I moved on to edit the AFA newsletter, and I shot all the photos for that, as well. My Pentax let me cheat as a photographer. I didn't have to learn how to use a light meter. By changing the f/stop setting ring, I got a look inside the viewfinder of the shutter speed. So I would just twist it until I got the shutter speed I wanted. So I never learned about f/stops either. Gravity Powered Bikes, or GPV's were a little side hobby that many BMXers got into in either '85 or '86. The initial idea was to take spare bike parts, build them into a low slung bike without pedals or a chain, and ride down big hills powered by gravity alone.
Gork, the editor of BMX Action got into GPV's early on, as did a bunch of other racers and some freestylers. After all, who doesn't like to go bombing down a big hill at breakneck speed? There were a couple of magazine articles about GPV's, but no organized races. At some point that year, 1987, someone, I can't remember exactly who, decided it was time for an organized race. Abunch of guys showed up, and had a good ol' time. Another race was promoted. Unreel Productions, Vision's video company, became part of the deal, and I think they did most of the organization of it, as well as shot video of the event. The road chosen was one never used for a GPV race before, it was the Palm Springs Tramway Road, way out in the desert of SoCal. Unlike most of the roads GPVers normally rode, there weren't a lot of turns. It was a big, steep drag race for the most part.
My friend John Ficarra, co-editor of my zine in NorCal, was one of the guys who came down for the race. He stayed at my apartment for a night, and we drove out to Palm Springs in his old BMW, it was either a Bavaria or a 2002. Anyhow, the crazy GPV crew took over a motel in Palm Springs for a couple of days, and there was a lot of craziness going on. At one point I wandered into a motel room where Dave Vanderspek and a few other guys were hanging out. We were all joking around, and around midnight or so, Dave headed out to try the hill in the dark. He left with another rider, their two GPV's, and a twelve pack of beer under his arm. I wasn't sure they'd even make it back. But that was the spirit of GPVing.
I wasn't riding in the GPV race, I was basically just snapping some photos for the AFA newsletter, and possibly to sell to one of the magazines as a freelancer. The event included a halfpipe contest in the parking lot up top, and the GPV race. The GPV's themselves came in a multitude of different styles. Gork had a homemade pointy fairing and sixteen inch wheels, which were better for cornering. Most guys had 20 inch wheels, a few rode 24 inch. Every GPV looked different and no one knew who would win. Dan Hannebrink, an aeronautical engineer (or something like that) got into GPV racing when someone asked him to make them a fairing. Several riders were using Hannebrink made front fairings on their bikes. Dan himself, though, had a full fairing, which proved to be a huge advantage on that particular hill.
Here's my big confession. I decided to dedicate a full roll of film to trying panning shots, which I hadn't tried since the day at the Hermosa pier months before. But I knew about what shutter speed to use. So I walked about 150 or 200 yards down from the starting line and started shooting panning shots. As you old guys know, this was back in the film days, when we didn't know how our photos looked for days, until the film was developed. I focused on the yellow lines in the middle of the road, and shot photos as the riders rolled by. Here's what I mean by a confession. While it looks like Dave Vanderspek in the photo above is going about 90 miles an hour. He's actually only going about 20 mph, because I shot the photo so close to the starting line.
It was a fun day... except for John Ficarra, who crashed his brains out in a turn. He did end up getting a great crash photo in the Orange County Register newspaper, though, and he was stoked on that. I can't remember who won the vert contest, but the newly sponsored Mathew Hoffman blew our minds, and Josh White blasted his hyper extended and super smooth airs, along with several others.
After the event, I called Gork and told him I shot a bunch of photos. He told me to bring my black and white film by, and Windy would develop it and print a contact sheet, to see if I had any magazine quality photos. I dropped the film off, then drove back up to Wizard a few days later. As it turned out, my panning shots turned out much better than my first try at them. Most were fairly clear with the blurry background. But there were about four that were nice and sharp, with a well blurred background. Gork, Lew, Andy Jenkins, Windy and me all looked at them through our loops. Instantly, the guys gravitated to the photo of Dave Vanderspek. Dave was a favorite rider of all of them, and his weird, non-fairing, supertuck just looked badass. A couple other photos were actually a tad better in quality, but this photo of Vander was their favorite. Gork said he wanted to run it in BMX Action, and I was totally stoked. Andy J. and Lew also loved the pic.
This photo of Dave Vanderspek is still the best photo I've ever taken, and it wound up being used in BMX Action, FREESTYLIN', and the one shot magazine Homeboy. I think Gork actually paid me $100 for the pic, and the other two times they just used it. All in all, I'm really stoked on that photo. Besides being a great GPV shot, it just seems to sum up Dave Vanderspek's FULL SPEED AHEAD attitude towards living life, at least to me.
So now, as I'm working on turning my writing and art into a business, I've been looking for a photo to make a poster of. Obviously, it needs to be a photo I have the rights to. I've been thinking about taking a still out of one of my videos. But I just kept thinking about trying to draw the Vander photo. So over this weekend, I did. Here's the color drawing of the black and white photo that's become a bit legendary.
You can watch the Unreel edited footage of the Palm Springs Tramway in this clip at 5:09, and there's a quick shot of Vander at speed at 7:25.
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