How many times can you say ‘UMM’???

…or, “Um, you know”, or…”so…um”??

The main part of The MotoWorld for years has been the podcasts. Great interviews, travel stories, opinions and MotoNews. Putting together a good program takes time; researching news, rumors and new products. Deciding which interviews go with which news pieces and / or rumors and of course choosing background music. But before all that, comes the dreaded interview editing.

In all honesty I love editing. It’s a whole zen of it’s own. I learned the skill while working as a disc jockey and commercial producer for a rock n’ roll radio station in New Mexico a number of lifetimes ago. At that time, it was splicing pieces of reel to reel tape together with a razor blade and editing tape, today it’s a mouse button…but it’s all the same and I still love it. I think.

This morning while editing interviews from the AMA Roadraces at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana California last week, I realized that other than editing myself out…which makes the interview sound much better…most of my time goes into taking out the “umm’s”, the “umm, you know’s” and the ever popular “so……….umm’s”.

A couple of years ago while interviewing a very popular racer, we were joking about the “umm’s” and he told me that at one time while being interviewed the PR person in charge would count on his fingers each time he said “umm”. It became a running joke…and don’t worry Jake, I won’t tell anybody who the racer is.

So this morning I finish my interview edits for the new MotoWorld show and I counted the “umm’s”, “you knows”, the “umm, you know’s” and the “so…..you know’s”. Then being the math wiz I’m not, started calculating how many of those edits have I done over the years. Counting on my fingers and toes….30,312…give or take 5. Who ever said being a motojournalist was easy. OK, ummm… back to work.

Race Day delay

So that means that I have time to pass on a few notes to you. We’re out here at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana California for the first of the West Coast rounds of AMA Pro Racing. Yesterday, Friday, was a truly beautiful Southern California day.All the teams are here, the garages are humming and the track is alive with sound of motorcycles but, we’re here to work. Interviews to do, photo’s to take and stories to write, who has time for watching practice and qualifying?

Our day was full right from the moment we got here, following up on past interviews, scheduling new ones and figuring how we were going to work it all in. Work,work,work…

We started the morning with our friends at Roadracing World Magazine, lining up our interview with MotoGP and Superbike star John Hopkins.

Next was over to Jordan Suzuki for a visit with Rich Alexander, technical manager and former champion road racer himself about running the Michael Jordan team.A quick hello with Aaron Yates, which who, later in the day set the fastest lap times in qualifying.

Time to sit down with John Hopkins for an interview that I have been looking forward to for a long time. We had a great visit about his life and career.

Wandering around the pits a month or so ago during Superbike testing, I met Danny Eslick, 2009 Daytona Sportbike champion. This young man always had a smile on his face and was usually laughing, and in general having a great time. We didn’t get a chance for a full interview so we planned for this race. We met up at the Geico Powersports trailer and for the next thirty minutes or so we had one of the most entertaining interviews we’ve done.

At 3PM the first round of qualifying got underway and from there until the end of the day, no more interviews so we really did get to watch. It’s always fun to watch the racers we have interviewed, you get to know and like them so naturally we cheer for them.

After qualifying we met up with Ducati Superbike pilot Larry Pegram for an interview. Now, Larry is a really cool guy and a great racer, but…he’s not much of a talker. We like him anyway.

We finished off our day in great style, a half hour with sixteen year old Elena Meyers, super fast, super nice and cute as can be. Oh, she had the wildest toenail polish I think I’ve ever seen.

At the end of the day we had a recorder full of interviews and a camera full of photos, a great day.

That was yesterday. Today the wind is howling, blowing so hard that all track activity is stopped for riders’ safety. It’s hard just walking around much less riding a motorcycle at over 165 miles per hour today. So, a couple more interviews, edit photo’s and update you all.

Our first get together this morning was with young Chris Clark riding a Yamaha R1 Superbike for the Pat Clark Motorsports, a Yamaha satellite team. Another very talented and entertaining young man.

To give you an idea of how hard the wind is blowing, while we were doing the last interview,the giant team hauler was rocking side to side to the point of making almost all of us seasick!

So here it is 1:30 in the afternoon, the wind is still howling, riders are huddled up in their motorhomes and we’re hiding in the media center. If no racing soon, we’ll be back tomorrow.

2:30 pm update..the wind has calmed down a bit, the AMA is sending the Superbike riders out onto the track for an evaluation of the safety concerns..if the riders feel they have raceable conditions…thirty minutes from now the green flag drops.