#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

2009 Utah Grand Prix Risi F430 pits during friday practice

I am posting this from the Grand Canyon while we are having morning coffee.  Technology can be a groovy thing, can’t it?  Rather than flying out like I did last year, we decided to bring the entire family and make a holiday out of it.  We have traveled through, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and finally Arizona.  Tomorrow, we head north from the Canyon and up into Utah.  Part of the trip so far has been trying to see as much of Route 66 as is left.  Sadly, most of it has been consumed by time and I40, but there are still many interesting detours.  We also took a detour in Louisiana to see the site where Bonnie and Clyde were ambushed and riddled with bullets.   Its been a fun and interesting trip.

Cadillac Ranch

No trip through Texas would be complete without a stop at Cadillac Ranch.

My coverage of the race will begin on Friday at www.dperceptions.com, and I really cannot wait as I feel some of my best work came for the track last year; excited to tweak my shots and to find new ones. I was unable to make it out to Laguna Seca, so it has been quite a while since I have been out there with the circus. Here’s to hoping for less mayhem on the start this year. See you soon!

2009 Utah Grand Prix Gil de Ferran and Simon Pagenaud celebrate their win

#202 '72 BMW CSL: Byron DeFoor

Somehow I can still look forward to the Sunday peace and quiet of a day’s worth of vintage racing at Road Atlanta.  The Mitty simply cannot be missed even if only the final day.

This year, Formula 5000 was being honored and many were on hand for their sunday race.  I was especially keen to visit the grid before they let the public down onto it.  I think only 4 or 5 cars made it down before the officials let in the crowds for the grid walk.

#8 '70 Lola T290: Skip Haga

Don’t misunderstand me, I am all for fans being as close to the cars as possible, but its hard to do my job with 25 people in the way of every car.  To be honest, the most difficult people at some of these smaller events are the other photographers, many of whom have no sense of sharing space and taking turns.  Levels of professionalism I have become used to in the ALMS I guess.

Earlier, I was driving through the pits looking for a place to park to shoot some color.  Suddenly a woman started shouting and waving at me.  I thought she was some overly officious official who could not see my vehicle pass.  Turns out the crazy woman was my friend Deneen with whom I sometimes work the ALMS pits.  I did not recognize her without a headset and fire suit, weird how you assign clothing to people.  She is driving Bob Leitzinger’s RV and historics cars around the country this summer; very cool.  I pulled into their spot and talked to her and Bob for a while.  He was running a Lola and his Datsun that weekend and it was great fun to look through his photo albums and see the evolution of his racing career.

#99 '65 Lotus Elan: Bob Leitzinger

Like last year, and I would imagine all years, the Mitty was intermittently rainy, cloudy and then sunny.  At all times, it was quite warm.  The only real rain on Sunday happened just at the end of the 1st feature race around 9:30 am during the Vic Elford Trophy.  The next race was the GP bikes which didn’t run due to the water.  From that point on, it was dry.

#44C '09 Porsche Cayman: Jim McCormick

I am not convinced about the Cayman Interseries being involved with historic racing.  One one hand its cool to see the old liveries on the track, but how a new Porsche Cayman is Historic or Vintage is beyond my pay grade.  I digress.  Go to the track.  Watch Historic racing.  Meet the drivers.  Meet the People.  You will have a great time, I promise.

My entire The Mitty Challenge image gallery can be seen at DPerceptions Motorsports Photography.  Thanks for reading and looking!

#3, Helio Castroneves, Team Penske

I am not sure what I think of these combined race weekends.  I don’t like how everything is compacted and I don’t know how to deal with some of the attitudes.  Some of the new drivers seem like the real deal, perhaps they will inject a bit of life into the series.  I will confess that by Sunday, I had had enough of lugging my gear around the waterfront and chose to watch the IndyCar race as a fan with my wife.

The 1st time the IndyCars took to the track, there were only 2 cars running around, then Milka joined in making it three.  For 15 minutes or so, it felt like I was shooting a Historics race.  Car, car…………..car……………waiting……waiting…………….car, car…………………….car.

#9, Scott Dixon, Target Chip Ganassi Racing

The rest of the teams hit the track and woke me up a bit.  I didn’t really have an outlet for any of the IZOD images, so after making sure I had all of the cars in solid standard shots, I spent the rest of my time looking for new angles and vantage points, striving for a different look.

Most of the other photographers were concentrating in the hairpin area so I stayed up by the fountain and parking deck. Its kind of liberating to be shooting for no reason other than to see what you can come up with. I quite enjoyed it and think I came up with a few good grabs.

#78, Simona De Silvestro, HVM Racing

The race itself was a bit of a snooze.  We watched from near pit in and each time Milka was about to be lapped, her team called her in.  We thought that this was an interesting strategy but she broke before we could see how it played out.  The crowd in the grandstands would roar each time Der Danika drove by but all in all, the fans were much better informed and behaved than the last combined race we attended at Mid Ohio.  It was a fun but tiring weekend and we will be back.  Oh hey, I almost forgot we were able to meet @pinkgineer in person.

@pinkgineer meets @imbutafool and @thepicman at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach

My entire downloadable image gallery from the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach IZOD IndyCar is available at DPerceptions MotorSports Photography. Thanks for reading and looking!

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

Sebring Corner Worker

To me, Sebring is the start of the racing season.  Certainly we follow the Dakar and watch every televised minute of the 24 Hours of Daytona, but somehow they feel more like warmups.  Sebring is where it starts.

Last year, our spot was too close to the zoo and we ended up surrounded by people who, I am fairly certain, had no idea they were attending a motor race.  We did not make that mistake in 2010 and had a spot secured in the competitor paddock.  MUCH better. On one side we had a gentleman who treated us to an impromptu bagpipe exhibition and on the other a fine group of people, one of which was running in the IMSA Lites….er, Cooper Prototype Lites.  We had driven down Wednesday morning after taking a day break from Amelia and had quite a checklist upon arrival at Sebring:

1. Acquire Credentials
2. Locate shipping/receiving to pick up package
3. Pick up golf car
4. Locate RV spot
5. Park and unload
6. Start fire for St. Patrick’s Day Brisket
7. Drink Dark Beer

We had most of this accomplished by 5pm, so we practiced #7 for several hours.  I think we got it right eventually, but since the photographer meeting was at 7AM the next morning, it seemed sensible to stop and go to sleep.

The photo meeting was the same usual excitement…don’t get run over, don’t go into pit lane unless you are orange, don’t put your gear on the wall.  That sort of thing.  Common sense.  The only people who need to be told these things are the ones who don’t show up for the meetings.  The ones who go out onto the track in sandals and shorts or try to go into pit lane during the race without a fire suit.  Don’t get me wrong, the meetings are important for safety.  We often are told about no shoot zones and tweaks to the regulations.  I just often think the people who most need the information are in bed asleep while I am up and wondering where the coffee might be.  I continue to digress, on to the cars.

Sebring is not the most scenic of tracks.

#16 Dyson Racing Team Lola B09 86 Mazda: Chris Dyson, Guy Smith, Andy Meyrick

For the most part, its a tunnel of RVs and banners.  You have to work a bit to either completely mask the backgrounds by shooting really tight or by shooting at a low enough shutter that you blur out the scenery. There just are not many places where the background isn’t the thing you consider first.  This year, I started out shooting morning practice from just past T1 and continued to T4.  I really hate photo holes, but there are some good opportunities to be had in T4 if you frame correctly.  The hairpin is a mess to shoot from the inside and can have a very distracting background from the outside so I tend to shoot from just past the hairpin.  I guess I am saying that an iconic background from Sebring will require an effort.

In case you don’t know, Sebring races into the dark, so we as fans/photographers are allowed the great spectacle of night practice.  As a photographer, this means gobs of really long, colorful light followed by increasing ISOs and frantic wishes for the existence of a 500mm f2 lens (hopefully costing less than a kidney transplant).  Night practice is great, its a glimpse at Le Mans.  I love it.

#007 Aston Martin Racing Lola B09 60 Aston Martin: Stefan Mucke, Harold Primat, Adrian Fernandez

Friday brings more practice and qualification.  I shot quali from the pits.  Quali was the pits.  The Peugeots (the diesel class) sandbagged around and drilled everybody.  Essentially, the leaders in each class went out, ran a few hot laps and then parked it waiting for someone to better them.  Boring.  The lone exception to this was the newly formed LMPC class where the #99 of G.E.T.G. Racing battled the #95 Level 5 offering back and forth to the checkers. Gunnar Jeannette took the pole with a .182 advantage.

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

Saturday, race day:  6:45AM photo meeting, pipers walking by in the dark, people trying to park their cars on top of each other. Forget the Pit Walkabout, too many people.  Head to T1 45 minutes before the start to hold your place.  Parachutes, flyovers, driver parade, recon laps, NAIL IT.

You don’t actually know much about the race while you are shooting.  A 12 hour race certainly affords you the time to check in and regroup, but unless you can listen to the Midweek Motorsports Anoraks howling away, you don’t really know that much about the race.  Cars just disappear, sometimes in a ball of expensive Ferrari flame.   You head towards the start/finish near the end of the race and pantomime at the other people waiting there…who’s in the lead?

The Hat Dance is annoying too long.  By the end of the podium ceremonies, when they gave trophies to the premier class, LMP1, all of the fans were gone.  40 nonplussed photographers on a creaking stand and a few team members were all that was left to see the champagne.  That needs fixed.  Maybe at Long Beach.  See you there!

#07 Team Peugeot Total Peugeot 908 HDI FAP: Marc Gene, Alexander Wurz, Anthony Davidson

All of my photographs from the Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring are online for your viewing and download.  I have coverage of the American Le Mans Series, Cooper Prototype Lites and the Patron GT3 Challenge available.

1955 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing Coupe: Leo Schigiel, Lisa Schigiel

Wow!  That was quite a trip.  We drove down to Florida on the 12th of March and didn’t return home from Sebring 12 Hours until late on March 21st.  A blast, in fact.  There were only 2 problems: One, we couldn’t just keep driving and Two, we didn’t have our dogs with us, which is why we couldn’t keep driving until Long Beach.  Also, Kim’s parents wanted their RV back, but that is beside the point.  Anyway, we left on Friday and drove down to Amelia Island; since we were not planning on shooting anything until Saturday, there was no rush to arrive.  I did want to run by the Ritz Carlton to scope out the parking scene since the instructions for picking up our credentials involved leaving our car with the valet and running into the media center.  Not something you do in an RV at the Ritz, probably.  The area surrounding the Ritz was full of people walking, police directing traffic, safety cones in the road, NO PARKING signs, Pirate Parking signs.  We slowly cruised by the entrance and decided there was no way we were going to try to pull in.  Soon thereafter, we found the driving range which conveniently was doubling as a parking lot so we knew where we would park in the morning.  Satisfied, we headed to our campground at Talbot Island State Park to relax and prepare for Saturday.

The Main attraction of Saturday was the RM Auto Auction and to be honest, we have seen so many of them on TV we didn’t really worry too much about missing it.  We had a leisurely morning and arrived at the Ritz around 10AM to pick up our credentials.  We walked out onto the fairway to look at the setup and to decide how best to shoot.  No cars were on display yet and workers were still erecting tents and fences.

Ghia Streamline Turbine Car 'Gilda' - Scott Grundfor and Kathleen Redmond

Further wandering took us down by the pond where we were greeted by the arrival of something not quite a jet, but certainly no ordinary car.  It was a Ghia Streamline Turbine car named Gilda being displayed in a special collection of Motor Trend cover cars.  Seemingly waiting for the 1st car to arrive, others started appearing, coming in from several directions.  The light and sky were fantastic; more importantly, no one was around to get in my way or my backgrounds.  We spent several hours watching the cars arrive and talking to their owners.  Great fun, but we needed food.

Smokey Yunick Hurst Floor Shift Special

After  a leisurely lunch, we headed back down to the fairway and were greeted by several new cars.  One of them was a curiously built Smokey Yunick Hurst Floor Shift Special where the driver rode in a side pod to the far left of the car.  I thought the front bumpers completed the look.

Later in the afternoon Carroll Shelby arrived to sign some autographs and to look at a hand built 1948 Timbs Special.   After shooting most of the day, we headed back to our campground to rest and prepare for the big shoot on Sunday morning when all of the cars not already on the field are driven in at daybreak. For those of you who don’t know, daybreak occurs very early in the morning. This meant that we were standing on the fairway by the entrance, in the dark with coffee waiting for the sun to arrive.

Carroll Shelby at the 2010 Concours d'Elegance at Amelia Island

One of the nice things about being credentialed at Amelia is that the cars come in at dawn which is about 7:30AM.  No one other than media and the car owners are allowed onto the field until 9:30AM.  This gives you 2 hours of relatively unpopulated shooting time with the cars.  On one hand you are waiting for the sun to clear the trees so you have light, all the while hurrying to shoot before the crowds are let in.  Great fun in other words as its not every day that you get to see a 917K driving down a golf car path just as the sun is rising.

1970 Porsche 917K: Collier Collection

We spent the day moving from one amazing car to the next, gathering stories and pictures. I learned enough about Bandinis and the other Etceterini entries to inadvertently realize what car Geddy is singing about in Red Barchetta. Highlights included a Rolls Royce encased in Peruvian Walnut, A Kurtis that held the Land Speed record for a very long time, more Ferraris than you could count and a very cool unfinished metal Maserati.

1956 Maserati 200SI: Tony Schwartz, Belle Schwartz

My entire online image gallery for the 2010 Amelia Island Councours d’Elegance is available for viewing and ordering. Thanks for reading and looking.

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

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?

Eric Kuhns' 1988 Porsche 944 E2 at dawn just before the start of the Santa's Toy Run 9 hour enduro

Friday starts off bright and early with an 8:30 AM start for a 9 hour enduro.  This year, there seemed not to be as many cars entered in the enduro as in past years, but the quality of the cars and drivers made up for the lack of numbers.  Santa was on hand for the drivers meeting and to wave the green flag at the start of the race.  Road Atlanta is a fairly long track, so when there are not a huge amount of cars running, a photographer tends to get bored and unmotivated.  Normally, in this situation you are shooting a short sprint race that lasts twenty minutes or so.  This time, I was faced with nine hours of 22 cars on the track.  I needed to stay focused, creative and awake.  Also, it was COLD. The sun stayed in view for a few hours and then disappeared behind a solid mass of gray clouds.  It was still in the sky though and wreaking havoc by suddenly appearing just as I started shooting.  Sudden four stop jumps in light are always fun.

The start of the 9 hour enduro for the NASA Santa's Toy Run Weekend

I started out shooting outside turn one so I could capture the start of the race and then went up a ways to shoot back down into the turn.  I don’t really like shooting back that way since the background is often so cluttered.  Did I mention it was cold?  I went up to shoot under the Suzuki bridge, but the light wasn’t right so I decided to try inside turn 7 so that I could work with the direction of the light.  I always think of Road Atlanta being surrounded by pine trees, but the obvious lack of leaves made for some interesting blur effects in 6-7.

Gert Adolphsen takes his 1965 FFR Mkii ES through turn seven

As I have mentioned previously, having the track nearly to yourself often leads to new discoveries. This time was no exception; just past the inside of turn seven, I found a perfectly worthless photo hole. Its too high for a driver climb through, you cannot get a clear view of the exit of seven and you cannot get a decent angle on 8-9. The hole is precisely, perfectly not in the correct spot. I suppose you could pan cars on acceleration from seven, but you can do that all over the place.

After shooting in many of my usual spots, I decided to head to the pits so I could hang with the crews and see what a NASA pit stop looked like. Seems like I picked the perfect time as most of the runners were coming in for tire and front bake pad changes. After working the ALMS pits for a year, these stops were amusingly sedate. Not that the crews weren’t hustling and working hard, just that the pace was, well, different.  The #58 Mustang driven by Dean Martin from Rehagen Racing won the enduro.  I completely enjoyed the toy run and will be back next year.  I will also definitely put NASA-SE on my shooting calendar.

Rehagen Racing pits for tires towards the end of the enduro

My entire image gallery for the NASA Santa’s Toy Run 9 Hour Enduro is available online for viewing and instant download. Thanks for looking.