OK folks, I am super-pumped about this. Many of you may remember Bert Shepard from his days of shooting and covering AMA Grand Nationals for Cycle News. Well Mr. Silver Shutter himself was gracious enough to send me a boatload of his classic photos to feature on Rider Files.

A little bit about Bert. He was both racer and photo enthusiast going all the way back to the early 1970s. He found his talent for racing photography thanks to a fellow racer’s wife. She asked him to chronicle her husband’s day at the races with a photo album she wanted to present him for his birthday.

“I made an album and she gave it to him for his birthday,” Shepard said. “And he took it to racetrack and everybody saw it and it went from there.”

The photo album proved to be a hit not only with his buddy, but for everyone else who saw it. Instantly Shepard found his photo services in demand. Soon Shepard began submitting photos to Cycle News and then started writing the race reports as well. By the mid-1970s he was shooting AMA Nationals on a regular basis for Cycle News.

“That was back in the days of Cycle News East and West,” Shepard recalls. “So I would have two cameras and would alternate each lap between them, sending one to Georgia and one to California [Cycle News east and west coast offices].”

Shepard became a history teacher and having the summers off was perfect for his part-time job of reporting on and photographing the races. Living in Ohio was perfect too since it was a hotbed for flat track racing.

His photography was outstanding and RJ Reynolds, which was sponsoring AMA racing by way of its Camel Pro Series, hired him to be their official racing photographer. The upside of working for RJR was that Shepard was one of the best, if not the best-paid motorcycle racing photographer in the business. His photos graced all of RJR’s motorcycle racing promotional material.

Fortunately for all of us, Shepard kept enough of his work that he still has and is digitizing today and as a result we have the good fortune to share them with you.

I thought I’d open the Silver Shutter Collection with a rarity. It’s Freddie Spencer racing at the Indy Mile in 1981. Spencer’s being chase by Terry Poovey. I believe this would have been the early version Honda’s flat track machine – the one that utilized the water-cooled CX500 engine, punched out to 750cc and turned sideways. I believe it was classified as the NS750.

This was the bike that was the test bed for Honda. And while this machine wasn’t completely successful (it won a single national with Scott Pearson at the Louisville Half-Mile in ’82), what Honda learned from this machine led them to develop the highly successful RS750. Spencer of course was well into his road racing career by 1981 and so it was rare to catch him flat tracking at this time.

Photos from Bert’s extensive collection are available to purchase. You can reach him at silvershutter@aol.com

Freddie Spencer flat tracking Honda’s NS750 at the Indy Mile in 1981. This photo is part of a new series we’ll be featuring, the Silver Shutter Collection, shot by well-known racing photographer Bert Shepard. (From the Silver Shutter Collection)