has everything from slow rocky areas to straights where your pinned at 90 MPH, canyons, gulches, ponds, hill climbs, whoops, 180 degree turns, track through barns... you get the idea. One lap took the average rider about an hour!

I was going to compete but to race at night (teams race for 24 hours straight) you need to have big lights on your bike and they are quite the investment, so I'm waiting until next year to make that plunge.
So instead of racing I signed up to be a sweep rider which is cool because I got to ride the course much as I wanted and I got to help out a lot of riders. One guy I found crashed really bad on his bike and ended up getting life-flighted out to a hospital. I helped lots of other riders get their broken down bikes back to the pits, and helped a guy at night find his way back to the pits when all his lights went down and he was stranded in the pitch black night. Not fun for him!

I managed to take a lot of photos too... almost 2,000! I just had a chance to edit though some so here are 28 of my favorties... hopefully I'll have time to post more later!

Note this post is part 1 of my photos, click here for part 2!
*Note* All the images from this race are available for viewing and purchasing HERE

Sunrise on Mt. Hood as I was driving out there in the wee hours of the morning-

The starting lineup-

A nice moment when a dad is saying bye to his girls- :)

I climbed on top of someones RV for this shot of the start-

And their off!!

One of the checkpoint trailers and a volunteer looking pretty bored-

Racing shots-

The track went through this barn, it was a tight fit for the bikes but some guys hauled through there!

This was in the evening right after sunset. The wind had died down and there was SO MUCH DUST the riders could barely see especially on this straightaway-

Some sunset action-

6 minute long exposure with bikes buzzing all over the course. It was a really cool site to see this... hundreds of bikes racing all at once in such a huge area.

Another zoomed in long exposure of the bikes buzzing around and going through the barn-

Sunrise on Sunday morning, a long exposure of a racer taking a turn with Mt. Adams in the background.

Sunrise action-

This was a bit of a hillclimb and the dirt was soooo soft, it was literally the texture of flour! Made for some nice shots of roosts (dirtbikers term for dirt spitting out from the back tire)

Showing off for my camera... I like that. :)

A couple straightaway shots before I packed up my camera and did some riding myself!

Can't wait for next year!

Note this post is part 1 of my photos, click here for part 2!
*Note* All the images from this race are available for viewing and purchasing HERE