Lets Go Race’n Boyyyssss

The first weekend of May always marks the spring NASCAR race down in Richmond.  This year was no different.   Terry and I left on our annual pilgrimage Friday morning after dropping Caroline off for school and were at the racetrack about 2 hours later.       

Most of the track just prior to Cup race.  Clearly, I need a fisheye lens and a gradient ND filter.

After arriving at the track and setting up for the tailgating, a little more on this later, and then it was off to pit road for a few hours of photography.  A sign of the economy I guess, pit road was not as busy with fans as it has been in the past few years.  Ironically, however, the people with expensive DSLR camera’s is still on the rise. 

Dale Jr’s Car going through final inspection.

Marcos Ambrose and Kyle Bush’s car, pre qualifying inspection

A full brake job and service in under 5 minutes!!!

Jaun Montoya’s car, pre qualifying inspection.

Every time I’m on pit road I try out something different.  This time a little voice in my head said, “Slow Shutter Speed”.  I wonder where I’ve heard that before… Mike.   Anyway, I set the camera to very low shutter speeds and got a couple that I really liked

Casey Kane coming done pit lane.

Michael Waltrip leaving the Garage for a practice run.

Kevin Harvick on pit lane, Tony Stewart on the track.

Of course, another way to capture the speed and motion is the typical panning shot as the cars scream by at over 150mph.

Matt Kenseth

Michael Waltrip

The race cars are not the only cool cars on pit road.  This weekend’s Pace car was a 2009-10 Chevy Camero which I happened to find in a somewhat tucked away location near the Goodyear trailer.  Here’s my lame attempt at shooting an auto magazine like shot of this very cool looking car.  

Chevy Camero Pace Car 

I managed a few other shots at more interesting angles but the sky was so gray that I really wasn’t too happy with them.  I’ll put them in the fill gallery linked below.

Then of course there are the driver and crew chief shots.  These can be hard to come by anymore.  Seems that due to the volume of fans on pit road and what I suspect may have been requests from the press NASCAR has restricted more areas when the drivers are on pit road especially during qualifying.  Never the less I was able to get a few shots in while dodging other fans and the pro photographer. 

Bootie Barker, Crew Chief for Mikey’s 55 Napa Chevy

Tony Stewart with a pretty goofy look on his face.

Kasey Kahne… Does he remind you of the Wicked Witch of the East here? 

AJ Allmendinger

And here’s one of Terry I caught when she wasn’t looking.  ;-)

After practice and qualifying it was back to the car for some rest and food. Because of the threat of rain I didn’t bring the cameras into the track for the Nationwide race so photography for Friday was pretty much done after qualifying. 

As most of you who have been to races know, NASCAR fans elevate the art of tailgating to an entire different level than other sports fans.   The parking lot is a sea of tents, canopies, and campers, all sorts of elaborate grills and cooking apparatus, and of course thousands of the most friendliest people you’ll ever meet.   Next race I’ll plan to cover the parking lot scene with more photos. 

 

Saturday we left our hotel in Williamsburg around 11 and headed for the track.  I decided to try something different this time and instead of parking in lot J and taking the tram to the track I headed back to gate 6 near turn one where we parked Friday.  All seemed just fine until we turned onto Carolina Ave and it became apparent that instead of being in the parking lot close to the track we would have to park in the warehouse parking lot across the street from the track.  CRAP!!!  I was not a happy camper.  HOWEVER, as it turns out this was not a bad place to be after all.  We managed to have enough space to setup the canopy, table and grill and settled in for a few hours of relaxing before the race.  The best part about this location was the fact that when it rained, which it did several times very hard, the asphalt parking lot didn’t turn to MUD!!! 

While we were relaxing and eating burgers and brauts I did manage to fire off a few frames of the tailgaters.  They’re not the best but what the hell.

Check out the glasses on the blond.

These guys and gal were playing some sort of game that involved beer.  The games people bring are quite amusing.  Many different variations of what we’d traditionally call horse shoes.  I’m sure they all have different names but they are played much like horse shoes. 

Fans headed to the track.

  More fans headed to the track. This chopper along with two other shuttle people to the track all afternoon.

Eventually it was our turn to get ready and head off to the track.  We packed the cooler, Terry packed a bag with snacks and other food, I gathered up the camera equipment and scanner and we were off to the track.

I have new seats up in the new Commonwealth Tower that turned out to be awesome.  They’re up high but you can see the entire track and you have a great view of pit road and the finish line.  Just under the upper deck is concession stands and bathrooms. How convenient.   It all really remind me of being about halfway up the stands at Bristol.  I was curious about what kind of images I’d get from these seats and I was actually pleasingly surprised with the results.

Harvick and Biffle getting ready before the race.

Tony and Jimmy ready to go.

Cloud obstructed fly over.

Pace Lap.

Green Green Green!!!

Harvick and Gordon in turn 2.

Reutimann’s crew in action.

The short track sparks begin to fly.

Marcos Ambrose spins out right in front of the pack.

Truex’s crew pounds out the damage from a late race incident. Note the crew member with the big orange sledge hammer.  Not the kind of thing you want to see a mechanic with while working on your car. 

Bobby Labonte going for one of his several slides of the night; tires inflated

Moments later sliding with tires deflated.

The Checked Flag!!!  Kyle wins again. 

Take a bow there Kyle.  One of these days the weight of that helmet and his head are going to pull him over.

Victory Lane.

After the race we headed out of the track fully expecting to pull out the chairs when we got to the car and hang out for a while as the parking lot cleared out.  Well once again the fortunes of what I thought was going to be a problematic parking location paid off.  It seems as if these lots clear out first so by the time I dropped off the scanner and made the walk back to the car the lot was already well cleared out.  We hopped in the car and headed out.  We were on 295 in record time and on our way back to Williamsburg.  Sunday we made a stop at the Williamsburg Pottery Factory and then headed home.

All in all a great race weekend.  I was pleased with the images I captured but really need to figure out a way to get full access press passes.  It’s become more and more challenging to capture new and interesting photos in the fan access areas. 

Full gallery