Category: Events

Speed and Sport Shorts: Memories

I’ve known about the Vintage Indy Registry for some time now, but had never seen it in person. Members of the registry painstakingly preserve vintage Indy cars between the years of 1930 and today. Like most who witness this spectacle, you wish the the cars would go a bit faster than parade speed. However you have to remember many of these cars are one of a kind, or the only one left in existence. To spin or wreck one would be an immeasurable loss. So like me you overlook this, and feel privileged just to see them at all.

This brings me to my point. I was 12 in 1968 when the STP Lotus Turbine made its debut at Indianapolis. I was so enamored with this car that I had pictures from magazines, built models of it, and even had the Hot Wheels version. At the SONSIO Indy Grand Prix, I got to live a dream. I not only was able to see and photograph it, I also got to hear the turbine in person for the time. A lot of fond memories of my childhood came flooding back, and I am still savoring them today.

Joel

Speed and Sport Shorts: MotoAmerica

While exciting close racing is the hallmark of MotoAmerica, in the past couple of years the SuperSport class has come to exemplify this. Yesterdays race at Road America was just another example of this. You have a 16 year old Tyler Scott in just his third SuperSport start. He puts his Suzuki on the pole next to 32 year old accomplished veteran Josh Herrin on a Ducati. At the start he takes the lead only to be passed a few laps later by the veteran after a slight mistake of running wide in a turn. As the announcers speculated when he would make a move to regain the lead, he just stayed right on Herrin’s rear. Even after the white flag was waved, he held his ground for a full lap. Then coming out of turn 14 onto the front strait, he, drafted up behind the Ducati and passed him right at the finish line. The margin of victory. 0.039 seconds.

Joel

Motorsports in Black and White ll

Black and White motorsports photography while once the norm is now a speciality form of photography. Many try it, few do it well. In this day and age fo high megapixel color photography, black and white gets relegated to a seldom used, or just lost art form.

When considering wether too process a photo for black and white, the first thing you have to understand is that not every shot will look good in this medium. Shots with busy and distracting backgrounds will not work. Next you have to consider the subject matter. Dark blue, green, and black cars or bikes are likely to lose a lot of detail in conversion, and just look like a badly underexposed image. Packs of multiple vehicles close together will leave the viewers eye wandering trying to find the main subject of the shot.

When going through your work, look for shots with one or two subjects isolated on a relatively clear background. This will take the viewers eye directly to the main subject. From there they can explore the rest of the image. If the background is slightly blurred, that makes it even better. Overcast and rainy days also lend themselves well to black and white. All in all you should choose your subject matter carefully.

As for tools, any image editor will give you good results as long as you take the time to learn what you can do with the tools at hand. Spend some time experimenting with sliders and filters to squeeze the most you can out of your software. Just selecting convert to black and white from a preset menu will give you mediocre results at best. I’m partial to NIK Filters Silver Effects for black and white conversion. There are several other stand alone, or plug in programs out there, but this is my personal favorite. So all that is left to do is jump into the deep end, and see what you can create.

Article inspired by Kurt Roussell @ Fast Car Photos.

Joel

The Story Within the Story

It is to me the story within the story from this weekends Michelin Pilot race at Road Atlanta. The race crowned a season champion in the form of Jan Heylen driving the number 16 Porsche for Wright Motorsports. However the real story for me was the winning TCR car, the number 5 Alfa Romeo Giulietta driven by Tim Lewis and Roy Block.

So, why is this the real story to me? It is the fact that this plucky little TCR car this year managed to overcome a number of reliability issues that has plagued it for the past two years. Wins at Road America and Road Atlanta, and top 5s at Lime Rock and Sebring made it one of the most successful seasons to date. And then there I the matter of carrying on the tradition of one of the oldest names in motorsports. I am always rooting for this car simply because of the racing heritage it carries with it.

Joel

My Choice, GT

It’s the kind of subject that can spark endless arguments and debates, but I just have to get it out there. For me the only type of racing I can see myself never getting tired of is GT racing.

In my youth the first kind of racing I ever paid any real attention to was Formula 1 and IndyCar. Not from being able to attend any races, It was from reading about these series. I read anything I could get my hands on about racing in general. There was a newsstand in front of the “L” station near my house, and the guy who ran it knew I was interested in auto racing, and would get magazines from his distributor and hold them until I came by. It was in reading the varied magazines I bought from him that I discovered sports car racing such as, Can-AM, and Trans-AM racing.

Before this it was IndyCar, NASCAR, and Drag Racing. Being from the inner city midwest, that was pretty much all we heard about. Upon reading about the different road racing series I began to lose interest in IndyCar, and later NASCAR. However these were still the only televised series, so I continued to follow them for the most part. On the rare occasion they would show sports car racing on TV, it would be edited to fit within a 60 to 90 minute time slot with commercials. Lots of commercials.

My interest in IndyCar faded after some time, but returned when they began to run majority road courses. The cars and level of competition has improved immensely in the past decade also. As for NASCAR, my interest level dropped significantly when they decided the words “Stock Car” in their name was no longer relevant. Then there is also the matter of 40 plus car fields (at least 10-15 of whom should not be out there) riding around in a circle waiting for someone to cause several of them to crash into one another.

So with all that said just what brought on this whole line of thought? Watching the TOTAL 24 hours of Spa, and one of the most exciting endings I have seen in some time. Seeing Dries Vanthoor’s Team WRT make the perfect call to switch to rain tires just before a downpour to get the race lead from Ferrari. Then watching Alessandro Pier Guidi recover from a huge deficit to catch, then pass Vanthoor on the outside in the rain and drive the Iron Lynx Ferrari 488 to victory. It started me to thinking just how many times I have seen close, exciting racing like this in GT racing. Then there are the intangibles for the fans that go along with this type of racing.

For all the technological brilliance that goes into Formula 1 and Prototype race cars, they are never something you can (or will) ever see yourself owning or driving. While cars in GTE, GTLM, GT3, and especially GT4 are you cars you can aspire to someday owning. You see many of these same cars on the streets of your town, you know the names, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, Corvette, Aston Martin. All the way down to the GT4 ranks where you see Mustang, Camaro, Elantra, and Supra. Picturing yourself behind the wheel of any of these cars is not hard given the right circumstances.

 

So the rest of you enjoy your Formula 1, NASCAR or any other racing you are into. I have nothing against any other form of racing, and I shoot many of them, but if I were forced to choose just one, it goes without saying that it would be GT racing.

Joel

MotorSports in Black and White

Black and white photography in motor sports seems to have always been a matter of necessity more than choice. At the origins of auto racing it was pretty much all there was. Photography and racing are two technologies that grew up side by side. In later years as color film became more prevalent, and less expensive, it was only natural that many photographers would take advantage of it. But in being able to present it to the public at large there was yet another more important hurdle to overcome, printing.

To bring the news and action of racing to the interested masses required the ability to write the story as well as publish photos from the events. At the time auto racing began, it had not been that long since the ability to print photos in magazines and newspapers had been invented. Half toning, a process of using dots of ink of varying size and intensity to form a picture, had only been developed in the 1890s. This allowed publications to use actual photos instead of illustrations to present the news. When it came to sports, and auto racing in particular, the only other limiting factor of the day was the camera equipment available at the time.

Large box shaped cameras of the earliest days required a tripod, and a very brave soul willing to stand mere inches from speeding cars to capture the action. What we are able to do today (and from farther away) with our digital cameras, and 500mm lenses would probably seem like alchemy to someone from the 30s wielding a Graflex Speed Graphic with a fixed focal length lens.

In today’s world, black and white photography in motorsports is a very much overlooked tool of the trade. When you look at old racing publications of the 50s through the mid 80s you will notice that only the cover, and a few center pages are in color. This was mainly due to the printing cost as well keeping the publication’s need to keep the magazine at a reasonable price. So most of the ordinary shots were relegated to the black and white pages. Those thought to be the best were given the color pages.

Today we have the luxury of choosing the shots that are best suited to black and white. We have the ability to make exposure and lighting adjustments to enhance the image and mood we are trying to convey. What we can do in a few hours of post production on a computer, would have taken days with chemicals in a darkroom. Thus we get to use it more as an art form. While this was the intent of all photography at one point, the demands of the commercial world soon beat that out of us. While black and white in motor sports is largely overlooked, when it is used, it is often done with mediocre to abysmal results. Mostly because the photographer doesn’t take time to learn the tools they have at hand, and many don’t take time to determine whether the shot is well suited to to the medium. When done correctly, the results can be quite stunning. Tools such as levels, curves, dodging and burning can go a long way toward adding contrast, and breathing life into what may otherwise be a flat image.

Landscape and portrait photographers were among the first to fully understand the power of black and white photography. Color film became available in 1904, yet many chose to stay with black and white. Looking at the work of Ansel Adams, Walker Evans and Gordon Parks and trying to imagine them in color yields disappointing results. I’m sure they understood that the very essence of photography was the difference between light and shadow, and color could not adequately portray this.

So what’s a photographer to do? My solution is to make a cup of coffee, find a comfortable place to sit, and re-read one of my books on the basics of photography. Not digital, or film, just photographic technique. This normally resets my brain, and makes me think a bit more before I shoot.

Joel

Single Make Series

Overview

The car pictured at the top of our story is a Maserati Grand Tourismo of the now defunct Maserati Super Trofeo series. This series suspended operations at the end of their 2016 season, and has not come back since. One of the primary reasons was due to the age of the car. As of this date it is now a thirteen year old platform that still has not been updated. Conversations I have had with Maserati at first promised a return of the series with a new car, and now a statement that they are refocusing their efforts on a luxury SUV line. While the series was very competitive and entertaining, this was not enough for a company with one of the oldest names in Motorsports to keep it going.

This highlights what can happen to a single make series when it’s manufacture loses interest. Thankfully for us there are other single make series who have not suffered this fate. This brings us the long way around to the focus of this article, single make series. These series are sometimes called “spec” series. This is technically not true. On the enthusiast or club level this is a more accurate term. Also in development series such the Road to Indy series the term may be applied. In single make series drivers are from all levels of proficiency, although a driver may be listed as an amateur, it only means they do not make they’re living as a race driver. It has nothing to do with driving ability.

Porsche GT3 Cup

There is no shortage of Porsche only series around the world. Some even run by Porshe themselves as driver development series. Since 2005 this popular U.S. and Canadian series has provided some truly exciting racing. Many of its drivers honed their skills here before moving on to other series. There however a few gentleman drivers who continue to run here either full or part time. One note to add is that this series through the years has had some of the best liveries seen on a race car.

Lamborghini Super Trofeo

While having been around since 2009, Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America has only run since 2013. With the addition of North America, it is another three continent series. There are four classes of competition. Pro, Pro/AM, amature or AM, and LB Cup. This has become one of my personal favorites. Many of its drivers compete here as well as other series, often in the same race weekend. It has a mo ster season finale with cars and drivers from all three continents competing against their own region first, with the top points earners moving on the the finals to complete against the top drivers from the other regions.

Ferrari Challenge

First run in 1993 Ferrari Challenge is what known as a series for “gentlemen drivers”. Participants purchase and maintain their own cars, and pay all entry fees, sometimes with a little sponsorship help from friends. The level of talent pretty much runs the gamut from pure amateur to professional. Like similar series, there are divisions in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

Saleen Cup

This is the latest in the single make series. Starting mid 2019 with the development of the Saleen S1, this looks to be an entry level series for new driver development. Starting in mid season 2019, there are plenty of bugs yet to be worked out. Some with the brand new Saleen S1 developed for this series, and street production. Others with competitors and racing rules. There is not a lot that can be said about this series just now having only a partial season under its belt. What can be said is that it looks to have a lot of promise. One cool idea for its inaugural season was using historic liveries from famous race teams.

Mazda MX5 Cup

Exciting, competitive, close racing, and fun. These are just a few of the descriptions you will hear to describe the Mazda MX5 Cup series. Boring, dull, uninteresting. These are terms you will never hear to describe it. You would be hard pressed to find any other sports car series this closely contested. More often than not the winner is decided on the last lap.

Wrap Up

The series listed are either pro or development series run in the the United States, and Canada. There are many more amateur, hobbyist, or local single make series.

Joel

Vintage Beauties

Shooting vintage racing has provided me with something that no other form of racing that I shoot has. That is the ability to go back to my youth. But even more than that, it gives me the ability see up close the race cars I could only dream about back then. Being a model car builder, I built all of my favorites in pains taking detail. Now being able to see the real thing driving at speed as they did back then gives me a feeling I just can’t properly put into words. So long live these vintage beauties, and may they continue to race long into the future

Joel

Vintage Can-AM

Can-AM produced so many iconic cars there is not space to include them all. These are just a few of my favorites.

McLaren M6a
UOP Shadow DN4
McLaren M8f

Vintage Trans-AM

I was truly in love with Trans-AM. If I were older, and had money, I would definitely bought a 70 Mustang.

1972 AMC Javelin
1970 Ford Mustang Boss 302

Vintage Formula 1

We will end with a few vintage Formula 1 screamers. If you have ever heard these V10 and V12 monsters, you will know what I mean by screamers.

1997 Jordan 197
Williams FW19
Benneton 197

GT 3 Racing

It’s the sort of topic that comes up when you are sitting around chatting with friends. You also see it on social media. It goes something like this. If you were stranded on an island what record, food, or other possession would you want to have with you. Sometimes its one item or three. But the concept is the same.

So the other day I was thinking how could I apply this to motorsports, and this is what I came up with. You are stranded on an island with a big screen TV which receives a different auto racing series on each channel. You have to tune to one, however once you make your selection the TV can no longer be tuned to any other channel. It will pick up only the channel you choose from now on. What will it be, Formula 1, IndyCar, NASCAR, NHRA, Prototype, maybe Moto GP or MotoAmerica. You get the point.

I’ll let you ponder what your choice will be, but for me the choice was easy, GT racing, and GT3 in particular. I have had different favorite series through the years, but I always come back to GT. I wish I could say for sure why, but I believe it isn’t any one thing. The one that first comes to mind is they represent the finest in automotive engineering that is available to the public. They are not purpose built cars that are designed only to be used on track, but modified versions of street cars, albeit expensive ones. None the less they inspire dreams, and give us something special to wish for. Then there is the shear variety of cars.

– Ferrari
– Porsche
– BMW
– Lamborghini
– Audi
– Mercedes AMG
– Acura
– Lexus
– McLaren
– Aston Martin
– Bentley

 

Also the level of competition in these series around the world is hard to match. And then there is the option of cheering for a favorite driver, car make, or team. I’m sure after I am finished writing this I will think of more, but that should give you an idea of my thinking on the subject. Now you can mull it over and come up with your own favorite.

joel

IMSA Mid Season

As the IMSA WeatherTech Sports car Challenge heads into the final stretch, things couldn’t be tighter. With the points standings close in all classes, now is not the time for errors.

DPI: The closes race is in the DPI class with only twenty points separating the top five contenders. While Dane Cameron and Juan Pablo Montoya in the number six Acura sit atop the driver standings, a recent surge by Tristan Nunez and Oliver Jarvis in the Mazda has moved them into striking distance. With this small of a margin, one bad race could be disastrous.

 

LMP2: There is a dead heat between Matthew McMurry, Kyle Masson, and Cameron Cassels. With this being the case it truly is a case where no one can afford to make a mistake.

 

GTLM: There is  just over a twenty point swing here with Earl Bamber and Laurens Vanthoor of Porsche leading followed closely by their teammates Nick Tandy and Patrick Pilet. However both Corvette and Ford team drivers are very close behind especially since the 67 Ford of Ryan Briscoe and Richard Westbrook just broke the Porsche two race win streak.

GTD: This is the only class with a clear gap between leaders and second place. Trent Hindman and Mario Farnbacher enjoy a thirty point advantage over Bill Auberlen and Robby Foley. Judging by by last weeks run this may not change any time soon.

All in all the next four races should be be quite exciting and eventful.

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