BAKERSFIELD'S MARCH MEET

As a kid, The March Meet was the greatest racing to me. I would find every race magazine I could about the race. I had always wanted to go to this historic race. Three years ago I got my chance. At 57 years old it happened. Frank and Debra Ousley asked me to ride out with Frank in the semi. This was a dream come true, I can never thank them enough. I spent 19 days with Frank and the team at the coolest race of my child hood dreams. The MARCH MEET, WOW. Thanks to Rob Gibson at Fomoso Raceway Bakersfield I got my first chance to shoot this great race. Being the track photographer at Cordova International Raceway I have had the great privilege to shoot the World Series of Drag Racing for 20 years and now I was standing on the starting line at “The March Meet”. Now, for the last 3 years I have stood on that great starting line with the best photographers in the business and live a great dream.

This year’s trip was something that I did not want to take, but the boss (my beautiful wife) said “we are going”. So this year I wanted to do something a little different. I wanted to watch these great racers and families work their magic. The March Meet is a lot of things to a lot of people but it is still about FAMILY. It’s about the men, women and kids. It is so much fun to watch these families and friends laugh and work together for the 4 days of Bakersfield. The one thing that I have noticed over those 3 years is all the woman that stand with their husbands, boyfriends, moms, dads and children and helping and supporting them. Their jobs are more than most would think. As the old saying, they cook and babysit all of us big and small kids. They buckle them in, they bring them to the starting line, they back them up from the burnouts and make sure they are lined up straight and watch them race down the track. They pray for a safe run and hold their breath until they make the turn off. Some work on the cars, some even better than most men. Some drive these monsters, again better than some men. These great ladies are what keep us all together and going. So I want to take this time to say Thank You to each and every one of these true heroes of our sport. I will close this little writing on saying congrats to all the winners and staff at the March Meet, and I hope I can come out a few more times before I hang up these old cameras and go back to reading about all the great Drag Races in the USA.