The photo comes from the second U.S. Open Supercross, which was in Vegas in 1999 (the race Fro won after his back injury). I had just moved to the California in August of that year from England (the race was in October) and I was working for O’Neal at the time as a gear designer, acclimating well to the last part of the '90s motocross industry! O'Neal had sent me to Vegas to take photos of the race and I spent the whole weekend partying with the Racer X crew and Worm (ask DC who Worm is). The photo of Ice T and I was taken at the Hard Rock Circle Bar at around 3:00 a.m. after the race. Nobody was sober. It was taken on a crappy old disposable camera and I remember him being a real gent and very patient with this extremely drunk young Englishman who apparently couldn’t keep his tongue in his face. Crazy times back then!

Fast forward a few years and 2003 was the first year I qualified for Loretta Lynn’s (I qualified for the Plus 25 class). DC had gotten Jeff Emig to call me up and leave a message on my phone telling me I was in, which was so cool. I had to provide a face shot for the program and Dave Brozik (who handled all the program design back then) and I thought it would be funny to use the photo of Ice T and me as my face shot. Somehow it made it all the way to print! Rita Coombs was not happy at all when she saw the final printed product! Thankfully I didn’t get into too much trouble though and had an amazing time at the ranch.

Side note: I did actually get my first photo published in Racer X from the U.S. Open weekend. I took a photo of Carey Hart doing a Superman seat grab during the half time show and it made the “Inside Motocross” page. I remember getting that issue at O’Neal and being so stoked.