If the Anaheim 2 track and conditions were a 9.5 on a scale of 1-10, then Houston was about a 4, at best.

Why?

Many reasons. The most important and often most limiting factor for shooting a modern day Supercross is the amount of light that's available to make nice photos. It matters more now than in the past because the current trend is to utilize the high ISO capabilities of the new digital bodies and shoot with existing light as opposed to always hitting the riders with a big burst of flash while not worrying about underexposing the background by several stops. Nowadays, it's preferable to try and make the photos look "realistic", in an attempt to duplicate what your eye actually sees when you're at the track. You do this by utilizing the higher ISO settings on the camera to make the sensor sensitive enough that you can get a high enough shutter speed (and enough depth of field via a small aperture) to lock in the action and expose the entire scene "properly" instead of having the background black and the rider flooded with flash. I personally like to offer a bit of both styles, and some in between (as you'll see below).

That's why Houston was sub-par: The lighting was weak. Really weak. At Anaheim, proper exposure in the better lit areas of the track was around ISO1000 1/500th F/4. At Houston, it was ISO1600 1/500 f/2.8 - that's like 2 stops difference! That's a hugely different environment to shoot in, not only for the limitations in what I can offer as far as the overall "look", but the image keeper ratio was lower because the camera simply can't focus quite as well in the lower light (it seems Nikons are better at this than the Canons are). So, when I shot with available light I was always at ISO1600, and with flash I was even only able to go down to ISO640 or so if I wanted to show any of the background at all. That's pretty dark. Oh yea, and the closed roof and show opening fireworks smoke don't help for the Lites heat races, as it's still pretty smokey in there for a while, making flash photos possible only if you're literally right on top of the riders...unless of course you don't mind lighting up a whole bunch of smoke between you and the rider and trying to correct for it later.

Add to this the fact that Houston is an "east" sort of stadium - i.e. Football only - and the track designs no longer allow much shooting from the infield. See the track maps above? That's what we get when we arrive, to indicate where we can and cannot go. Compare the green vs. red areas on the two and think about the implications of that for a minute. Green=OK to shoot from, Red=no shooting. Beyond these restrictions, the track was boring and predictable and everywhere you could shoot from looks exactly the same as every place else. The only good thing we had going here was a mini-whoop section on the outside lane which was pretty photogenic but was quickly shot to death by everyone in the first practice session. Also, that sweeper after the finish line was cool but we weren't technically allowed to stand anywhere on the outside of it to shoot, although we all did at some point. In Houston, the best shooting was actually up in the stands for many sections, but shooting from the stands during the race is fairly undesirable when you're there to try and make a living. You have to be able to move around quickly from one spot to another (and down to the podium) and that's just not possible when fighting the herd of fans (who are rightfully very protective of the space they paid to occupy).

Below are a few Ryan Villopoto shots from the same section for examples of 1) heavy flash and underexposed background, 2) purely ambient light, and 3) a blend of both. I included settings so you could get a clue of what I was doing. If you've read this far, please take the time to comment on if you prefer one style over the other. I like each of them pretty much equally.

ISO500, 1/200th, F/5, flash +2/3rds stop

ISO1600, 1/500th, F/4, no flash

ISO1600, 1/500th, F/4 with FLASH dialed down 2/3rd stop