Somehow I doubt the sun will have much impact in this morning’s shooting. Hope the clouds go away for the Conti race this afternoon
Somehow I doubt the sun will have much impact in this morning’s shooting. Hope the clouds go away for the Conti race this afternoon
#94 Turner Motorsport BMW M3: Bill Auberlen, Paul Dalla Lana, Matt Plumb, Boris Said
The time between Christmas and New Year’s is a bit weird. Its like non time. Things happen, but it seems like they don’t have to. We are sitting in Arizona wondering why its so cold here since we came this way on purpose. Its been warmer in our old stomping grounds of Athens, GA. Bah, maybe I will go kick a cactus or something.
Part of the last few days has been working out our travel schedule for 2012. Assuming we don’t lose our minds and drive down to the Dakar (not likely) the 24 Hours of Daytona will be the first stop on our spring January tour. Last year was the first time we shot the race (or attended it for that matter) and we were pleased by the dry weather. After watching many cold and rainy Daytona 24Hs on television, we were expecting it to be cold and wet.
#41 Dempsey Racing Mazda RX-8: Dane Cameron, James Gue, Ian James, Don Kitch Jr., Dave Lacey (Darren Pierson)
Aside from the extra long fog delay that burned off just after sunrise, the weekend was without weather interference. I imagine that since everything went so smoothly last year, and I also mentioned it here, the weather gods will be after us. We will miss the Roar since we are staying out West as long as possible, but look for update posts starting on Wednesday the 25th.
See you at the Track!
Sunrise at the 2011 Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona
I pulled some of my favorite shots from my work in the pits during the 2011 sports car season. Some I chose because of the action or the expression, other are simply visually appealing to me. I hope you like them as well. Enjoy.
-Darren
2011 Year In The Pits – Images by Darren Pierson
2011 Petit Le Mans Race Start Race Start (Darren Pierson)
The ILMC/WEC races are starting to have an IndyCar weekend feel to them. The faster cars show up and bring a self-important, aren’t you glad we are here, now go away we are busy vibe. I like the fact that there are so many international entrants, but somehow the Audi vs. Peugeot thing seems to overshadow the rest of the week. Look at the picture to the left, thats the start of the race, the 1st and only seven cars in the field of view are ILMC cars. The 1st ALMS regular was 9th on the grid. Not sure what to think about that, but I do think the Diesel vs Petrol controversy needs a leveling. I’m not completely convinced that the disparity between the diesels and everyone else is simply that fact that Audi and Peugeot have put umpteen Euros into development of the cars. Certainly that is a huge factor, but I don’t think its the whole story. On the bright side, as my wife pointed out, having the ILMC cars in town certainly brings up the scarf count in Braselton.
#8 Performance Tech Cooper Prototype Lite: Tristan Nunez (Darren Pierson)
Cooper Lites started out bright and early on Tuesday and both Cooper and GT3 had morning as well as afternoon sessions. It was a good day to get the feel of the track and to get solid shots of all of the cars. During the morning session, Tristan Nunez’s car caught on fire while on track. It looked pretty comprehensive, but luckily his crew was able to get him back on track. Like the last several race weekends I was going to be swamped with Cooper and GT3 coverage, so my plan was to stick to Night Practice, Quali and the Race for my ALMS shooting. This turned out to be a reasonable trade off as both Cooper and GT3 were having their season end banquets.
Several new pieces of safety fence had been added to the track, small sections to protect the flag stands at six and seven, and most notably, a huge section running from turn one all the way up to turn two. Shooting from ground level at turn one has always been a bit dangerous. Yes you are behind k-wall and have some time to move back if a car overshoots the turn, but I wouldn’t want to test the theory.
#62 Snow Racing Porsche 911 GT3 Cup: Madison Snow (Darren Pierson)
The photo stand that is set up for turn one is pretty worthless photographically as only half of the platform can see up the front straight without obstruction. The fence is easy enough to shoot though, so rather than elbow with people I tend to shoot the starts from the ground level or from elsewhere. As you can see from the first picture, I shot the start of the ALMS race this year from the bottom of the esses and I think it made for a dramatic image.
Its been a long several weeks and to be honest, I am looking forward to not having a destination to push towards after this race. It will be nice to have a weekend just be a weekend. Perhaps. For a little bit. Then we have to start planning, the Rolex 24 hour isn’t that far away. You can view all of my motorsports work at dPerceptions. Galleries for all three series can be accessed via the links below.
Thanks for following along all season, we will see you at the track in 2012.
#05 Core Autosport Oreca FLM09: Jon Bennett, Frankie Montecalvo, Ryan Dalziel (Darren Pierson)
ALMS Highlights – ALMS Entire Week
Turn one is suddenly sporting a catch fence. I am not surprised as shooting in T1 at ground level is quite dangerous. There isn’t much decent room on the riser though. Should be a few angry photographers come Saturday morning.
We had to shoot on Sunday at Laguna, so we stayed at the track until Monday morning. On Monday we went back towards LA and stopped near Ventura. We had parked here for lunch on the way up to Laguna on Highway 1, so on the way back, we stopped and camped for the night. Not a terribly bad view for $27.00.
Ventura office view
#30 NGT Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 Cup: Martin Ragginer, Carlos Kauffman, Henrique Cisneros (Darren Pierson)
That was a very long drive across the states. Along with all of the normal fun and excitement of a cross country trip, we got to spend the better part of two days in Mercedes dealerships. Driving though Denver at 3pm on a Saturday, the resonator on the turbo cracked and needed replaced. Two days later in Vegas, the charging tube from the intercooler blew off (I imagine from the previous mechanic’s haste). Aside from those two incidents, the trip was great fun. Kim, who drove the entire way, might have a few other words to say about the drive, but I do know she was happy to see the surf in Ventura when we hit the opposite coast.
This was going to be a busy weekend, all of the normal fun of shooting three series with the addition of a joint Cooper/Mazda press conference, an early Cooper Field group photo and the final GT3 race on Sunday morning. We have never been to Laguna, it has always been on the list, but for one reason or another, we had never made it out there. Now that we were there, we were not sure we wanted to leave. We were certain we did not want to drive back across the country for Petit. That is another post however.
#15 Wilzig Racing Cooper Prototype Lite: Alan Wilzig (Darren Pierson)
To say Laguna Seca is a beautiful and iconic track, is roughly equivalent to saying the sky is above the ground. Elevation changes, sweeping corners, incredible vistas, amazing spectator viewpoints….the corkscrew; it has it all. Its not a track to walk around though, so I was happy to have our LaVita scooter along. Thursday morning began as a cool cloudy flat day and having no real idea of where to start shooting the 1st Cooper session, I headed to Turn 5 by default since it was the closest to our campsite.
It turned out to be a mostly cluttered background area but since I needed to get a few tight shots of the cars in the bag, I fiddled around there for a while as I worked up towards the outside of the bridge just before Turn 6. You cannot hang around Laguna Seca for very long before gravity begins to pull you to the corkscrew. We have seen it on TV a million times and everyone remembers Zanardi’s pass, but actually being there and looking at the insanity of the abrupt left hander and drop is unequalled. The elevation change alone over such a short distance would be roller coaster-like anyway. Couple that with the quick left-right and you can understand why every driver loves/hates that corner combo so much.
#3 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C6 ZR1: Olivier Beretta, Tommy Milner (Darren Pierson)
Friday wasn’t much better as far as far as the lighting and temperature went but it was fun to learn the track and to find new places from where to shoot. Laguna is a lot like Miller and Road Atlanta; you don’t have to have long glass, but you can certainly use as much as you bring. The longest lens I had with me was a 300mm so shooting up into the Andretti Hairpin was a test of keeping the distant junk like port-a-potties out of the frame. I could do it, but it would have been easier to isolate the cars a bit more with a 500mm.
#007 Aston Martin Racing AMR/ Lola Coupe B09 60: Adrian Fernandez, Harold Primat, Stefan Mucke (Darren Pierson)
Cooper and GT3 were keeping me pretty busy again, so I planned on doing most of my ALMS shooting on Saturday during the race, this was helped somewhat by the final GT3 race of the weekend being run on Sunday morning rather than Saturday. I was really happy to see the AMR Lola back Stateside though, our P class offerings have been pretty sparse this season. Luckily, Saturday was beautiful. Clear blue skies with just a touch of white puffy cloud, warm enough to be pleasant but not so hot that wearing a black firesuit was an insane proposition. This was good since I was scheduled to shoot a grid shot for the Cooper Lites Series early in the morning. The race start is often a challenging decision. You need to be in a place to capture the cars at the critical point, but that spot can be very elusive. This time I had the good luck to be able to shoot the start from the wind tunnel of a starter stand. Its a very narrow and windy perch positioned below a bridge that crosses the track. If you cannot be on the very front, you have to lean way out over the track. Even then it can be difficult to keep the flag from completely blocking your shot.
Race Start ModSpace ALMS Laguna Seca (Darren Pierson)
I did get a technicallybetter shot of the start than this one, but I like the action of the green flag coupled with the pack and spinning LMPC car. For some reason, the last GT3 race of the weekend was held on Sunday. It was quite odd to get up on Sunday, have most of the carriers gone, the crowds gone and still be shooting a race. To be honest, it was like shooting an Historics or Sportsman race. Not many fans, but the few in attendance were very enthusiastic. GT3 is a fun series to watch, the races are hotly contested and there are always off track excursions and bits of Porsche flying. The final race of the weekend clenched the Platinum Class season victory for Henrique Cisneros and the Gold Class season for 15 year old Madison Snow. Other excitement included me breaking my 300mm again. This was twice this year, the 1st time at Sebring Winter practice. I think KEH needs to do a better job repairing it this time.
Henrique Cisneros celebrates his Platinum Class Season Championship(Darren Pierson)
We now have a very long drive back across the states to Road Atlanta. Its even worse for Petit since there are cars on the track on TUESDAY, so we really have to hustle. See you there! All of my galleries and other blog posts can be found at dPerceptions. Links to individual galleries for Cooper, GT3 and ALMS are below. Thanks for reading and looking!
-Darren
Cooper Highlights – Cooper Weekend
ALMS Highlights – ALMS Weekend
(Darren Pierson)
At Laguna Seca, I was asked to shoot a special shot for the Copper Prototype Lites series. I had to keep it under my hat (visually anyway) until after the Cooper Banquet at Petit Le Mans. Before the race on Saturday, we rolled the field out to the Cooper Bridge and aligned them, two Mazda pace cars, the safety car and a few officials in a matter of minutes. The initial ask was to do the shoot with the engines running, but thankfully it was decided that we needed more time to arrange everyone. There are a few things that I wish I had time to tweak, but all in all, for five minutes of setup time, I am quite pleased with the results.
Thanks to Cooper and IMSA for their support this year.
Darren
#05 Core Autosport Oreca FLM09: Jon Bennett, Frankie Montecalvo (Darren Pierson)
After two races at familiar tracks stretching to learn the nuances of being a series photographer, we headed to the inaugural Baltimore Grand Prix. A street course that we had never seen and where cars had never been driven in anger (well, other than taxis). Neither Cooper nor GT3 were here; I suppose since IndyCar was calling the shots, so my only real concern was to figure out where and how to shoot ALMS.
Friday got off to a slow start, F2000 was supposed to be on track at 8AM and the 1st ALMS running was to be at 9:25AM. We are told in our 7:30AM photo meeting that there would be around a two hour delay, so after checking out a lens from NPS, I walked back to our Daytime Campsite. I didn’t really think too much about the delay until around noon I realized that I had not once heard a car on the track. A quick check of the twitter hashtag #BGP2011 let me know that we might not be seeing anyone on track on Friday. This was proving to be a weird race weekend. Late in the afternoon, ALMS finally took to the track for an abbreviated practice day. Morning light was substituted for evening light and off we went to see what the streets of downtown Baltimore would provide. An indication of what caused the delay in bringing cars to the track was evident in the lack of completion around the course. Lack of clearly defined entry points to trackside access (or complete lack thereof), confused event staff and most annoying; marked but uncut photo holes. Let me be clear, photo holes are not the only place to shoot from, you have to think beyond the fence, but to have very limited shooting access coupled with marked, uncut holes laughing at you, makes for a difficult introduction.
#17 Team Falken Tire Porsche 911 GT3 RSR: Wolf Henzler, Bryan Sellers (Darren Pierson)
I was hoping to shoot from the island in the pits so that I could use the back of Camden Yard as locative scenery. I guess I did not pay much any attention to the track maps prior to arriving in Baltimore as I quickly learned that there was no island. Even better was the catch fence along the pit straight. It was mounted on the edge of a steep drop off down to the local train tracks and stop. It wasn’t possible to back off and shoot through the fence to catch the cars going past. Clearly I needed both an attitude change and a shooting rethink. Embrace the fence, get above it, go under it, look for gaps, look past it. Ignore the fence, its not going away.
I didn’t shoot at the chicane that seemed to be the cause of so much discussion. I saw lots of pictures from there. Nifty front and back shots of all manner of racing machines leaping into the air after bouncing off the chicane. The chicane, any chicane, anywhere. Here we were (by we here I mean the photo media) in Baltimore in the streets and the focus was on an un-memorable bit of asphalt in an unidentifiable bit of road. Too much forest in the tress I guess. The start of the race was a curiosity though, not really anywhere to shoot it from. It was never made clear if we could get into the runoff area past T1 and then get back out after the start. I initially had decided to shoot the start from T3 as I assumed the concertina effect at the hairpin would make for a decent field shot or at the very least a pile up. As I was headed over for the start, walking in the heat in my firesuit, I decided T2 would be much better (and closer).
Baltimore Grand Prix Race Start (Darren Pierson)
I was initially worried about my last second change of plans since the speed of the Prototypes might be enough that they were out of my frame before any GT cars came around the corner and into the field of view. Thankfully, it did not turn out that way and I was able to grab a great start shot that I think captured the moment and locale very well. I giess there was come carnage at one of the slow points on the track as on lap 2 or 3, all of the cars came though missing pieces and with smashed front and back ends. Most everyone seemed to be continuing, so apparently the damage was superficial. I was surprised to see the #62 and #45 at the tail end of the field as both cars had been excluded for on track stupidity during quali. Never did find out how they got back in.
Towards the end of the race, I was wandering around in an area completely wrong for the lighting that time of day and walked behind a lift and found a place to shoot under an advertising banner. I think that location gave me the best shot I took home from Baltimore and on of the better shots I grabbed all year.
#17 Team Falken Tire Porsche 911 GT3 RSR: Wolf Henzler, Bryan Sellers (Darren Pierson)
I was happy to see Falken finally break through with a deserving win, but I am not sure how the race itself went, it seemed like a bit of a parade. On a positive note, there were LOTS of people at the track, hopefully they will come back next year and maybe even watch another ALMS race. Assuming of course they can coax ESPN3 to allow them access.
We are off on a lonnnnnnnng drive to Laguna Seca. Before leaving Maryland, we are going to Ocean City so that we can do a proper coast to coast drive. Alex Roy has little to fear though, we plan on taking the scenic route.
All of my work can bee seen at dPerceptions MotorSports Photography and individual galleries including Highlights from Baltimore and the complete Baltimore Grand Prix Gallery
Bryan Sellers celebrates his GT class win (Darren Pierson)
Pre-Race Grid (Darren Pierson)
Just before Mid-Ohio I was hired by IMSA to be the Series Photographer for both the Cooper Prototype Lites and the IMSA GT3 Challenge. I had shot both series off and on the the last few years, but only a few sessions here and there. Certainly never all sessions and ceremonies. At Mid Ohio, I only had to contend with adding Cooper to my shoot list as GT3 was not on the schedule. Road America included both support series, so clearly I needed to rethink my day or I was going to be one tired monkey. As I had specific requirements on me for IMSA and less specific requirements for ALMS, I decided that I would forego shooting the ALMS practices which happened at mid day. To be honest, the high direct summer sun of 1-3pm is fairly awful to work in anyway. There tends to be huge amounts of glare and you really have to push to find places that will work. That was my rationalization anyway.
#21 Comprent Motorsports Prototype Lite: Charlie Shears Takes the Checkered Flag in Race #2 (Darren Pierson)
On one hand it was great to have specific shots needed, a hard schedule and deadline….a directive. On the other, it was hard to remember to make sure I had every car nailed in a tight, clear, vanilla shot before shooting more interesting viewpoints. Oftentimes, one location works for one type of shooting and not for others. For example, shooting under the Toyota bridge just before T6 is a great place to shoot tight enough to fill most of the frame with the car while retaining some of the background ambience that helps to reveal the location of the car.
#56 Snow Racing: Melanie Snow (Darren Pierson)
Its not a great place to practice your panning skills however as the business parts of the bridge are not entirely pleasant to add to your frame. You have to think ahead and plan. Even more difficult is shooting a 30 or 45 minute race when you have to shoot the grid, the start, nail some location shots of the leaders in both classes and be back for the checkers and podium ceremonies. As my wife will tell you, planning is not my strong suit, or any of my suits for that matter. It takes more forethought than I am was used to. After the start, you have to head immediately to your location to shoot the top three in each class (as well as any possible podium contenders). You have to know ahead of time where the sun will be and how you want to shoot. You also need a backup plan in case the prime location doesn’t work and you have to zoom elsewhere. Swimming in the deep end for certain, but quite fun one you realize you didn’t drown.
The ALMS race was extended to six hours and moved to Saturday this year, so the weekend was compressed even more than normal. The upside being that the race would; theoretically, finish in some beautiful light.
#18 Performance Tech Motorsports Oreca FLM09: Anthony Nicolosi, Jarrett Boon, Kyle Marcelli (Darren Pierson)
We are off next to Baltimore to see what kind of race they can put on there. Its a shared weekend with IndyCar, so I plan on being unamused most of the time. Hopefully it will be a race rather than a parade, time will tell. Thanks for reading and looking! You can view all of my work at dPerceptions Motorsports Photography. Complete Galleries of the Road America Rounds can be viewed using the links below
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