Recap: Thunderdrome IV

On September 15th, 2012, Thunderdrome IV took place at Dorais Park in Detroit

Thunderdrome keeps evolving. This time it started at 6 and ran until midnight. The organizers had big lighting rigs set up to maintain visibility. The race categories were arranged by speed, rather than type of motorbike. Given the time and date, this outing wasn't hot as balls like the last Thunderdrome. The biggest tech upgrade was the remote-control helicopter with a mounted camera that played in real time on an inflatable jumbo-tron (see some footage here).

There were other things that stayed the same. The crowd was in the infield, there was a beer tent, a food truck, and a Fowling set up. Organizer and emcee Andy Didorosi was still cracking wise and losing patience with spectators that didn't stay within the boundaries. In one instance he exclaimed, "You, with the long shorts, move! Those socks aren't helping! You look like a choad". The choad in the long shorts hung his head, plodded away, and wasn't seen by this blogger again.

Very few races ended closely, but I managed to catch video of the last half lap of a race that was. In a qualifying round full mostly of mopeds, an orange Vespa was able to win out. The Vespa was later eliminated in a semi-final round, but it was still fun to see an upset.

An interesting entry was a tandem moped that can be seen here racing in the "Lead Paint and Drano Slow" class. (not my video)

I didn't see any serious injuries, but one rider recorded his own minor spill on his helmet mounted camera. (obviously not my video)

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I'm a dork, I live in the Detroit area, and sometimes I take blurry photos on an outdated camera