dPerceptions

Performance Tech Motorsports LMPC back strong for Sebring 2013

Darren — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 04:42:50 +0000

#18 Performance Tech Oreca FLM09: Tristan Nunez (Darren Pierson)

#21 Comprent Motorsports Cooper Tires Prototype Lite: Charlie Shears (Darren Pierson)

#37 Conquest Endurance Morgan: David Heinemeier Hansson (Darren Pierson)

An excellent lineup of teams and drivers in the LMPC class at Sebring sees seven entries with the welcome return of Performance Tech Motorsports to the class. A standard and Championship holder from the 2012 Cooper Lites Series, Performance Tech returns to the 2013 PC grid with a fantastic driver line up consisting of ALMS rookie Tristan Nunez, veteran peddler from the Cooper Lites series Charlie Shears & GT3/P2 driver David Heinemeier Hansson. This driver combination will prove to be potent. Tristan Nunez is the 2012 Cooper Prototype Lites series Champion and was consistently the head of the field. Throughout his driving career, Charlie Shears has always been at the pointy end of the grid. Lastly, DHH was a revelation in the P2 class in 2012 as he ripped through the field with teammate Plowey and was often a contender for the overall podium. Between the three of these lead footed gents, I can see only positive results for Performance Tech Motorsports at the 2013 Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring.

Be sure to follow all of us on Twitter for the latest updates from the track: @thepicman @tristannunez @dhhracing

2013 Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona

Darren — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 04:33:14 +0000

Snow Racing #62 Madison Snow, Melanie Snow

Krohn Racing Driver Change (Darren Pierson)

A bit of a foggy sunrise (Darren Pierson)

Baltimore Sports Car Challenge ALMS 2012

Darren — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 01:18:01 +0000

#37 Conquest Endurance Morgan: Martin Plowman, David Heinemeier Hansson (Darren Pierson)

#55 BMW Team RLL BMW E92 M3: Jorg Muller, Bill Auberlen (Darren Pierson)

#05 CORE Autosport Oreca FLM09: Jonathan Bennett, Colin Braun (Darren Pierson)

#91 SRT Motorsports SRT Viper GTSR: Kuno Wittmer, Dominik Farnbacher (Darren Pierson)

My entire 2012 Baltimore Sports Car Challenge Gallery can be seen HERE

Road Race Showcase 2012 IMSA/ALMS

Darren — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 20:02:59 +0000

#41 Ansa Motorsports Cooper Prototype Lite: Alain Nadal (Darren Pierson)

#10 Wright Motorsports Porsche GT3 Cup: Sean Johnston (Darren Pierson)

#16 Performance Tech Cooper Prototype Lite: Tristan Nunez (Darren Pierson)

#20 TruSpeed Motorsports Porsche GT3 Cup: Sloan Urry (Darren Pierson)

#18 Performance Tech Cooper Prototype Lite: Ryan Booth (Darren Pierson)

I love shooting at Road America. Its a great track with tons of elevation change and killer backdrops. Its also huge and requires some sort of transport to get around. Our scooter (long may it burn alongside the road in some distant place) decided to stop starting. This is a bad habit if you are say, on the outside of Canada Corner and have to get back to the start/finish in 5 minutes. I spent most of the week very close to the paddock area or very certain I could hitch a ride. I was so burnt out from running ragged for the Lites and GT3 test/practice/quali/2 sprint races each/2 podium ceremonies each that when the ALMS raceday hit, I called it a week and ran around with my wife and watched the race as a fan. Felt strange not to be shooting them, but I we needed the break.

All of my images from both the Cooper Lites and IMSA GT3 Challenge events can be seen HERE

2012 Mid Ohio Sports Car Challenge

Darren — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 00:23:36 +0000

#45 Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 RSR: Patrick Long (Darren Pierson)

#37 Conquest Endurance Morgan: Martin Plowman, David Heinemeier Hansson (Darren Pierson)

#91 SRT Motorsports SRT Viper GTSR: Kuno Wittmer, Dominik Farnbacher (Darren Pierson)

All of my images from the 2012 Mid Ohio Sports Car Challenge can be seen HERE

Northeast Grand Prix ALMS 2012

Darren — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 03:32:41 +0000

It was a long haul from California to Connecticut; up through Oregon and Washington, then across the top of the States, ducking under Lake Michigan then through Ohio and PA…you get the idea. We had stayed on the Left coast long after Laguna and soaked up the local grape, now we needed to head to Lime Rock. For those of you who have never taken the time to visit Lime Rock Park, stop what you are doing and go. Now. No really, go now. You will regret your life forever if you miss out. The support series I normally cover were not present this weekend, so the pace was much more slow and relaxing. We had a moment or two to breathe. Hopefully, that bit of relaxation comes across in the playfulness of my photos.

Images from the unusually un-wet 2012 ALMS Weekend at Lime Rock Park can be viewed HERE

#20 Dyson Racing Team Inc. Lola B11/66: Michael Marsal, Eric Lux (Darren Pierson)

#34 Green Hornet Racing Porsche 911 GT3 Cup: Peter LeSaffre, Damien Faulkner (Darren Pierson)

Laguna Seca 2012 IMSA GT3 & Lites Races 1 & 2

Darren — Sat, 12 May 2012 16:55:50 +0000

Race Start (Darren Pierson)

Green to Checkers victory. Last minute confusion on the flag stand caused the Sunoco Checkers to be used for Tristan. His lead was so large, they were able to find the correct flag for second place.

#16 Performance Tech Prototype Lite: Tristan Nunez (Darren Pierson)

Setting the Grid for Race #1 (Darren Pierson)

#3 Competition Motorsports Porsche GT3 Cup: Steve Goldman (Darren Pierson)

All of my images from the 2012 Modspace IMSA weekend at Laguna Seca can be found HERE

Laguna Seca 2012 – GT3 & Lites Test Day

Darren — Thu, 10 May 2012 04:26:57 +0000

#20 TruSpeed Motorsports Porsche GT3 Cup: Sloan Urry (Darren Pierson)

Test days can really work in your favor. You are pretty much alone and not too many bits of visual clutter (RVs, canopies, cars, fans) have arrived to mess up your shots. Those lovely blue and brown port-a-potties are more easily seen, but still, there is less to avoid. You can take your time to look at different angles, you can camp out in photo holes, you can find new places to be. Spots that were too distant or difficult to reach the last time, can be scouted and added to the shot list. The downside is that you have added an extra day to your week and by the time Race Day rolls around, you might find yourself too beat to care and its hard to push through that. When you are tired and sick of walking down the same dirt path to the same bit of corner, its easy to mail it in; to settle for the mundane. Don’t. That’s how you end up with work that looks like everyone else’s, how you end up with the same images as last year, the same work as the last race. Push. Shoot Test days and learn.

#30 6th Gear Racing Prototype Lite: Michal Chumecky (Darren Pierson)

The Utah Grand Prix 2012

Darren — Sat, 05 May 2012 04:01:34 +0000

#62 Snow Racing / Wright Motorsports Porsche GT3 Cup: Madison Snow (Darren Pierson)

We were excited to go back to Miller Motorsports Park, its a great facility surrounded by towering Mountains. When the American Le Mans Series decided not to return to Utah a few years back, I had hoped that I would shoot there again. Jump to 2012, IMSA was there with the GT3 Challenge and Cooper Prototype Lites series so we were back. When I booked our RV spot, I told the guy exactly what spot we wanted, he replied by telling me that the NASCARs would be running on the East course and that we wouldn’t be able to see them very well. I told him that I found it to be the perfect spot then. Not sure he understood, but that’s OK. The staff at Miller’s are great, all of them, from security to the photo shuttle driver, to John Gardner who runs the Media Center. Great people at a great facility. I just wish it wasn’t so damn far from anything.

I had to shoot fairly early on Thursday morning, so we pulled in around 5PM on Wednesday, set up camp and relaxed. On Thursday morning I went to check in and walked around the paddock to see who was there. I shot for a while in tech inspection and then headed out onto the track in the grey day to shoot GT3 testing. When you shoot at Miller’s you want to have a lot of glass. I’m not sure you can bring too much glass with you.

#34 Eurosport Racing Cooper Tires Prototype Lite: Jon Brownson (Darren Pierson)

The space is huge and the opportunity for shooting across the track to gain new vantage points begs for glass. The last time I shot at Miller’s a large amount of my shots were tight, I hadn’t included much of the scenery. Granted the track doesn’t have much in the way of iconic turns or elevation changes, you can always get a nice shot of a car bouncing on two wheels heading into the bottom Attitudes or shoot from the bottom so that the mountains are in the background of the ess. I decided to embrace the grey and see if I could get some color to pop out against it. Also, I vowed to put as musch of the scenery into the frame as possible. At this track, that is not terribly easy to do without making the car be very small in the frame.

Thursday night a huge storm hit the area with winds so strong we often thought we were on a boat rather than an RV. At one point, someone drove by and their pop-up camper blew open. I got to spend the next half hour or so out in the freezing rain trying to help the guy put his camper back together. Somehow he lost his keys during all this and ended up spending the night in the road right where he stopped. Did I forget to mention that the forecast for 6AM on Friday was snow? Luckily, the snow kept itself up in the mountains so I had a nice new background to shoot against all day Friday.

#29 Performance Tech Cooper Tires Prototype Lite: Ritchie Holt (Darren Pierson)

Friday was Quali for GT3 and as expected Madison Snow took the Platinum Class pole with Angel A. Benetiz picking up the Gold Class honors. On Saturday the Lites qualified and even though his car stopped on track halfway through the session, Tristan Nunez continued his dominance of the series by picking up his third pole of the year. GT3 had their first race of the weekend on Saturday afternoon and Madsion kept his car up front the entire race. The only real drama was when Gold polesitter Angel A. Benetiz ran out of fuel on the final lap after leading his class the entire race. Melanie Snow was able to pass him on the front straight to pick up the win. On Sunday, I was worn out. Something about the climate in Utah gets to me. Either that or trying to live in both Eastern and Mountain time zones was getting to me. The Lites had both of their races on Sunday with the final GT3 race in between. Since it was freezing in Friday, nice on Saturday, Sunday decided to bring the heat. It wasn’t that it was so hot ambient wise, but the heat haze was horrible. Anything I shot from more than 100 feet away ended up looking like I had applied a bad watercolor filter in photoshop. I had to bin most of my race start shots and even the ones I kept are a bit dodgy of you look hard at them. Not much I can do about that though. The first Cooper Lites race was going as planned until Tristan’s car stopped on track with about two laps to go. At that point he had about a fifteen second lead. His car was unable to be moved quickly enough, so Mikhail Goikhberg took the win behind the safety car. Madison Snow went flag to flag again for the weekend sweep. The track announcers kept saying, at the start of the race, that we were waiting for the checkered flag to start the race. This was mildly amusing. Angel A. Benetiz was able to keep his car running long enough this race to capture the Gold Class win. Oh, also, the guy was right, I couldn’t see the NASCARs very well from my RV, shucks.

#05 Ansa Motorsports Porsche GT3 Cup: Angel Andres Benitez (Darren Pierson)

We have a couple of days before we have to be in Monterrey for the race at Laguna Seca, so we are currently holed up along the shores of Lake Tahoe. My image galleries for both the Cooper Prototype Lites and the GT3 Challenge can be viewed at dPerceptions.com. Thanks for reading and looking! See you in California.

Long Beach Grand Prix ALMS 2012

Darren — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 17:29:37 +0000

#20 Dyson Racing Team Lola B11/66 Mazda: Michael Marsal, Eric Lux (Darren Pierson)

#55 BMW Team RLL BMW M3 GT: Bill Auberlen, Jorg Muller (Darren Pierson)

#17 Team Falken Tire Porsche 911 GT3 RSR: Wolf Henzler, Bryan Sellers (Darren Pierson)

#44 Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 RSR: Seth Neiman, Marco Holzer (Darren Pierson)

#6 Muscle Milk Pickett Racing HPD ARX-03a: Lucas Luhr, Klaus Graf (Darren Pierson)

The Grand Prix at Long Beach is a fun event. Its run in concurrence with IndyCar, so on one hand, I find it annoying; on the other, we really enjoy being there. The ALMS race is actually race, rather than a parade, so the on track action is great. Morning practice was dark and looming, no point in not immediately putting on the Hydrophobia. I was not going to get wet. It poured. My boots gave up but my gear and I stayed dry. For a while, I thought the session would be red flagged due to darkness.

All of ny images from the 2012 ALMS Long Beach Grand Prix can be seen HERE