#36 Genoa Racing Oreca FLM09: Frankie Montecalvo, Christian Zugel
Not the greatest of names, but I do tend to dislike rhymes in titles. Probably an attitude problem on my part. Anyway, Road America, a new track for us. Its big, really big and the elevation changes are frequent and heavy. A great track to shoot at, so many different angles an opportunities. As I said many times during the weekend, I felt like a kid in a candy store. Did I mention the place is enormous? There are paths and trails that lead all over the place, you never really know where you are going to end up. I also like the attitude of the track and the marshalls. The essence of their instruction was “Don’t get hit and do what the marshalls tell you” When I asked a marshall at one corner about boundaries, he essentially told me, “don’t go over the wall, other than that, I don’t care what you do, you signed a waiver” Those are boundaries I can live with.
#16 Dyson Racing Team Lola B09 86 Mazda: Chris Dyson, Guy Smith (Darren Pierson)
Friday morning was fog, lotsa fog. Eerie, creatures in the mist type fog. I didn’t get to shoot anything in it though since I had to attend the requisite 8AM photo meeting. When I finally made it out to the track to shoot some Cooper Lites, the fog was gone but the morning light was really murky, not nice to shoot in at all. The Friday test session for ALMS was late enough in the day that the light wasn’t the worst possible, and towards the end was quite excellent. I shot mainly from the back parts of the track from T6 on and since I spent some of the time being in the wrong place due to my unfamiliarity with the track, didn’t get as many keepers as I would have liked.
Saturday consisted of the usual early morning practice followed by afternoon practice and quali immediately afterward. I spent the morning outside of T1 and in T3 and in the afternoon headed to Canada and the rest of the back of the track.
#02 Extreme Speed Motorsports Ferrari F430 GT: Ed Brown, Guy Cosmo (Darren Pierson)
The clouds were in the morning were amazing, but in the afternoon, they were just big and ugly. They soaked up just enough light to make everything flat and dull. I was in a great spot in the carousel, ready to shoot some wide angle pans with all of the color of the tents in the camp in the background. Then the cloud arrived and killed all of my color. Such is life. Since the sky had decided to be uncooperative, I decided to shoot quali from the pits. Of course the sun came back out then. Not to worry, I think I came out with some decent work.
#88 Velox Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 Cup: Shane Lewis, Vic Rice (Darren Pierson)
ALMS has revived Sunday morning warmups, much to our photographic delight. This particular Sunday morning had beautiful light and skies and I think I found a killer shot shooting into the exit of the bridge just before the carousel. I don’t quite have it, but I think I’m close. I shot the start from the flagstand which turned out ok, there isn’t really a good place to shoot it from since you have to shoot T1 through the fence (no photo holes). The race itself was quite exciting with Autocon dominating the early parts until their engine let go. It happened right after I tweeted about their lead, sorry my bad. The finish of the race was also rather unreal. Klaus Graf was leading in the CytoSport Porsche and I (and several others) got a great shot of him taking the checkers. Problem was: he had run out of fuel and had been passed by Cocker in the Drayson Lola. My bad again although Cocker did buzz the pit wall and I doubt I could have gotten a decent checker shot from inside anyway.
#8 Drayson Racing Lola B09 60 Judd: Paul Drayson, Jonny Cocker (Darren Pierson)
My take on Road America is that it is one of the best tracks at which to shoot. It rivals my home track of Road Atlanta, to the point that I think it might be better. We will see what I think come the end of September. Thanks for reading and looking. My entire Road Race Showcase photo gallery can be seen at DPerceptions MotorSport Photography. See you at Mosport!
-Darren
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