The Sunday New York Times features an excellent photo essay by photographer Rebecca Soderholm of the AMA Grand National Cross Country Series, as well as the New York Off-Road Association circuit. It's called "Hare Scramble: A Photographer Goes Knee Deep in the Mud." Soderholm has been shooting off-road racing since 2014 and has an obvious eye for what she calls the "pastoral, hardscrabble landscapes." Check it out here.
The start of an off-road motorcycle or all-terrain vehicle endurance race is like a freight train rolling through an earthquake. Open courses stretch over grass tracks, woods and streams. Spectators are unfazed as, inches away, racers fly by. There’s a lot of dirt.
Dirt antagonizes the riders, too. But grit and stamina prevail, along with humor and kindness. Racers need pit crews, so families spread out to refuel riders. Local spectators, mud fleas, as they are affectionately called, gather at mud holes with drink-filled coolers and music, ready to pull machines out of the mud when they’re stuck.
This is a really cool, positive look at the family atmosphere of off-road racing.
