DPerceptions

#62 Risi Competizione Ferrari F430 GT: Jaime Melo, Gianmaria Bruni

I thought I would try something different this race.  Thought I might post about it while the sounds of the cars were still in my mind.  We are currently hiding in a parking lot of an RV park.  Not a place we would normally stay as we like trees and distant neighbors, but it does have a few compelling offerings such as full hookups.  We have been off the grid for about a week, so its nice to plug up, run the A/C and charge the batteries.  They also advertised Wi-Fi; a thing I was planning on using to upload the final Sunday images from my last cull.  They do have Wi-Fi here, if you mean they broadcast a SSID and that you can connect to it.  If you define Wi-Fi the same way we do by meaning: Once you connect to a router, you can both stay connected to it for longer than 1 minute and that when you are connected you can go out into the internet; I would have to say they do not provide Wi-Fi.  Luckily, or perhaps merely typically, we have our trusty Mi-Fi, Bob with us.  Bob rules, he kept us online at the Grand Canyon even when we had no cell coverage.

We arrived at Tooele from Bryce Canyon on Thursday afternoon just in time to see the GT3 practice while setting up camp.  Our spot was on Momentum Mountain and we could see the entire track sans the Attitudes which were behind a viewing hill.  A great view.  I will go ahead and offer praise of the facilities at Miller Motorsports Park, their infrastructure is second to none.  The media center and the attention from the staff is unreal, they actually seem to like the idea we are there.  Not that any of the other tracks we visit are cruel and unusually mean, more like all the other tracks need to send their staff out to Miller’s for a briefing.

Friday morning started off with a fun and exciting 7:30 am photo meeting, after which, I went back to the RV for more coffee and to work out the shooting schedule.  I always like to warm up by shooting some of the support series so I went out for the Cooper Lites and Patron GT3 practices.

NGT GT3 Hops the kerbs in the Attitudes

My timing came back fairly quickly so I was into the shooting groove in time for the 1st ALMS practice.  To say Miller Motorsports Park is a vast place situated inside a vast emptiness would be accurate.  To say you cannot bring enough glass to this place would also be true.  Having quantified both of those truisms, a 300mm on a DX body is often perfect.  With a 500mm, you often have to climb hills or back up to properly frame a shot.  Last year, I kept moaning that I needed a 500mm; this year, I had to keep kicking myself to not crop out the mountains in the background.

#99 Green Earth Team Gunnar Oreca FLM09: Gunnar Jeannette, Christian Zugel in the Attitudes

After all, cars on a track can be anywhere, but cars on a track with mountains in the background cannot be in too many places, at least on this continent.  An adage about cows and grass keeps coming to mind.

Saturday arrived and I decided I would shoot the afternoon practice and qualification from inside the track.  By inside, I mean out in the middle where there is not much armco, no shuttles bringing you water, sand, heat and once you are across the track, you are in there until it goes cold again.  In this case, I was stuck out there for a couple of hours.  At one point, it started raining these HUGE drops of water.  I looked up into the sky and there was not a cloud in sight, weird.  The rain stopped pretty quickly, and did not cool anything off….it was hot, I am telling you.  Shooting from the inside was a good choice, there are some great opportunities there and I think most photographers don’t make the effort to go out there.  Shooting something othert than cars on 2 wheels bouncing off the kerbs in the Attitudes was fun.  The disadvantage of Miller’s being so open is that you have to work really hard to keep trucks, campers, signs, port-a-potties and other un-photogenic items out of your backgrounds.  Angle, depth of field and panning are your friends here.

#1 Patron Highcroft Racing Honda Performance Development ARX-01c: David Brabham, Simon Pagenaud heads into Sunset Bend

<rant> While I am thinking of it, can I ask that whomever or whatever organization places the photo stands trackside either actually look at what can be shot from the stands or ask a photographer to help them? </rant>  To recap, Saturday was a great shooting day and I found several new opportunities.

Sunday:  Photo meeting at……….8:30AM!!!!! how strange, usually race day meetings occur before sunrise, Sebring was particularly dark.  I get to sleep in, hooray.  Nope, house batteries died Saturday night before I could finish uploading my files, so I was at the media center bright and early at 7am for power and internet.  Drag.  The photo meeting went as usual, we were told not to get run over and where we could go.  Later, the people who actually needed to know these things showed up.

Fire suits and Utah summer sun are not friends, thankfully there was a huge grey cloud overhead for the grid line up and starting ceremonies.  Soon after the 1st few laps, the sun came out and I began baking in my black suit and helmet.  I started the day by shooting the pits and grid then went out to Sunset Bend for the start.  After a few laps, I went back to the pits to shoot there for a while.  Its unreal standing next to a car as it blasts back out of its box, the exhaust wash is incredible.  Ok, its stupid and insane to be 2 feet from a race prepped F430 as it drops and slams out of its pit.  Stupid, really stupid, but fun.

#02 Extreme Speed Motorsports Ferrari F430 GT: Ed Brown, Guy Cosmo

I shot pit stops for about an hour and then went out to the Attitudes to finish up before the podiums.  Last year, we had this plywood riser from which to shoot the trophy presentations, it was rather flimsy and actually broke during the podium ceremonies.  This year they provided us a nice solid 6 inch high riser. Pretty useless, but at least we didn’t have far to fall.

Podium Ceremony Class Winners at the 2010 Utah Grand Prix

Miller’s is a great facility to visit and I suggest you do so.  I heard that next year the race was going to be a six hour race.  Since they do not have lights, I am betting for an early start.

Thanks for reading and looking!  My entire Utah Grand Prix Gallery is available at DPerceptions MotorSports Photography.  See you at Limerock.

Darren

Long Beach.  Long flight back.  Not so bad going out, where did your day go coming home.  Its a street course, something I used to like; now I am not so certain, narrow lanes affording little passing.  Then there is the whole issue of the “main” series, the parade and posturing.  I grew up in Illinois not terribly far from Indy, so the 500 is definitely something that I still appreciate.  No idea why, though, it was killed in the mid 90′s when the most recent split happened.  Yes, Paul Tracy won and was rooked; I’m a believer.  Things seem to be better on 16th Street now though, new blood, old blood, a 2010 season with fewer ovals, turning right, you know…racing.  Then again, I was there, sorry ABC shills;  there were more people in the seats for the ALMS race on Saturday than the IndyCar race on Sunday..

Ok, enough bitching about IndyCar.

We flew into the Long Beach Airport (recommend) on Thursday afternoon and made it to our hotel around 3:54.  Not quite in time for me to cab back over to the convention center for the 4PM photo meeting.  On one hand, I had nothing better to do than sit by the bay drinking Cucapá Chupacabras and eating ceviche all evening.  On the other, I was now faced with a 6:15Am photo meeting.  It didn’t really matter since the time zone killed me.  I was in bed around 8PM California time and back up at 4:30AM. The Passport Bus system didn’t start running until 6AM, so I had a cab waiting for me in the morning dark.

The Long Beach Convention Center is a huge place and I doubt I would have easily found the meeting if I had not run into Adriano Manocchia who showed me around the place for a bit.  Could this place be any more cavernous and winding?

6:15AM photographer meeting

I shot a picture with my BlackBerry so you could the glamorous life of photo meetings.  Having no real idea of where to go shoot after then meeting, I followed some good advice and headed to T11.  The light was great, but I was outside the track and was not really liking the angle so I headed up the front straight to aquatint myself with T1, the Fountain Area and the rest of that side of the track.  I imagine there might be a good shot or two in the street canyons over by the back straight, but I never made it over there as it did not look terribly interesting on the map.  I spent a good portion of my Friday learning some of the holes and vantage points on the course; thinking about where the sun would be later in the day.

#45 Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 RSR: Jorg Bergmeister, Patrick Long

Long Beach weekend  is pretty heavy for ALMS.  Friday morning practice, Friday afternoon qualification, Saturday afternoon race.  Not much time to acclimate to a very slick and demanding street course.  Not sure why they do it to be honest.

Since the race was only 100 minutes, I reasoned that I would not have time to shoot in the pits so I decided to work them during qualification.  Similarly to Sebring, the light was long and colorful during quali.  Also similar to Sebring was the extremely boring quali session.  Again, the only highlight was the LMPC class battle with Christophe Bouchut and Gunnar Jeannette trading fast laps.  I find it odd that the qualification can be so uninteresting when the race itself is full of excitement.  Hopefully that will change as the season burns in.

#99 Green Earth Team Gunnar Oreca FLM09: Gunnar Jeannette, Elton Julian

Saturday was race day and I started the afternoon by shooting the start from atop the T1 walkway.  Half of the walkway was dedicated to pros, half was sold to people who wanted the “pro” experience.  My wife, Kim, commented later that half of the people shooting from above T1 left after the 1st 5 or 6 laps; I guess if you are paying to be up there, you need to get your shots.

Race Start #007 Aston Martin Racing Lola B09 60 Aston Martin: Harold Primat, Adrian Fernandez

I spent most of the ALMS race working the inside of the last few turns as I was liking the light on T9 and T10.  I got some great shots in the hairpin, but had no idea the Pagenaud made that great pass on the final lap until I watched it later on the internet.  Happily, the hat dance was modified from Sebring and went much more quickly.  Unhappily, Long Beach did not let fans into the area to watch, so again, very few live people saw the trophies handed out.

Podium Ceremony GT Class Champagne Battle

Thanks for reading and looking!  My ALMS Long Beach Grand Prix Photo Gallery is available for viewing and instant download at DPerceptions Motorsport Photography.

-Darren

Last weekend, the good folks at NASA-SE held their annual Winter Meltdown at Carolina Motorsports Park in Kershaw, South Carolina.  Its the beginning of their season and is always well attended.  This year a few people from a bit further North didn’t make it down due to all of their snow, but when we arrived on Thursday night, there were already quite a few trailers set up.  I had never been to CMP before and had hoped to have time for a quick walk around the track, but it was already getting dark by the time we encamped, so instead I looked at the track map and ate Mussels Menuniere.  Its great to be married to someone who not only shares my enthusiasm for sports car racing, but also has a fantastic ability with food.

Trackside Mussels Menuniere, life is tough at the track

Carolina Motorsports Park is relatively new and contains features not found many other places. Included among these are free public Wi-Fi and electrical outlets which actually work. The Wi-Fi part is especially nice as our ATT cell signal was spotty at best although our Verizon enabled Mi-Fi card had a decent 3G signal. The electrical hookups came in handy on Friday as well but more on that later.

Friday morning was grey and cold. All across the Southeast the weather stations were calling for snow. Perfect. I geared up and headed out to shoot. The sky was a giant diffuser, so I was not worried about the angle of the sun. Turn three seemed like a good place to start. After a bit of radio communication with the tower, the flag marshall confirmed that I was indeed allowed out on the track and I settled in to work on my timing. Being a bit rusty, the last time I shot cars in anger was early Decemeber, my first couple of dozen shots were, in the words of Bob Eucker, Just a bit outside. I quickly settled in and started working on my slow speed pans. The lack of sunlight was going to make this a requirement as the day went on, so I tried to work with the light that I had.

William Goldfarb in his 1996 BMW M3 heads for T3 at Carolina Motorsports Park

Note to self: sell aluminum monopod and buy a carbon fiber one. Aluminum gets really cold after a few hours out in the elements. Talking to the flag marshall in between sessions, I confirmed that CMP was not really optimized for spectators or photographers for that matter. Turn Three and turn four are essentially the only places a person can reach without crossing the track. Turn six is on the inside and can be easily reached from turn four by crossing the track, but you have to be prepared to stay there for the entire session. Friday was to culminate in a three hour enduro, so I had to satisfy myself with shooting the enduro from T4, T3, T1 and the front straight. Not exactly optimal for different point of view, but a good opportunity to think outside the box and apply myself to the situation. I kept looking for holes in the armco and tire barriers so I could grab unique shots.

Jay Andrew takes the Meyer Racing RX-8 through T4 at Carolina Motorsports Park

At one point I shot while standing on the railing at the flagstand so that I could shoot down over the tire barriers. A highlight of T3 and T4 is that you can get right on the other side of the armco as the cars cross the apex, perfect for shooting really wide with a 20mm, a favorite of mine.

By the time the Enduro started at 2pm, I was frozen. The sky continued to darken and the wind was picking up, not a perfect day for a motor race. At the beginning of the enduro, the Mazda RX-8 of Meyer Racing took the lead but was caught up a few laps later by Drew Ewing in his Fandango Racing M3. Attrition was fairly heavy at the beginning with several cars hitting the pits, some to retire entirely but a few tenacious teams kept making repairs and sending the car back out. Fandango Racing’s M3 kept disappearing for a few laps and would come back out and then disappear again. It sounded like there were a few gears missing. Drew fianally disappeared completely and I later confirmed with him that they had blown a hydraulic line to the tranny.

Drew Ewing & Josh Hoffman running Fandango Racing's M3 during the enduro at Winter Meltdown

In other BWM news, the #6 BMW seemigly blew his engine while driving past me at turn 3. About forty-five minutes before the end of the race, it started to snow. It kept snowing harder and harder and seemed like a good time to head up to the front straight to shoot the winner crossing the line. In the end, Jay Andrew driving Eric Meyer’s Xowii MX-8 won the race in what was pretty much a blizzard.

Jay Andrew finished his stint in a blizzard to the win in the Winter Meltdown enduro

I ran around the park, shooting the snowfall and after a while geaded back to the RV to warm up and open up a much deserved 750ml glass of wine. The snow was still coming down heavily at midnight, I had no idea how they planned to run the next morning, I assumed Saturday would be scratched entirely.

Saturday morning, the PA announced an “All Hands” meeting at 9AM, so I dressed and headed out into what was essentially a half foot of snow. At the meeting, Jim Pantas the regional director thanked everyone for sticking it out and announced that the daily track schedule would start around 11AM. I thought he was crazy as there was at least 6 inches of snow on the track. He said that they were going to use a technique taught to him by the people at Miller Motorsports Park in Utah. Essentially, they were going to drive every tow vehicle and personal car they could find around and around the track. Dubious, I went back to the RV for breakfast and coffee. True to his word, the moring schedule picked up at 11AM and cars ran their normal schedule for the rest of the day. It was very strange watching cars rip around on dark black asphalt with snow encroaching on every edge.

2006 Chevrolet Corvette of Jerry Stout braves the snow at Winter Meltdown

The unique opportunity to shoot sportscar racing in the snow was not lost on me and I made every effort to capture this in my morning images. Then the sun came out in its full glory. Snow and full sun with cars on a black surface and the sun basically directly overhead……not fun. I pressed on for the rest of the day and at the end, the snow was completely melted in most places, a very varied day of shooting.

The Honorary corner marshall for T6 during the 2010 Winter Meltdown

Sunday was essentially a repeat of Saturday as far as trhe schedule went, so after shooting until lunch, we decided that we would head back home. Carolina Motorsports Park is a great venue that I would reccommend to anyone. Additional thanks to NASA-SE for giving me access to document this highly odd racing weekend. My entire Winter Meltdown gallery is online and available for viewing and licensing at DPerceptions Motorsports Photography. Thanks for reading and looking

In December, I went to Road Atlanta to shoot NASA-SE Santa’s Toy Run.  One of the cars I photographed was Drew Ewing’s BMW M3

2002 BMW M3 E1: Drew Ewing

He recently made a video where he used some of my photography from the weekend. Not all of the stills are mine, but most of them are.   The video is interspersed with in car video, mostly from Road Atlanta.  Its interesting to see what was happening in the car and on the track while I was outside shooting the car.  Additionally, audio is provided by James Tiberis Kirk and Joan Jett, what could go wrong?

Saturday September 26, 2009 5:30AM EST-Race Day-Pounding rain on the roof of the RV.  I jumped out of bed and went outside to gather up our chairs and tables and make sure everything was under the awning and dry.  Back into bed, I contemplated my slightly damp state and wondered if I could get any more sleep before leaving for the 7:15 photographer meeting in the Tower.  As I was beginning to doze off, I heard a thump outside followed by another thump.  Looking out the window, I realized that the awning brackets had come apart and it was hanging sideways and banging against the side of the RV.  Wonderful.  Kim and I went outside into the dark downpour and jumped through a series of hoops that got the awning back together and stored away in its holder.

6:15AM – Soaked to the bone an decidedly awake, I made coffee and culled files before the meeting.  I threw on my raincoat, grabbed my travel mug of coffee and headed out into the deluge to find our golf car.  Several times during the drive to the tower I drove through 6 inch deep rivers of clay.  Nearing turn 10, I was amazed to see that many of the tents pitched on the downhill had been overrun by the waters.  One particularly large tent had been set smack in the middle of a small river and had over a foot tall berm of mud piled against it’s side.  The river flowed across the road, down the hill, against the tent and around it into a storm drain further down the hill.  Yikes!  I was at that point very appreciative of my dry sleeping area.

Peugeot 908 #07 leads the Audi R15 #2 though T12 during morning warmups for the 2009 Petit Le Mans

7:15AM –  As I reached the tower the rains came down even harder.  I ran into the meeting forgetting my coffee in the car.  So far this morning had been pretty annoying.  The photography meeting went as usual except there were so many photographers it was nearly impossible to hear and most of the people speaking did not remember to use the PA system they had set up.   Those meetings are somewhat odd.  Essentially the same rules exist at every track, the only differences are certain areas being red zones (no go) during the race as opposed to during practice or qualification.  Sometimes there are a few clarifications or they give us the new combinations for the gate locks.  There are always a few people who need to complain about a course worker denying them entry to an area or some other gripe.  Essentially, the meetings are held to help inform the people from area media and people who are new to shooting racing.  These are also the people who don’t seem to show up for these meetings.  You can usually tell who they are when they try to get into the pits while not wearing a fire suit.

10AM – After breakfast and more coffee, I had a pre-race meeting to attend and I shot the tail end of the warmup in the last of the morning rains.  We then headed to the front straight to join in the grid walk.  Even in the rain (it had by this time slowed to a drizzle) the grid was packed to hilt with fans.  In fact it was so packed, I gave up and headed down to turn one to get my spot for the start of the race.  The skies continued to rain off and on pretty much up until the ~11:15 reconnaissance laps.  When the cars went by us in turn one behind the safety car for the first time the track was still wet to the point where you could see the rear tires throwing up a large splash of water.  The rain had stopped, so I prepared to shoot the first lap of the race.  Turn one at the start of the Petit Le Mans can be a daunting place to stand.  Even behind yards of gravel, a tire barrier and finally a concrete barrier, I was ready for cars to come sliding my way.  I prepared one camera to shoot wide and fast in case someone decided to come through the gravel at the start of the race and the other to catch the cars as they came down the last of the pit straight.  A huge fog appeared out of turn 12 and the leaders headed our way.

Three wide at the start of the 2009 Petit Le Mans. Allan McNish goes wide on the outside to take the lead

I continued to shoot turn one for several laps as the rooster tails died down and a dry line started to form. The rain was gone and the race was on.

I was going to cover the pits for the first part of the race, so I left turn one and headed up to the tower to put on a fire suit. Here is one of the few good points of the rain and cool weather; it makes wearing a fire suit in Georgia in September almost bearable. I hit the pits a little after Noon and a few cars had already switched over to dry tires. I watched the Matmut Oreca team refuel and throw on slicks. There was still enough water in their pitbox to cause the car to slide on its way out. I heard over the radio almost immediately that Lapierre had had an off and on, so the track, while drying, was still quite wet in places. Over the next 20 minutes or so, all of the cars came in for slicks, so the pits were a very busy place to be.

The Matmut Oreca AIM pits for fresh tires during the 2009 Petit Le Mans

I had been paying particular attention to the new Drayson Lola all week as the car was completely new to both me and the team. My pit notes showed that Lord Paul Drayson was supposed to be the third driver into the car, but somewhere around one in the afternoon, Paul put on his helmet and jumped into the car after Jonny Cocker finished the first stint. I must admit that I did not pay much attention to his times, but he seemed to be holding his own. About an hour later he got out and gave the car over to Rob Bell. You could tell how elated Paul was as he jumped out of the car and started running around hugging everyone. He was smiling from ear to ear.  This was great to see, the sport needs more people who are as openly enthusiastic as him.

Lord Paul Drayson in the Drayson Racing pitbox - 2009 Petit Le Mans

The rains came and went; usually nothing more than a few drops. Several cars were having problems, mostly with crashes and offs. About 2:30 Kim came down to the pits to pick me up for some lunch. We went back tot he RV and ate while watching the race unfold on television. Then it started to rain again.

Red Flag

As we sat watching the rain come down outside we listened to the Radio Le Mans guys valiantly scramble to fill airtime.  They did an exceptional job of informing and entertaining during the lull in racing.  However, I couldn’t keep the same feeling I had during the 2005 US Grand Prix from creeping into my head. I remember standing with Kim in the front straight at Indy, mouth agape as all of the Michelin shod cars pulled into the garages. I was hugely frustrated, but had been warned the day before by the Williams Team. Much like Indy, I knew the rain was coming, but hoped it would pass.

BMW Rahal Letterman M3 #90 in the rain at the 2009 Petit Le Mans

What most people still don’t seem to understand was that we (Georgia in this case) had over 20 inches of rain the week before the race, there was nowhere for this new rain to go.  The ground was full, there was nothing the track could do other than wait.  I think IMSA, ALMS and Road Atlanta got it right, the red flag and the final checker waved 5 hours later.  At no point in between was it the track in any condition to hold a walk, let alone a motor race.  As a fan I was bummed, but understood.

Once the officials threw the checkers, we jumped into the golf car to head down for the podium ceremonies.  The trophy session (or hat dance as it is called) was obviously subdued, but the Peugeot guys did seem to makes sure McNish was completely soaked with champagne.  I am sure he was appreciative.

The P1 Podium Ceremony at the 2009 Petit Le Mans Powered by Mazda6

One of the most amazing bits of the week were the fans.  We have been going to Petit for years and even through the rain, we have never seen so many people at the track.  I can only assume this means good things for the future of sports car racing.

Thanks for reading and looking! My entire 2009 Petit Le Mans Powered by Mazda 6 gallery is available for viewing and your use at DPerceptions.com

Nonstop rain for what seemed like 2 weeks.  Atlanta flooded.  Then the sun came back, it was Wednesday September 23rd; time to head up to Braselton for Petit Le Mans.

When we arrived at the track, we had the usual document dance to attend: credentials, golf car, get the RV into the track, pick up photo vest, you know; the entry drill.  We always land the RV in the same spot and this is conveniently very far away from most everything.  After parking and a quick setup of camp, we had just enough time for lunch before practice.  Since our space on the back straight is somewhat near turn six and seven, I decided to start out shooting on the outside of seven.

Allan McNish in the #2 Audi R15 at Road Atlanta

For those of you who do not know, seven is reached via a hike through the wild kudzu fields of Northeast Georgia.  Its worth the effort, since the inside of 6-7 can be shot by pretty much anybody with a small bit of length.  Doesn’t mean they will shoot it well, but the track is exceedingly close in that area.  Road Atlanta is somewhat like Miller Motor Sports park in that you cannot show up with too much glass.  The long stretches are begging for 400mm, 500mm glass; expensive things.  My reaction times were off, I was rusty.  I had not shot speeding cars since Mid Ohio in early August.  Slow moving pedestrian type photography obligations had kept us from Road America and Mosport.  My slow pans were horrible with a keeper rate of ~1 out of 6.  Still, I came out of Wednesday with several images which I count in my most strong from the week.  Plus, the sun was out.

Rock & Roll Union Jack on the back of the Drayson Lola

Thursday was again a beautiful example of a fine fall day. Blue skies with big puffy clouds. Neat to look at and groovy to float in your pictures but a nightmare for metering.  Previously, at the WERA Cycle Jam, I had found what I thought to be a good spot and angle from which to shoot in the turn 10 complex.  After coffee & a bagel, we loaded up the golf car and headed up that way just before the start of the morning session.  A word to the wise, bring your ear plugs.  Especially bring your ear plugs if you are going to be standing next to the Suzuki bridge. The sound of a screaming race engine at full song is rather loud.  Put that noise in a sounding chamber like a tunnel and you reach a new level of loud.  I shot from my newly acquired perch for quite a while, working on selective focus and slow pans.  It is a good spot and I will keep going back as I don’t think I have gotten it quite right as of yet.  There is an angle or a viewpoint that I can almost see in my mind that I have not locked into the camera.

Cytosport RS Spyder goes under the Matmut Oreca

While there, I did see a new spot to try next time.  I am always looking for a new vantage point all the while trying to perfect the known locations.  This can easily become a problem as I have heard more than one photographer complain about being unable to come up with something new while at a very familiar location.  After shooting from the bridge berm for a while, I decided to try shooting from the area next to the flag house at the beginning of T10.  I am not to sure about that spot as there are so many signs and cars on the tunnel road.  I pulled out a few from there, but nothing terribly exciting.  Maybe it would be a better place at night, but the area is so small that it would crowd quickly.

After lunch, my plan was to shoot practice from the pit lane as I was in need of a perspective change.  Its easy to forget that there are drivers in these cars and that there are hoards of mechanics, engineers and other people waiting for their return.

The Dyson Mazda #16 waits in the pitbox during Thursday practice for the 2009 Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta.

I shot the crews for what seemed like a very little time when suddenly everyone was rushing to the monitors.  I was in the Patron pit at the time and could not see their monitors very well so I moved next door to the Flying Lizard team just in time to see a replay of Scott Sharp’s barrel roll.  It was really creepy to see his car destroy itself like that.  More amazing was to watch him immediately climb from the wreckage and look around at the damage.  Needless to say, with 500 feet of fencing to replace and bits of Acura everywhere, the rest of the practice session was scrubbed.  As far as I know, no one was hurt which is a testimony to both the construction of the car and the safety measures at the track.  We had quite a while before night practice so back to the RV for food and liquids.  For a lark, we decided to actually watch the Patron GT3 race from the Hill but I ended up shooting it as well.

I had decided to shoot night practice from T6 and T7.  Normally, there is a long period of twilight during Night Practice where the very low sun and glowing skies make for fantastic opportunities.  Due to the Patron crash and subsequent repairs, the schedule was quite off.   So this year, night practice was completely in the dark.  There are not too many places you can shoot at Road Atlanta in the dark.  Night practice is great fun, I cannot imagine what it is from a driver’s perspective, tearing through the Georgia night in and out of brightly lit areas, flashes going off……Have I mentioned how many flashes were going off?  OK, I’ll admit I have used a flash shooting racing at night.  I didn’t like the way it looked and have since then sworn it off in favor of honing my low light skills.  The crowds for Night Practice were amazing, literally hundreds of people lined the fences in the skid pad area.  In T6 they were 4 and 5 deep.  Luckily, I was on the other side of the fence and had an unobstructed view of the cars.

The Falken Tires Porsche 911 GT3 RSR in Turn 7 at Road Atlanta during night practice for the 2009 Petit Le Mans

This post is becoming a bit long in the tooth, so I will finish this part and post Friday and Saturday soon. My entire 2009 Petit Le Mans Powered by Mazda 6 gallery is available for viewing and your use at DPerceptions.com

The drive is about 10 hours from Athens to Lexington.  Eleven if you go through Virginia to avoid 5pm traffic in on 285 in Atlanta.  We were again camping, but this time the RV was in use, so we had to pull out our tent and sleeping bags.  Tent camping with camera gear and other electronics, fun.  Actually, it was.  Largely due to our cool neighbors and the fairly agreeable weather.  It was thoroughly unwarm Thursday night and it rained on Saturday morning off and on, but we did not die of heat exhaustion; a certainty in Georgia this time of year.  On to the cars!

There were quite a few of them zipping around.  The Speed World Challenge, Atlantic Championship, ALMS, Indy Lights and IndyCars were all there.  Very few moments of daylight occurred without cars of some kind on the track.  We arrived after all on track activity stopped on Thursday, so Friday morning was my first chance to shoot at Mid Ohio.  I have watched races on this track so many times that I figured I knew it well.  I was wrong.  Once there I was completely turned around and had to rely on my map just to understand where I was.  We were camped just off of the backside of the Keyhole, so I started shooting there as soon as ALMS practice started on Friday morning.  The Keyhole is a fairly boring place from which to shoot.  Two straights with decent elevation change and what is basically a hairpin.

Flying Lizard #44 exits the keyhole at Mid Ohio @2009 Darren Pierson/DPerceptions

Have I mentioned shooting through photo holes is irritating?  The mid morning sun was pretty harsh as well, but I think I pulled a few out from the 1st session.  Towards the end of the first practice on Friday, I was up the back straight pretty far.  Nearly to the Flag Tower.  I shot there for a while, working on some slow shutter pans.  The there was a red flag.  One of the guys in the stand looked over to me and I shouted up “what car is off?”.  ”We don’t know, we think its the 9″, came back.  A few seconds later, the same guy yelled down, “Do you want to come up here and shoot for a while?”  Um…yes.  That would be cool.  A vantage point completely unrelated to photo holes in the fence.  Excellent.  I had two things against me.  (1) There was only five minutes left in the session and (2) I quickly realized that it would be very easy to make my images accidentally look like I was shooting over the fence on a tall ladder.  I tried shooting wide, really wide with a 20mm and extra tight with a 300mm.  In the end, the best images came from a moderate zoom of ~105mm.  I was a bit bummed that I had so little time up there, but I do think I got a few good grabs.

Snow and Flying Lizards down the back straight at Mid Ohio ©2009 Darren Pierson/DPerceptions

Session over, we headed back to camp for lunch.  I thought that the afternoon session would be best handled in Madness.  So we walked over the bridge by the paddock and settled in for some twisty bits.  Soon after arriving, one of the Challenge Cars decided to overshoot the braking point and ended quite deep in the kitty litter.  For once, I was actually shooting at a proper focal length and shutter speed to pick up the trek through the pea gravel.

#02 Gruppe Orange finds the gravel trap at Mid Ohio ©2009 Darren Pierson/DPerceptions

Its quite fun to be shooting in and out of elevation changes. I love being able to throw the track into the immediate foreground or drift the track into the background. Elevation is the key.

The Saturday morning session started off with rain and IndyCars.  I have limited experience shooting open cockpit cars. Let me change that:  Aside from Star Mazda, Formula BMW, IMSA Lites and P1/P2 cars, I have little experience shooting IndyCars.  I will say that the IndyCar mirrors are ALWAYS blocking the diver’s faces.  Not sure about this phenomenon, but I will cover the IndyCar part of the weekend in another post.

We love watching races in the rain.  On TV.  Meaning the cars are somewhere else in the rain and we are ensconced on the couch in the dry.  We awoke to the sound of rain on our tent.  Not a real big deal since my gear is water resistant, but not much fun either.  I have been looking at Think Tank raincoats for my gear, not buying, mind you.  My raincoat doubled as a tent for about 20 minutes of wet shooting and then the rain pretty much went away for the day.  The race itself was great fun.  The Cytomax car kept surprising pace and ended up second in P2 and Fourth overall.  Not too shabby for the 1st time out.  Also not too shabby was Corvette racing’s GT2 debut with a 2nd and fourth in class.

Corvette Racing GT2 #3 pulls into the pits for a late race fuel stop ©2009 Darren Pierson/DPerceptions

They nearly had a second and third, but the #92 BMW pipped the #4 in the last few laps of the race.  Both Dysons had problems, one on their end, one thanks to another.  Gil de Ferran, after announcing his retirement and subsequently taking pole, won the race outright.  Lowes-Fernandez racing took P2 honors.

Mid Ohio Sports Car Course is a great venue to see a motor race.  My complete gallery of the 2009 ALMS Acura Sports Car Challenge is available for your use.

Thanks for reading and looking!

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.

I was in Utah once before as a young lad.  Kim and I have also been through SLC airport many times on our way to Cali and Vegas.  Still, the differences I noticed when stepping outside in search of my rental car were staggering.  I left Atlanta on a red-eye and it was already oppressively muggy for May.  The 10AM air in Utah was warm, but completely lacking in moisture.  There were mountains everywhere, there was SNOW on them.  Weird.

I acquired my Hyundai Accent (no thank you, I don’t wish to upgrade to a similar POS car for only $3.86 more a day) and headed out of the airport in search of my hotel.  Strangely, my hotel was at the next exit, exactly where it was supposed to be. Even more strange, the chipper desk clerk Nancy let me check in to a room at 10:30AM.  Things seemed to be going well so I went to my room to freshen up and to send a twitpic back home to my wonderful wife.

I needed to drive out to Tooele to check-in and pick up my credentials, so I threw a few cameras over my shoulders and headed down to the car.  As the desk clerk watched me leave the hotel with my gear, she offered, “Good Luck”. This gave me pause, but I left anyway.

Driving on I-80 around the lake is surreal.  I assume it must be somewhat like driving on the moon.  Nothing, lots of nothing. Well, mountains and a big ass lake I guess, but that’s about it.

I followed my directions onto a few county highways and then exited onto “Sheep Lane”, no shit, Sheep Lane.  Lots of cows, a few horses, an airplane, no sheep.  Hey look!  A racing complex.

Miller Motorsports Park is fantastic.  The place is scenic, well maintained, clean, new, ready to roll.  The staff in the media center and in the courtesy vans were amazing.  I have not felt so pampered and cared for since the Omni Royal Orleans last New Year’s.  Even MMP’s marketing person, Jen (@MMP_Utah) was tweeting at me out on the track to keep hydrated. As a photographer, when I am working, I have become accustomed to feeling somewhat like an unwanted insect.  Miller’s people reminded me that I am actually doing something that a lot of people wish/think they can do.

Fast forward a few days and several Polygamy Porters.  Race day!  7:30AM photographer meeting.  I leave my hotel in the pre-dawn and watch the sun rise on the tops of the mountains as I head towards Tooele.  Its early, too early, but I have never been here before and don’t want to get stuck in traffic.  Not to worry as the mighty Hyundai gets me to my parking spot by 7AM.  I land next to some Patron team members who shout at me that my coffee mug is too small. Weird way to to start the day.

The morning continues on its oddball bent as I arrive at the locked Media Center.  The major-domo is standing there talking on her cell phone, trying to get someone to come unlock the door.  I drink my inadequately sized coffee and wait.  Eventually she finds her way in and we all go inside and prepare for the day.

Fire suits are hot.  Sounds stupid but true.  I had never worn one, but to shoot in the hot pits during the race, you have to be protected.  Eventually my body acclimated and I forgot about my discomfort.  Cars flying in and about and tires, fuel, screeching and away will do that to you.  At one point, I was leaning into a Flying Lizard pit stop and got hit in the head with the ground clamp.  It was disconcerting to get whacked, wonder what happened, look down, see a jumper cable clamp, realize you are not really hurt and then go back to shooting all in the space of 1 second.  I looked up later and saw the mortified look on one of the Lizard pit crew.  I gave him a thumbs up and he smiled and went back to work.  Good on him to notice and then drop it.

The race was great and the venue was tip top.  I met a bunch of people that I hope and expect to see again soon.  Oh yeah, my pix are sick. You can view the complete ALMS Utah Grand Prix photo gallery and the Mazda/Jetta photo gallery.

Life doesn’t seem too bad

My family & friends are always soliciting my advice on what camera they should buy.  Most often, my needs and understandings as a professional photographer are vastly different from the needs and wants of my sister’s mother-in-law.  Well, in that case, always different.  I quickly learned that size and ease of use were more important to them than build quality or other technical aspects.  They would listen to me, eyes glazed over, nod their heads and then rush out and buy some clunker POS P&S at Wal-Mart.  For some reason this bothered me so I started saying something along the lines of:” Go to Best Buy, make the sales person leave, look at only Canon or Nikon cameras, decide which one works best for your money and size needs, buy it.”  Problem was, Nikon started making crappy P&S cameras with more noise than a NIN show.  Then Panasonic came out with the Lumix series with Leica optics, so I had to modify my speech slightly.  Pretty sure they continue to ignore my advice, but I’m older now and it doesn’t bother me as much.

When I am out working at an event, most of the times I am surrounded by people trying to poach my set-up shots.  It amazes me that not only do they want to contribute to my lights being shut off, they want advice on how their camera works and how to “set it so it looks like yours”  Sadly, I usually help them.  Not sure why as I am generally not the helpful sort.  In public portrait settings, I have been known to use low level flash to slave trigger my monolights rather than using a wireless sync.  This always helped to blow out mom’s version of the shot when their tiny P&S was asked to deal with 1800ws.  That worked better with film cameras though; today they can see the shot is nuked and then ask me for help.  Kind of a circular problem I guess.  Maybe I need to start using my powers for Good?

Every once in a while somebody asks me a question that I actually want to answer and can feel free to expound upon.  A day or two ago, someone told me they wanted to upgrade their gear and was not entirely sure whether they needed faster glass or a better body.  As always, the answer is: Both, but glass comes first.

You can’t beat good glass. You can’t beat it with a stick AND its more fun than a ceramic Dalmatian.  If I learned anything in my experimental camera class back in the dark ages of college I learned this:  You can put Schneider glass on a pink flamingo and end up with compelling imagery, but putting a pink flamingo on a Sinar is just stupid.

Speak in understandable sentences you say?  Ok.  Assuming your camera body is capable of producing a low noise image and is mechanically sound, your money is always better spent on better glass.  I am sure there are people who will disagree with my next statement, but stick to Canon or Nikkor lenses.  You don’t own a Canon or Nikon camera?  We will speak to that in a later paragraph, but its ok to keep reading.  Yes, Tamron and Sigma, to name two, make decent glass.  In fact I own a Sigma 70-200 2.8.  I wish I had bought a Nikkor 70-200 2.8 instead.  The Sigma is good, but its just not great.  Canon and Nikon do make some crappy lenses as well, so its up to you to preform due diligence and learn about the characteristics of any new lens before buying it.  How is its bokeh, contrast, sharpness? Just because its a 300 2.8 doesn’t mean its sharp at 2.8.  In fact many lenses are at their most soft and without contrast at their f-stop extremes.  Both Canon and Nikon have “no shake” technology lenses; IS and VR respectively.  I know nothing about them as I have never used them.  I have read pros and cons on both and most of the action shooters I respect tend to think it messes up more shots that its worth.  I don’t shoot Canon any longer, but if you are on Nikon, a very good reference for Nikkor glass can be found at  Bjørn Rørslett’s Site.

To review so far:  Spend your money on better, faster, sharper glass and stick to your camera of origin.

Having told you to break open the piggy bank on glass, I now need to tell you to upgrade your body.  Why Canon or Nikon?  Easy, they are the biggest and best.  They constantly upgrade their electronics and firmware, all of the software companies write for their file nuances, they have huge lines of accessories and glass, you get the idea.  I know a few people who shoot Sigma or Olympus and they seem happy.  I know I never am when they work for me; there is always some issue with their files or their cameras wont read a CF card that every Nikon I own will happy write on.

Enough with that.  There is a reason the pro-sumer and pro bodies are more expensive than their cheaper counterparts.  They are better.  They have more adjustments, progammable shooting banks, more focus areas, faster AF, better AF, longer shutter life and are simply made to stand up to abuse.  I have taken my D2X into environments that a D70 would have died in.  Not that you can dunk a Pro Nikon body in a bucket and expect it to shoot underwater, but I bet it would dry out and keep on firing.  Pro bodies are sealed much better to water and other environmental issues such as dust.  (as are the pro line of lenses).  As mentioned, pro bodies have a much longer shutter life rating.  This Site gives you an idea of what I mean.  Having said that, one of my D2X shutters died with only about 30K actuations on it but Nikon repaired it and had it back to me in under a week.  Another reason to pay for quality pro line gear; Nikon and Canon seem to fix them faster.

I mentioned earlier that I no longer shoot Canon.  I switched over to Nikon four or five years ago after shooing Canon since buying my all manual F1 in 1985.  I bought every DSLR Canon made up to the D30 (the 3.1 MP one, not the 30D) and then threw in the towel.  At the time I needed fast, accurate low light focusing and the Canons, even with the AF assist light, spent most of their time seeking.  I bought a Nikon D70, shot happily in the dark and kept on going the Nikon Way.  Canon does make great Cameras and glass and I would always recommend them as well as Nikon.  Its just that, for me, Canon’s low light AF is way behind Nikon’s.

The original question that started this post came to me on Twitter.  I think I would have gone over my 140 character limit with this answer.  Hopefully it has answered the question.  If not, one last try.  Buy fast glass, and then upgrade your body.

FURTHER THOUGHTS: I have been asked to expand this into more specific ideas, so here are a few more things to chew on.

Moving from a f5.6 to a 2.8 lens (I am assuming an AF zoom) will be a huge improvement in many ways.  To begin with, a 5.6 zoom is probably a lower end lens both optically and build wise.  A 2.8 will have clearer optics, fewer elements and be much more solid and useable.  Your camera should focus faster and more accurately and your keeper rate should go up.  The 2.8 will also allow for mush lower light shooting so lower ISOs and faster shutter speeds will be available.  A 2.8 will have a much more shallow depth of field (@ 2.8) and will allow you to separate your subject from any distracting backgrounds such as armco or fencing or RVs.  Good glass holds its value and lasts for a very long time.

Moving from a D40 to a D5000 or D90 is more of a lateral upgrade.  Yes, you will be doubling your MPs from 6.1 to 12.1, but you are doing it on the same size sensor.  The frame rates are higher than the D40, but I seldom shoot with the shutter held down and unless you are a machine gun type of shooter, you probably won’t use the burst rate either.  The viewscreens are larger, but, coming from film, I find that to be a nice feature but not important.  The AF system on the newer models is much better and faster than on the D40 so that might matter to you somewhat.  If the video feature is important to you, it might be worth the money, but once again, I personally wouldn’t use it.

The D90 and D500 are both upgrades to your body, but next year the D400 or whatever its called will also be better.  On the flip side, a Nikkor 70-200 2.8 will still be a great lens and will hold its value.