Gianatsis Design - Page 8.02 - Classic Motocross, Stock Motorcycle and PinUp Photography

A Jesse James West Coast Choppers bike on the 2nd street bridge in downtown Los Angeles.

Jim Gianatsis
Classic Motocross and Motorcycle Calendar Photography
for Collectors, Editorial and Stock Use

Jim Gianatsis remains today one of the premier photographers in the motorcycle world. His stock photography of the world's top roadracing bikes, custom and classic V-twins from America's top celebrity builders (Jeese james, Arlen Ness, Payl Yaffe, Don Hotop, Jim Nasi, Jesse Rooke, Ron Sims, Harold Pontarelli, and more), and factory motocross bikes without models, or with the world's most beautiful actresses and models. The selection is too large to list, but range all the way from: Miguel Duhamel's Yoshimura Big Pappa Suxuki GSXR1100 with celebrity Playboy Playmate Pamela Anderson • Jeremy McGrath's Honda CR250 with celebrity model and TV host LeeAnn Tweeden • Kevin Schwantz's 1995 World Championship winning GP Suzuki with Tamara Wasson • 2003 World Superbike Champion Neil Hodgson Ducati 999F03 with Miss Great Britain 2003 Nicki Lane • Paul Yaffe custom with Playboy Playmate Amanda Bentley.

Publishers: Photo images from this early Ameican motocross area, as well as FastDates.com Calendar photography of the bikes and models from 1990 to the present are available for Stock, Advertising and Edititorial use at normal industry rates.

Private Collectors: Custom prints and photo murals are available at a premium rate.
Please note that Jim Gianatsis is a professional photographer, and his archiavel Motocross and Stock Calendar and Model photography is valuable. Requests for custom photo prints and mural prints are expensive and very time consuming to discuss, research and then produce a custom order. You are not only paying for the cost of the custom photo prints, but our time to work with you and a per image artist's fee to cover Jim's lifetime of work and dedication,

All Private Orders require a $500 minimum non-refundable deposit paid up front before we accept your order. Expect to pay a minium of $100 per custom 8x10 print, and considerably more for custom mounted mural prints including shipping. If this is in your price range, we would be happy to or discuss with your photo selection requirements after receipt of your deposit, sent to us at the below address. We require this deposit in advance to discourage non buyers. Private Collector prints are copyright protected by ©Jim Gianatis and may not be reproduced or pubished in any form without permission and paying an additional useage fee.

Los Angeles, USA
4801 Reforma Road • Woodland Hills, CA 91364
Phone: (01) 818.223.8550FFiFacsimile: (01) 818.223.8590
email: JGDesign@FastDates.com

Introduction • Page 2 Graphic Design • Page 3 Photography • Page 4 Press Release Services
Page 5 Advertising & Marketing Services • Page 6 Web Design • Page 7 FastDates.com Ad Rates
Page 8.1 Classic MX & Stock Motorcycle Images 01 • Page 8.2 Stock Images 02 • Page 9 The Jim Gianatsis Story

Continued...

In late 1979, after 10 years of traveling the national motocross circuit, jim was turning 30 and thinking it was time to settle down with a full time job again. He liked the central region of California around San Francisco and had built up a close working relationship with Geoff and Bob Fox, the owners of Moto-X Fox, one of the premier emerging motocross product companies of the time with their Fox Shox and motocross apparel. Jim went to work at Moto-X Fox as their first Marketing Director, assisting Geoff with designing the motocross apparel ine, while handling all the advertising and catalog design and photogaphy for the company.
At Motocross Fox, Jim began photographing a featuring attractive young girls in the Fox Catalog and magazine ads, the first time this was ever done in what was thought of as a "male only" sport. But it made good sense in that guys like looking at pretty girls. It would provide a huge marketing advantage, one that would be copied years later by all the major motocross apparel companies.

With his experience as a test engineer and being a pro motocrosser, Jim also became heavily involved in Fox Shock testing and design. With Jim's inside contacts at the factory motocross teams it wan't long before team Honda and other motocross teams were racing with the new Fox Twin Clicker Shox.

Still racing motocross, Jim suffered a couple of serious injuries in 1981 that regretabbly forced his retirement from motocross. He also wrote a book at this time "Design & Tuning for Motocross: published by Classic Motorbooks, which remains today, the only technical book on motocross bikes ever written.

Jim's attention shifted back to the street where he got back into sportbike riding with a Suzuki GS750E, and into car racing with a street legal Camaro Z28 in SCCA Solo II autocross where he clinched runnerup in the highly competivie BP race car class with Trans-Am spec cars.

Jim introduced the new Fox Factory Twin Clicker Motocross Shox to reigning Trans-Am sports car champion Greg Pickett who becan running and winning with the Fox Shox on his Corvette which proved to be the best shocks of any type on the market at that time. Within 3 years all the major race teams from Ford in IMSA to Penske in CART were running Fox Shox. Eventually Penske would steal the Fox Shox Design and sell it under his own name.

But Jim didn't stop there. Why not introduce the Fox Shoxs to motorcycle roadracing as well? Jim approached and tested with all the major factory roadrace teams including Suzuki, Honda and Kawasaki and within 9 months all the roadracing teams were running Fox Shox that Jim built, test and set up for them Wes Cooley wom the 1981 AMA Superbike Championshipon his Yoshimura Suzuki Katana 11000, and Eddie Lawson won the 1982 AMA Superbike Championship on his Kawasaki KZ1100, both on Jim Gianatsis prepared Fox Resevoir Piggyback Shox

In January 1983 Jim had taken Moto-X Fox in just 3 years from 3 million in sales annually to 12 million. And made them the leader in the world motocross and suspension markets. But owner Geoff Fox was wanting to turn over the reigns of his company to his wife and children and fired Jim. Within 2 years Fox fell out of the streetbike market and lost their automotive Shock market to Penske.

Jim moved to Los Angeles in the winter of 1983 and began his own advertising, photography and design agency specializing in the motorsports market. Clients included Yoshimura, White Brothers. O'Neal USA, Body Glove and Mikuni Carburetors.

Today Gianatsis Design Associates with Jim at he helm has expanded its market base with the worlds most popular line of motorsports pinup calendars, the FastDates.com Calendars and Website. And into event promotion with the Los Angeles Calendar Motorccyle Show, which started out as a barbeque party at his house to celebrate the first release of the first Calendar, to now become the biggest custom and performance streetbike show in America.

Jim lives in Woodland Hills, CA, just northeast of los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley. He remains a hardcore sports car and sportbike enthusiast. His cars include a highly modified late model BMW M3 good for 190mph, a modified Mini Cooper S and a classic 1946 MG TC. Jim's modified sportbikes once included an array of the best Japan had to offer (a GSXR750 streetbike Jim built and was test by Motorcyclist in 1984's bested Eddie Lawson's Rob Muzzy built ZX750 championship winning AMA Superbike tested by Cycle magazine. Jim's favorite bikes today are Ducati and his garage is home to previous generation 916 and 996R Superbikes, and the new 999R05 Superbike (all highly modified), plus a Multistrada S and an Aprilia Mille R converted to a Tuono R. And now most recently a Ducato 1098R 08 and Hypermoto R.

To Still Be Continued . . . .

Jim Gianatsis
A Lifetime of Motorcycle and Glamour Photography
Continued.....

Jim's tenure at Cycle News ran four years from 1969 to 1973 as the sport of motocross skyrocketed to popularity in America. His race coverage, newspaper design and photography in Cycle News was done in an editorial style never before seen in the sport, similar to the emerging new Rolling Stone music newspaper.

Boring lap-by -lap race coverage was set aside for the creation of exciting rivalries between up and coming new American motocrossers like Tony D, Bob "Huricane" Hannah and Marty Smith against the reigning World Champions like Roger DeCoster and Heikki Mikkola. Nicknames including "The Hurricane" "Typhoon Tripes", "Lumberjack" Burgett. "Jammin'" Jimmy Weinert. "Gassin' " Gaylon Moiser and others were created by Jim to elevate the riders to cult status among race fans.

Back then, riders like Hannah, Weinert and tripes like to say what they felt with no regard for keeping a "clean" promotional image, and Jim would ofthen pose them leading questions to extract controversal comments from them about their rivals to build epic on and off-track rivalries that would go down in motocross history. 1970 to 1980 became the golden decade of motocross history as directed and recorded in print and film by Jim Gianatsis

Sharing in Jim's enthusiasm for the sport and its rise to popularityat that time were Jody Weisel, then editor of Cycle News Central based in Austin, Texas, and freelance photographer Charlie Morey from Palm Beach, Florida.

Jody would later become an editor at Cycle News West, and then Motocross Action magazine. Charlie would replace Jim at Cycle News East, and then later Jody at Cycle News West, and then around 1980 become editor of Dirt Rider.

In April 1973 Jim left Cycle News East (which would within a few years merge with the Central and West editions in Long Beach, CA) to go to work as Marketing Director for Husqvarna East in Lorain Ohio. At that time Husky East was owned by John Penton, and Jim lived in a communial house next door to the Pentons, which was shared by visting factory riders. Jim lived, practiced and trained with the likes of Heikki Mikkola, Kent Howerton, Marty Tripes and Dick Burlsen and other motocross and enduro stars of the time. Jim was involved in the development and testing of new bikes like the Husky Automatic.

Jim's tenure at Husky East was short lived as within the year Husqvarna of Sweden would dissolve the Eastern office and merge it with Husquvarna West in San Diego. Jim moved back to his parent's home in Biloxi Mississippi, and returned to freelance motocross coverage of all the major national motocross series and events for Cycle News, Motocross Action, Cycle World and others. Much of the time Jim traveled and lived with the factory race teams, the riders and the mechanics, as they traveled across the country to race in box vans and worked on the bikes in hotel parking lots. Jim shared in driving the vans, working on the bikes, and often slept on the hotel room floors of his biddies Bob Hannah and Tony DiSterfano.

Being a pro caliber motocrosser, factory test engineer and magazine bike teater, Jim was the only motojournalist allowed to ride and test the exotic factory works bikes of the era including the championship winning YZ250 of Bob Hannha and Marty Smith's RC450, the RM250 Suzuki's of Danny LaPort and Tony DiStefano. Often Jim was able to provide the younger riders and factory teams with valueable input on the suspension setup and tuning of their bikes.

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