Sunday, 27 December 2015

Mahony Photo Archive Fire

I heard about this fire when I was out at the US Superprestigio, but didn't know the details until the other day.

Sideburn has featured Dan Mahony's dirt track photos since issue one. He photographed throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s, before moving to Montana Missouri where, according to Mark Gardiner (see below), he and his wife fostered abandoned animals while Dan converted his 1000s of images from print and negative to digital. Virtually any Ascot photo you've ever seen is either Dan's or his father's, Walt (who helped found the Ascot track and the Trackmaster frame company). An example of one of Dan's evocative shots, this one from the Houston Astrodome, is below.

The archive was stored in Dan and Vickie's home and was wiped out by the fire. Most of the animals perished too, but Dan, his wife and mother-in-law escaped, though Dan was badly burned trying to rescue some of the animals.

A friend of the family has set up a Go Fund Me page if you would like to help with any money to put the Mahonys back on their feet.

Many more sad details of the fire are over on Mark Gardiner's online Backmarker column on MotoUSA.com. G
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5 comments:

  1. McQmoto27 December 2015 at 21:00

    Jeez - very sorry to hear that news.
    All the very best for a speedy recovery Dan.
    I hope the scanned pics were stored off-site somewhere. Dan's archive was a gold-mine, the shot of Kenny Roberts, John Hateley & Eddie Mulder is a case in point. Dan's a good feller and very generous with his time. Let's hope the wider community rally around to give him a hand...
    Alastair

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  2. Justin Calkins27 December 2015 at 23:29

    Dan lives in Missouri, not Montana. He is maybe thirty minutes from my father, in the south central Missouri Ozark area.

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  3. Hot Shoe1 January 2016 at 18:02

    I read this on the Vintage Flat Track website a couple of months ago. Very sad. As Justin said Dan lives in Missouri. There is a gofundme page.

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  4. Sideburn Magazine2 January 2016 at 15:51

    Hi Hot Shoe
    I had already corrected it to Missouri and the whole point of the post was to point people to the Go Fund Me page which was in my original post.
    Cheers
    Gary

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  5. Hot Shoe4 January 2016 at 19:48

    Hi Gary, when i read it it hadn't then been corrected but it's no big deal as the point was to highlight the Go Fund Me page and i see no problem with that. Cheers, Geoff.

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