2009 Northeast Grand Prix at Lime Rock Park
We decided to make the drive up to Connecticut and back into a quick Northeastern Tour. Camping the 1st night partway into Virginia in the Shenandoah National Park and then on the 2nd night in the Catskills at North-South Lake Campground. Day three found us pulling into Lime Rock Park around 7pm. The people with my credentials (which double as an entry ticket) had already left for the day. Dumb planning on my part, but luckily the Guest Services woman believed my story and let us sign in. We rounded up our rental golf car and headed into the park. May I say that Lime Rock Park is beautiful? What sets it aside from most tracks is that there are no bleachers or grandstands, just hills and grass from where you can watch the racing. We found our spot, and got set up just in time for a lightning/hail/wind storm to batter us for a while. The storm didn’t last very long and afterward the sky erupted in a spray of blue clouds.
You will notice the big class A rig parked to our left. The RHR logo on the golf cart and the Ohio plates gave us a clue as to who our neighbor was, and our guesswork was confirmed early Friday morning as Bobby Rahal left the rig and drove off to the garages. I can state categorically that they were superb neighbors and never once woke us up with any 3AM Metallica. In fact, the whole park was pretty sedate the entire weekend. I was up early Friday morning as I had to go back to the main gate to get my entry credentials before the photographer’s meeting at the media center. The morning started out very foggy and damp, but just before the first ALMS practice session, the sun broke though and started to dry everything out. I had never been to Lime Rock before, so I was again behind the eight ball trying to learn the track. 
The system they use there for gaining entry to trackside areas is quite ingenious. Many of the gates are not near flag stands and posting guards at them would require staffing, so they have coded locks on all of the gates. Maybe this is common, but I thought it to be pretty smart. As in Utah, I was amazed at how open and helpful many of the photographers were. I had several talks about exposure compensation due to the high direct sun blasting the windshields of the cars and more than one suggested places and angles to try. As soon as they found out I had never shot there, they would offer their advice on good spots to shoot from. One guy did suggest a part of the track that no longer existed, but I will chalk that down to memory loss. During the lunch break, Kim and I hopped into the cart to head down to the vendor area to poke around. We parked the cart, took the key and wandered around. When we got back, the cart was gone. Since every golf cart on the planet uses the same key, they are not exactly hard to steal. As we stood in the empty spot, I saw a cart loaded down with box fans heading off in the distance. I jogged after them and sure enough the cart was #13. I yelled for them to stop, but they were already at their destination, The Patron VIP tent. Not sure what is it about the Patron people, first they laugh at my coffee in Utah, then they steal our cart in Connecticut. They do seem to be breeding them like bunnies though. I have a theory that if you pour Patron on a bunny, it turns into a person wearing some sort of Patron clothing. Seriously, the woman who took our cart was mortified, she thought it was the Patron cart since it was parked next to the tent. It was actually pretty funny at the end, just disconcerting at the beginning. 
The heavy clouds were back for qualifying so the exposures were a bit more consistent. Its not fun going from dark gray, to blazing sun and then back to darkness all in the space of a minute. Usually, the sun comes out exactly when either one of the BMWs or Dysons comes through. Then you are not only overexposed, you get the added bonus of completely blown whites. Such is the life of action photography I guess. The day became darker and lightning started flashing behind the nearest bluff. It was a good time to be able to go all the way down to 2.8, because it got dark fast. At the final part of P1/P2 quali, it started to rain a bit and all the photographers in my area ran away. It was just me and a Brit standing out on a hill in the rain and lightning….holding big metal electrical devices……on metal mono pods……not too smart I guess. Qualifying finished and we drove back to the RV just before the skies opened. The only Wi-Fi at the track was in the media center which was a wet ride down the hill so I pulled out our AT&T connect card so I could upload some of my files. Just like at Sebring, the data net was being crushed to the point of non usability. We had 5 bars and could call out, but the data network was pretty much dead. In desperation, I turned on Airport and was able to connect only to someone’s wireless HP printer. Resigned to uploading from the media center early the next morning, I went back to culling and correcting the day’s images.
It rained off and on all night, but the day started out clear and dry. After a crash filled Formula BMW race, the ALMS cars finally took the grid. The pit lane walk lasted about 10 minutes due to the overun from the support races.
I had decided to start the race in the RahalLetterman pits. There was a bit more mayhem in the pits than usual. The #90 BMW broke a driveshaft about halfway through the race and wax fixed in the pit box. The Robertson GT40 left with only one drive tire and had to be pushed back. The Panoz had its entire back undertray ripped out during a late pit stop and drove back into the race looking like something from the movie Brazil. All in all it was an exciting race. The Corsa Motorsports Team took their maiden podium with their Hybrid Ginetta-Zytek 09HS, the bulletproof Lowes-Fernandez car had trouble for the 1st time this year, Patrick Long & Joerg Bergmeister put the #45 Flying Lizard on the top step and Dyson had one car out early and the other one in for a win. If you have never been to Limerock, I suggest it highly, its a great place for a motor race. My entire Northeast Grand Prix gallery can be viewed HERE. Thanks for reading.
This entry was posted on Thursday, July 30th, 2009 at 7:11 PM. It is filed under ALMS, photo, Places We Went, Racing and tagged with ALMS, American Le Mans Series, Lime Rock, Lime Rock Park, NEGP, Northeast Grand Prix.
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