1997 Fast Dates
SBK World Superbikes and Umbrella Girls Swimsuit Calendar
SBK World & AMA Superbikesand Race Bikes with the Official the Fast Dates SBK Umbrella Girls.

The 1997 Fast Dates Race Bike Calendar which premierd in 1991 became, beginning this year beame the official Calendar of the SBK World Superbike Championship which had arrived at Laguna Seca Raceway fr the first time, and the American Motorcycle Racing Teams. This started an amazing 30-year partnership that would continue through to the 2017 Fast Dates Calendar. Mikuni's beautiful Calendar Models (later to be known as Calendar Kittens) became the offical World Superbike podium and umbrella girls at thi 1995 Laguna Seca World Superbike and AMA Nationals race weekend where the 1997 Calendar was photographed by me, Jim Gianatsis. Before World Superbike and the Calendars, I had been coming to the Laguna Seca Racway since 1981 for the AMA Superbike Nationals as the marketnig director and suspenison engineer for Moto-X Fox to asssit the factry race teams running our Fox Factory Shoxs. I also took the Keith Code Motorcycle Racing Scool at Laguna Seca in 1981 during my evolution from having been an an AMA Pro Motocrosser the previous12 years, to now being a die-hard Superbike Enthusiast and Racer.

Shooting the annual World Superbike event at California's Laguna Seca Raceway was a dream assignment for any red-blooded sport guy. Imagine diving up the scenic Pacific Coast Highway 1 from Los Angeles to Monterey with four beautiful girls. Lodging in a quaint Bed & Breakfast in downtown Carmel, hanging and shot at the track all weekend with the top factory race teams, and partying in downtwn Monterey on Cannery Row on Saturday night with the race fans and eating at my favorite restaurant on the ocean overlooking Monterey Bay.

Out at the Laguna Seca race track we had all the top factory superbikes at our disposal for Calendar shoots. We got to hang out in the paddock all weekend with the factory race teams, riders and th director of World SBK, Paolo Flammin , and we even had Eraldo Ferracci cooking us lunch in the Ferracci team paddock. Plus of course, dodging spraying champaigne on the victory podium after each race. Not to forget telling scarry ghost storie on our drive back home to Los Angeles on Sunday night.

It was the first of an amazing 3 decades to follow of shooting the official SBK Fast Dates World Superbike Calendar with our offical SBK podium girls. The amazing models accompanying me fo rthis first Laguna SecaWSBK race weekend were Valerie Bird, Anna Keller, Robin Hill and Michelle Anthony. I also lter did additonal race team shoots later in Los Angeles with Tamara Wasson and Gabrielle Tuite, and a Don Plesser Pro drag bike in Missouri with Carrie Everett. - Jim Gianatsis

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