Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/646962
VOL. 53 ISSUE 8 MARCH 1, 2016 P99 the early years and then she moved to the finish line and began keeping lap charts to help Dave write his stories. "Well the AMA saw her doing lap charts so they hired her," Hoenig grins. "They were paying her money to keep charts and I wasn't, so it was an easy decision." And like Dave's innocent start at Granite City, Kathy's involvement grew until in 1994 Bruce Bober, AMA Pro Racing's flat track manager, asked Kathy if they could attend all the nationals. "I came home from work and she asked me if we could travel to all the races and I said, 'Well I guess we can try it,'" Hoenig said before adding with a laugh. "And all these years later I guess we're still trying it." It was from that point on that the Hoenigs have worked every flat track national. In addition to the nationals, they've covered countless regional races as well. To defray some of the costs they started selling photos to the racers. And to provide something a little different, Dave was one of the first to start shooting color. He even went through the complicated process of developing color film in a portable lab they carried with them. Over the years Hoenig has built up the most comprehensive catalog of flat track photography of the last 40 years. He's also a meticulous record keeper and has compiled complete race results records over that time as well. "I have over 650,000 film pictures," Hoenig says. "God only knows what it's up to now since I went digital." And speaking of the technical aspects of photography, shooting nighttime flat track races, especially at some of the poorly lighted tracks the series visits, is among the most demanding type of motorsports photography you could imagine. Brian J. Nelson, generally considered to be one of the elite motorsports photographers of today, talks admiringly of Hoenig's skill. "People don't understand how tough it is to get a useable image at some of these races," Nel- son explains. "And the fact that Dave has consis- tently been able to get a shot that tells the story over the years is really saying something about his skills and devotion to the sport." And that devotion includes coming to the races in recent years as he battled cancer. There were times at the height of his illness, that Hoenig had no business coming to the races, yet there he was, drained of energy, able to muster up just enough strength to ride a golf cart to the corners to get the images that would be used to tell the story. In terms of getting that classic flat track photo of the riders broad sliding at full-lock through the turns, Hoenig said that's rarer today. "With the wide, soft tires and the grooved track, if you get a rider really crossed up today a lot of times you're just catching a mistake," Hoe- nig said. "Of all the tracks, I think the Springfield Short Track is one of the best to shoot, because when they have that thing groomed just right, the riders still go around there sideways most of the time. To me that's dirt track." Hoenig has covered other types of racing, but he said the passion just wasn't there as it was with flat track racing. He's been around long enough that he's covered two and sometimes even three generations of racing families. "The thing about this sport is 99.9 percent of the people involved are just good people," Hoenig explained. "I mean you can go up and talk to these guys even after they've had a bad night and they'll talk to you. And it's not just me, but anyone who's covering the races." Hoenig talks as if he's fortunate to have had a life around flat track racing. The truth is the sport has been the benefactor of his and his family's presence. CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives