MotoGP 2011 rewind and review @dstoresf Dainese D-Store San Francisco

Fireside MotoGP evening photo with yours truly courtesy of Jules Cisek aka PopMonkey

The evening was set for Friday March 16, at the rather huge and plush Dainese D-Store in San Francisco.  That day, storms decided to hit the Central Coast and the Bay Area with a vengeance. As my wife Emily and I set off from our little village of Capitola we had resigned ourselves to an evening that might be a little more intimate in terms of attendance than a crowd...by the time we inched our way through the traffic that always backs up for the Bay Bridge, we arrived at the store around 6.20pm.  Kick off was 6.30.  After running back and forth with computer bags, my Hawaiian shirt, plus the artwork, prints and my Marco Simoncelli 58 of #58 books I brought for people to look at and possibly purchase we had arrived...

Well, shut the front door! If there wasn't a huge crowd of people there (it was mentioned to me that possibly as many people as there were in attendance for the visits by Marco Simoncelli and Jorge Lorenzo!  Totally humbled!)  Shelli, the lovely manager of the store, mentioned that she thought that due to the weather that there wouldn't be the number of people that were actually there, and as it turned out they didn't have enough seating for everyone.  A rough guess put the numbers around 40 plus.  Which just goes to show what a hardy bunch we NorCal motorcycle racing fans are...no rain is gonna put a damper in an evening of MotoGP (and of course beer kindly supplied by Peroni as well as some tasty pizza).  What was evening more humbling was people kept on arriving...and no-one got bored and left --- phew!! After a brief karaoke moment whilst I figured out the microphone, and with some minor hiccups involving my laptop and the syncing of the slideshow we went around the world with yours truly accompanied by some travel images, and a handful of my favourite shots from all fourteen MotoGP races I covered in 2011.

The whole "show" last a little over two hours.  With some good humour thrown in along with many great questions being asked it made the weather irrelevant! Hopefully the answers were as good as the questions!  Shelli deemed the whole evening a success, and I too was thrilled by the response and of course the turnout, especially for such a dour evening. Meeting up with likeminded people all fans of motorcycle racing and photography, and many of whom are good friends and as a result making new friends during the evening was extremely special.  Being accompanied by my wonderful wife Emily made it moreso....

I think we'll be doing something similar later this year.  So make sure to "like" the Dainese D-Store Facebook  page as well as my Andrew Wheeler - AutoMotoPhoto FaceBook page for updates that will be posted throughout the upcoming MotoGP 2012 season. 

Thanks again to all who attended.  It was a special evening for me and I hope for all of you.

On The Road with Andrew Wheeler! AKA me! @DSTORESF D-Store San Francisco March 16.

Now that we're all caught up, I'm very happy to announce....

The official flyer pretty much spells it out.  On Friday March 16, from 6.30-8.30pm I will providing an insight and visual treat (and of course banter) at the Dainese Store located here in San Francisco. I will also a have a few items on sale for those attending and of course you can also order items directly.  To help relieve you with some serious shopping therapy I do accept credit cards!! Bring your questions and let's have a good evening a couple of weeks ahead of the MotoGP season opener in Qatar!

There will be refreshments and food provided! If you're local and would like to sign up there is a FaceBook event sign up located here I look forward to seeing you this coming Friday!

Andrew Wheeler, AutoMotoPhoto and MotoGP. Part4 Catching Up.

5037 "likes" as of March 10, 2012

It's been a few weeks since we passed this little milestone of 5000 "Likers". As I'm catching up with everything MotoGP related before the season kicks off in a few weeks and especially how it relates to what I do as a photographer, I wanted to also add a huge THANK YOU to all who like and interact on my Facebook page at Andrew Wheeler - AutoMotoPhoto .  It's always a pleasure to be able to interact with like minded people, and even more of a pleasure to meet people out "on the road" when at a race track. 

I hope to meet more people who are part of this movement and who help make the friendships that exist with @automotophoto on Twitter, Andrew Wheeler - AutoMotoPhoto and now on Instagram a tangible reality starting with RD1 at Qatar and then onto Jerez and Estoril,  and on through the rest of 2012.

Emily and VR46 OFC t-shirt. You go girl!

As I'm having a "personal update" I'd also like to share some good-ish news with regards to my wife Emily  who is dealing with Stage4 colon cancer.  After a rather unexpected brief sojourn into hospital for a little side effect that got a little out of hand, in part due to the fact that the chemotherapy drugs were actually doing their work and attacking/inflaming the tumor in her colon and creating the issue, following the tests they undertook during her short stay it transpired that in the words of her oncologist, that it looks like "we're hopefully turning a corner".  Now if you know anything about Doctors who work in this world you'll know they're not the purveyors of false hope.  The goal being to have the tumor reduces significantly to have it removed sometime later this year and apparently we're on track.  This is by no means easy on Emily and at times I feel terribly helpless because she has been in an awful lot of pain especially during the "side effect" weekend.  But, as of today it does appear that things are normalising again.  With that I'd like to extend a huge THANK YOU to all who have sent us emails, messages through FB or simply posted words of encouragement and support.  It means so much to us. Thank you.