Right before a Mettet Superbiker timed practice session, Marc Schmidt spontaneously offers a great portrait.

Marc-Reiner Schmidt, a.k.a. PowerSlider, is one of the most successful supermoto riders these recent years. Born in 1995, he piled up championship titles in Switzerland and Germany between 2002 and 2009, in categories from 50cc to 250cc. Since 2010, he’s been riding with the big boys in 450cc, and won two titles in Switzerland (2012 and 2014), and the European title in 2015. In 2016, he finished  second in the Supermoto World Championship behind 5-time world champion Thomas Chareyre.

In 2015, Marc Schmidt also won the Superbiker in Mettet, the biggest worldwide event in Supermoto, beating Romain Febvre and Thomas Chareyre! This is where this shot was taken. It was one of my first encounters with him. He was clearly feeling confident and I liked how relaxed he looked about it. On the Saturday afternoon, riders were getting ready in pregrid, and I was getting ready to shoot the session with a nice, late-afternoon Belgian sunlight.

As I was taking pictures of riders getting from the pre-grid onto the track, Marc spontaneously took this pose, and it is one of my favorite shots of the weekend. At the time, we did not know of course that he would win the next day. Marc hiding part of his plate to make up a 1 plate took me by surprise, and I was so happy I had the correct settings to capture this in less than a second. Even more than a year later, I really find this picture very powerful.

You can find a gallery of this event by clicking here (text currently in French).