Congratulations and a Big Thank You to Wayne Hosaka and Flat Track.com!

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Heat race action at the AMA Flat Track Toledo Half Mile in late summer of 1975 shows #42 Steve Morehead on his Triumph out front early leading the late Jay Ridgeway on the #9C H-D XR750, Gene Romero on the #3 C & J Yamaha, Ricky Campbell on the #82 XR750 and Hank Scott on the #14 Shell Thuett Yamaha, among others not easily identified. Toledo was a limestone-based horse track, very similar in layout and look to Louisville Downs.
I actually had to do some close looking at some shots to make sure what track was what, and found that Louisville didn't have the white 'solid-looking' outside walls behind the pack coming out of turn four, and the inside guard rails at Louisville were supported by an inverted 'J' or 'L' post that attached to the rail itself for support. This was one of nine or ten races I hit in the summer of '75 after having found AMA Flat Track in the summer of '74. Needless to say, I was completely hooked and have been an avid fan ever since.
AMA Flat Track came back with a bang in 2010 spear headed by Mike & Gary Kidd and Steve Morehead and the AMA Pro Flat Track Team, and I am thrilled to say that it is the best I have ever seen it in the 37 years I have been following it. With multiple brands, big rider turn outs at the races, a good television package, paying butts in the seats, and sponsorship dollars starting to work their way back into The Rolling Thunder Show, AMA Flat Track Racing made a great turn-around this year and is poised to head into the next decade in the best shape overall it has been in years...and maybe decades.
People like Wayne Hosaka, who heads up THE place for ALL THINGS flat track at his bitchin' site Flat Track.com are what have made flat track and flat track fans the best there is in any form of 2-wheeled racing. Wayne will be presented with one of AMA Pro Racing's AMA Media Awards in Las Vegas on November 20 for what he has done for the world of flat track, and AMA Pro Flat Track Racing. Bravo man, bravo!
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One of the sites I like to link to during race coverage, as well as posting some of my bits and pieces about the world of flat track racing here on Stu's Shots, is the Flat Track.com page that is helmed by Wayne 'Hos' Hosaka, a former West Coast hot shoe who was tragically paralyzed during a flat track race at Ascot back in 1971. Being a former flat tracker and wanting to be kept abreast of all things flat track, as well as wanting to help keep folks like you and me-fans and/or fanatics of all things flat track-abreast of the world of flat track racing, Hos started his website back in the mid '90s just as the World Wide Web was really kicking into gear, at least from a 'use-at-home' application.

In doing so, Hos brought together thousands of hard-core fans that wanted to be kept up on the great world of flat track racing. Some 15 years later, Flat Track.com is THE place to go to find out anything having to do with flat track racing and is the preeminent stop each day for flat track fans and participants to go and share what is going on in the world of flat track motorcycle racing. Besides the average Joe like myself that have found the site to not only be a great source of news, as well as getting the news out, there are racers, former racers, promoters and sponsors that turn to Flat Track.com before going anywhere else to get the update on what is really happening in the world of flat track racing. You'll be surprised at the people that go there to pass the word or get the word on flat track!

And in keeping with the theme of 'keeping up with flat track,' AMA Pro Flat Track and AMA Pro Racing have nominated Wayne and Flat Track.com for one of the distinguished AMA Racing Media Awards for the 2010 season in helping to keep AMA Pro Flat Track front and center and 'helping to promote the motorcycle lifestyle and protect the future of motorcycling.' The award will be presented in Las Vegas at the year-end awards banquet at the Red Rock Casino on November 20 along with all of the AMA year-end awards. Very cool indeed. Congrats Hos for a job well done!

So the next time you are surfing the web and looking for info on flat track racing, remember to check out Flat Track.com (and Stu's Shots, of course!) and in all likelihood you will find it at Hos' site. And I guarantee you'll be back once you've been there!
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Here's the post that Wayne put up last night on his Flat Track.com news page of the story I did from yesterday on Joe Kopp's retirement from full time competition in AMA Flat Track racing.

Thanks Hos, you da man! You've put together something really great here that people like me can go to to check out what is happening in flat track, as well as a place to go to help spread the word on flat track and get the news and info to the masses. Thanks so much!

http://www.flattrack.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1009&Itemid=9
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Here is some info on Wayne 'Hos' Hosaka, who back in the mid '90s had the vision to put together Flat Track.com and it's forums for all things flat track and the people that follow it to have a meeting place on the web, a place for news, info and just a general place to go to share the great sport of flat track racing.

This tells you a little about Wayne and some of his other work that he does when he's not taking care of people like me and all the other great folks that are not only flat track fans, but forum members over at his Flat Track.com website. He is a member of the Association of Mouth and Foot Painting Artists. Hos spends his time painting, and not just flat track paintings, either. He has a very nice collection of stuff he has done that is on exhibit on the following site of his beautiful work. You can read about Wayne and then you can check out his art as well. After you read about Hos, you can go to the top and click on the 'Galleries' tab that will take you to his wonderful art at this link:

http://www.zhibit.org/waynehosaka/about

Here are some shots of Hos when he was racing flat track on the west coast in the mid-late '60s and early '70s before his accident at Ascot in '71:

http://picasaweb.google.com/hos55x/MyMotorcycleRacingCollection?authkey=Gv1sRgCMev-NW4uOnKrwE
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AMA Pro Flat Track and AMA Pro Racing announced today the nominees for the year-end awards for the 2010 season. One award in particular that the AMA is making note of is for the AMA Racing Media Award, and one of the nominees for this year's award is Wayne Hosaka and his Flat Track.com website.
The AMA states in the press release that "in their own ways" the nominees have helped advance AMA Pro Racing and motorcycle racing into the future. A very worthy award for someone like Hos who has done so much for the sport, and for the people who follow the sport. Congrats Hos!

http://www.ama-cycle.org/news/story.asp?id=2325
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