Hello there, long time no see…. Where has SpecFRS gone? Well here’s the story of how my autocross car came to a very sad demise, and a couple of tips for you on how to not have it happen to yourself.

First and foremost: Look into Autocross insurance. Lockton Motorsports provides insurance options that cover cars DURING autocross events, you should definitely check them out. It is very likely that your normal street car insurance policy will NOT cover you, and you asking them if they do may even cause red flags to be raised. I did NOT have autocross insurance on my 2016 Scion FR-S, even though I had looked into it a couple of weeks before the incident, I didn’t pull the trigger (if memory serves, it was like $225 for the year for my car), and would have likely made 2021 not be near as bad as it ended up.

For the last 6 months or more our Dyson V6 Handheld Vacuum has only worked for 5 to 10 seconds at a time. If you kept the trigger pressed down, it would "stop" after 5 or 10 seconds and wouldn't run again until you plugged into the wall charger for a few minutes.

I finally broke down and ordered a new battery from Amazon for our Dyson V6 hand held vacuum, the new unit arrived today. I put the new battery in, and even without charging it I was able to run the vaccum for 30+ seconds at the MAX setting, without the unit stopping. 

The Chesterfield Falcons 8U White 1 team had the opportunity to play at the Enterprise Center during the first ever Blues VS Kraken game on January 13, 2022.

Purchase Photos Here

It’s January 10th already? I’ve only been on the bike once so far this year? Sounds like last year, but I can’t fall into that hole again…

So let’s talk a little bit about 2021 before we get into what’s coming in 2022.

So 2021 started off with plans of riding quite a few miles, in 2020 I rode 2100 miles, my highest total ever, so I had hopes of following that up, but ultimately 2021 didn’t play out that way. In late February I hadn’t put any real mileage in, and I started to feel off. It wasn’t until mid-March that I found out I had afib and my heart had been beating crazily for a month.

After a couple of months of dealing with that Unbound Gravel was upon us. Wagner and I went down and volunteered at the event, and got a little riding in, but didn’t actually join the race. In July I thought I was all healed up and then I got a kidney stone that stuck around for a little bit too long and took away another 2 months of riding.

It wasn’t until late August that I started riding again, prepping for Pedal The Cause in late September and Big Sugar Gravel in late October. Overall for the year I barely got in 1k miles, a big drop from my ‘20 numbers, and hopefully only a blip compared to what I can get in this year.

Coming in 2022

So what’s coming in 2022? Well, I got myself a new ride, a Canyon Grizl, and it is awesome (see above). I put about 4200 miles on the Niner RLT over the past 5 years, figured it was time to upgrade. I haven’t yet decided what I will do with the RLT, I may hold on to it until at least March, but then sell it after that.

My goal is to ride it at least 2,000 miles this year. I am signed up for The Mid South (100 miles in March) and Unbound Gravel (200 miles in June) so I really need to get my training started ASAP. I am going to have a hell of a time getting ready for those rides. My biggest struggle right now is finding time, or rather, making time. I need to quit staying up late and start getting up and getting on the trainer each morning…

I am also planning on being back at Big Sugar Gravel in late October as well.

See you out on the trails.

We took a trip to Old Kinderhook for the Synergy Pond Hockey Tournament down there this weekend, I took a number of games (all the games Chesterfield played, plus a couple of others).

Photos are organized by day and available for purchase (digital download $10 per high resolution shot, all photos are 43 megapixels before any cropping)

Click for Friday

Click for Saturday

Click for Sunday

So you think you want to try to take on Unbound Gravel, but you aren’t sure how to get in?

Well, to be honest, for 2022, your options are limited. There are two ways available to you right now, one is a “random” draw, and the other requires you to spend some serious moolah ($$$).

It has been a few months since my last post, been primarily shooting kids hockey games since the last post, though stay tuned for another post soon with some travel photos.

This week after the Christmas Holiday we had the Holiday Jamboree at the Maryville University Hockey Center.

The Chesterfield 8U White Team that was thrown together at the last minute played 5 games, ultimately going 3-2.

View the Galleries for Each Game

Details for Unbound Gravel 2022 are starting to be shared, I'll try to make it a point to update this post with info as it becomes available. ## Registration Dates: ### Deferral or Volunteer Registration If you deferred in 20 or 21, or you put in 10 volunteer hours, Registration for 2022 is November 1st through November 30th, expect an email from the organizers early next week with details on how/where/when to register. ### XL (350) Lotto Unbound XL (350) lottery registration opens early December (12/1-12/15), with announcements for who is picked before the end of the year. ### 25/50/100/200 Lotto The Lottery opens for registration on January 5th through January 18th. Announcements of if you got in the lotto in early February.

Where to start on this one, it’s been an interesting year, not the best to be honest with a variety of things causing turmoil this year, I question how much I want to, or should share, so we’ll see what comes out in this post.

First and foremost, to the family that experienced tragedy this weekend, I am so sorry for your loss.

For the rest of the weekend and ride review:

This weekend I shot my first CrossFit competition since the 2019 CrossFit Games. I was asked to come out to CrossFit Wildwood to shoot the Midwest Masters Experience event. The event was great, with 60+ teams out there, all of the entrants 35+ (I believe) with the oldest being 72.

I took my son out to Indianapolis Motor Speedway over the weekend to catch the Sunday races of the 2021 SCCA RunOffs. We had a blast out there, I may have been to IMS once about 29 years ago for a tour, but this was the first time there catching any racing.

View the Galleries Here

The time has come, I have uploaded all the 2021 Solo Nationals and ProSolo Finale Photos from last week. I did NOT shoot every heat, between running and working announce for Heat 1 on Thursday and Friday, and just being tired all week, there were a few heats that I wasn’t able to get to, those are listed at the bottom of this page. Galleries are organized by Day and then by Run Heat/Classes. I currently have the ProSolo and Friday photos tagged and am working through the other days.

View the Galleries Here

Once again I spent a day (8/29/2021) out at Indian Camp Creek Park shooting a mountain bike race. This time I was shooting the Missouri Interscholastic Cycling League 2021 Race Series Race #1.

Saturday August 21st, 2021 I grabbed the camera gear and headed out to World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison Illinois. I couldn’t talk anyone from my family to join me, so I was free to wander around the facility and shoot photos of the Indy Car Race.

Earlier this summer we blogged about the Coy Hill High Proof coming out this fall, well we’ve got another new release from the Jack Daniel’s Distillery coming in early September!

Jack Daniels 10-Years Old Tennessee Whiskey

From a message that Chris Fletcher and Jack Daniel’s has posted on social media:

Bottled at 97 proof—a first for the Jack Daniel Distillery—this liquid features notes of dry fig and raisin laced with oak on the nose, warm butterscotch alongside soft fruit and smoke on the pallet, and an incredibly long finish with sweet tobacco and spice.

Jack Daniel’s 10-Years-Old Tennessee Whiskey retails for $74.99 with tax in a 750mL size with the first batch hitting shelves in limited quantities in early September across the United States. It will be available in the White Rabbit Bottle Shop at the Jack Daniel Distillery starting September 3.

I was out at ICC yesterday shooting photos of the ICC Challenge, I tried to get a shot of everyone, I likely missed at least a few folks, but I’ve posted 3870 photos organized into three galleries.

Use the “search” on my smugmug site to more easily find your photos by Bib number, I manually tagged every phone with a bib number if I could read your number plate, if not, sorry you didn’t get tagged.

The latest release in the Tennessee Tasters’ series is the 14E19 “Twin” Blend Whiskey. This particular release is from Fall 2020, and contains Straight Tennessee Whiskey blended with Straight Tennessee Rye Whiskey.

The Leadbelt XC Mountain Bike race took place in St. Joe State Park near Park Hill, Missouri on Sunday July 18th, 2021. We were out shooting for both days, we attempted to get everyone who competed, apologies if we missed you!

For this event we’re trying something new to make it easier to view and purchase photos. Click Here to view the photos over on SmugMug (7/19/2021 we are still uploading photos for the event)

Run The Leadbelt took place in St. Joe State Park near Park Hill, Missouri on Saturday July 17th, 2021. We were out shooting for both days, we attempted to get everyone who competed, apologies if we missed you!

For this event we’re trying something new to make it easier to view and purchase photos. Click Here to view the photos over on SmugMug (7/19/2021 we are still uploading photos for the event)

It appears as though the next “special release” bottle from Jack Daniel’s will be available this fall as Jack Daniel’s Coy Hill High Proof.

Coy Hill High Proof Aged up in the “Buzzard’s Roost” of our barrel houses on Coy Hill and bottled uncut at higher proofs.

This special release series highlights our innovation in whiskey making here at Jack Daniel Distillery. Hand-selected from the highest parts of our barrel houses and bottled from single barrels, we extens this one-of-kind craftsmanship to you.

We look forward to this one!

For 2021 2 Timing Guys is back in Valley Park with the Ballwin Cycles Dirt Crits. We took part in the B Race and took a large number of photos of the A Race. Feel free to share the photos on social media, we appreciate you attributing them to us (Facebook: rainbowmarksphoto Instagram: rainbowlandmarks Twitter: rainbowmarks).

In the spring of 2020 Jack Daniel’s released the sixth bottle in their Tennessee Tasters’ series, Jamaican Allspice, Straight Tennessee Whiskey Finished with Toasted Jamaican Allspice Wood.

Video of the car as I headed off to my high school graduation, June 1995..