Get to know Jerry Winker

photo source: Tim Williams

Here's a quick bio. How's this? : 

The first race I went to was the Donnybrooke Trans-Am back in 1970 at age 5. Yep, that was THEE year of the classic pony car wars and I immediately got addicted to the sport thanks to my dad. In the next few years, between the ages of 5 and 7, I got a chance to see absolute LEGENDS of the sport: Rodriguez, Cevert, Donohue, Siffert, Revson, Jones, Follmer, Elford, Hulme, etc., so you could say I got a decent intro right away to auto racing. I got my first camera at the age of seven, a Kodak Brownie Starmite, and started shooting at age 7. 

In 1979 at the age of 14, I finally purchased my first 35mm camera, a Pentax KX for $150, with some paper route money. I used to borrow my dad's doubler to increase the focal length to get better shots from the front straight, or from corners 4 or 10 at Brainerd. Two years later, just after I received my driver's permit, I became SCCA member 85750. I kept shooting at more events: ice racing, autocross, rally, etc. and got better at photography over time.

I took a number of camera classes in both junior high and high school and when I went to the U of Minnesota later on, I'd been trying for a photojournalism degree before the funds just flat ran out. I did get a two-year degree at Hennepin Technical College and soon after was working at the largest photographic slide company in the Twin Cities, until they went belly-up in 1995.

I started making slideshow presentations of my racing and rally shots for the Land O' Lakes division of the SCCA just to get my name "out there". Then, in 1997, I got my first shots published in Dusty Times magazine where I still regularly have my rally reports and photos published. The next year, with the help of the head of the old Rallysport website, I had one of the first two U.S. rally photo websites online. Things suddenly took off, I started getting photos published internationally and the majority of my racing weekends were paid for from either being published or from photo sales after the event. 

The cool thing about all of this is that I kept ALL of my negatives and slides from the start in boxes in my folks' basement. At present, everything from 1972 to 1987, and also 2005 to 2010, is online currently at comicozzie.com with loads more to scan. I estimate that I have 100,000+ racing images total. Yep, I'm only 45, but I've seen hundreds of racing events in my lifetime and shot the majority of them.

I'm REALLY glad that Adam took the time to get a locally based website to show sports car racing activity (auto racing, rally, ice racing, auto/rally cross, etc.) in the midwest. It's been needed and I'm happy that he's enthusiastic about promoting these events with online articles and photos.