Lucas Oil Off Road Series — Rounds 5 & 6 from Speedworld Offroad Park Surprise, AZ

This year the LOORS racing crew got several new television contracts, good for them, not so good for the still photographers covering the series. With all the additional television coverage and safety concerns everyone has been moved out of the infield photo positions meaning we are only allowed to shoot from just outside the track. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the safety concerns and would rather be allowed to shoot from just outside the track then be killed by a truck or buggy flying into one of the photo position.

Having said that, there are some additional challenges to getting good clean shots from just outside the track and with some tracks that challenge is even greater due to very distracting backgrounds and harsh mid-day lighting conditions during the race.

I didn’t say that makes our job any less fun, just makes things a little more of a challenge. On with the results.

RJ Anderson rips up the track during practice in his Pro Lite Unlimited Monster Energy sponsored Dodge.

See more dirt-slinging action by clicking on the continue reading link below:

March, 2012 NASCAR Nationwide Series Race from Phoenix International Raceway

During the March 2012 NASCAR visit to Phoenix, I was on this “trying something different” theme, and if you remember the images I posted from the Nationwide practice session here: NASCAR Nationwide Series – Trying something completely different you will see a bit of a continuation of that “something different” theme. In the past I would get tons of shots of cars-on-track and for the most part I would spend my time outside the track shooting cars with long glass. These images from the race aren’t different from anything you’ve seen before, but somewhat different for me, in that the style is a bit different from what I normally shoot and my shooting position is different. I tried to look for a different perspective with this race, but in many cases during the heat of the moment and all the excitement of the race I tended to slip back into my old habits of getting “traditional” style images.

I realized I use the word “different” about a thousand times in that first paragraph so maybe I should just stop typing and show you the images.

During the race I tried some slow shutter speed panning like this shot of Elliot Sadler and Kyle Busch but I can’t say I was really excited with the results so I didn’t spend a whole lot of time shooting panning shots.

To see the rest of the story, click the “continue reading” link below:

NASCAR Nationwide Series – Trying something completely different

This post is from the March 2, 2012 NASCAR Nationwide Series practice session at Phoenix International Raceway, and when I say “trying something completely different” I mean slow, sloooooooow shutter speeds. For me it was about trying to get something that looked a bit different from what you see from these sessions and I’m not talking slow shutter speed panning shots where the car is in focus but the background is blurred, but super slow speed shutter speed panning shots where almost the entire image is a mass of blur and color.

02 March 2012: Denny Hamlin (18) takes hot laps during a practice session for the running of the Bashas’ Supermarkets 200 Nationwide Series Race at Phoenix International Raceway in Avondale Arizona.

Most of these shots are taken at shutter speeds between 1/8th of a second and 1/12 of a second, some are blurred more than others and some work better than others. I found that shooting at f22 or f32 on a bright sunny day showed every dust speck you could possibility imagine on my sensor so there was a fair bit of Photoshop dust clean up that had to be done.

To see more blurry images remember to click the more link below:

2011 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series – Kobalt Tools 500 from Phoenix International Raceway – part 1

I know this post is a bit late, but as they say better late than never. After having wrapped up another NASCAR race weekend here I thought I would go ahead and post my images from the November 2011 Sprint Cup race, you see the first part of 2012 has been a bit crazy for me and I just haven’t had the time to post all the events ‘as they come’ so I’m getting around to it now.

The big theme for me this race weekend was ‘cars on track’ so my goal was to get good clean shots of as many cars on track as possible. Let’s see how I did.

12 November 2011: Jamie McMurray (1) takes hot laps during a qualifying session for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Kobalt Tools 500 Race at Phoenix International Raceway in Avondale Arizona.

I started with qualifying and found some success shooting into the sun, not always the best option for good shots but it was giving me an interesting effect and I managed to get some great shots of a limited number of the cars/drivers in their qualifying runs.

To see more great NASCAR Sprint Cup images click on the more link below:

NASCAR Nationwide Series – WYPALL 200 from Phoenix International Raceway

The boys, and girls of NASCAR stop by Phoenix International Raceway twice a year and the November race looked to be an exciting weekend of racing because Phoenix had been called “the wildcard” by most of the media due to the new track surface and “configuration.” From my perspective there didn’t seem to be much of a change to the shape or distance of the track however, they did raise the back part of the track several feet allowing fans to see the cars on the back straight from the grandstands along the front straight but, the shape and distance didn’t change.

10 November 2011: Sam Hornish Jr. (12) takes hot laps during a practice session for the NASCAR Nationwide Series Race, WYPALL* 200 powered by Kimberly-Clark Professional at Phoenix International Raceway in Avondale Arizona.

To see more of the story and images, click on the more link below.

2011 NHRA Arizona Nationals from Firebird International Raceway – The Funny Cars

I love photographing NHRA Drag Racing, it’s like all the action and excitement of a two-hour Motorsports event compressed down into a little 4 second burst.

The action starts on Fri. with first round qualifying and as the sun dips below the horizon and the sunlight fades enough to really see the header flames you can make some intense images. In this shot from Friday’s qualifying session, Mike Neff makes a pass in his Ford Mustang.

To see the rest of the exciting NHRA action, click on the more link below.

NASCAR Sprint Cup – SUBWAY Fresh Fit 600 April 10, 2010 Phoenix International Raceway Part 2

I’ll jump right in with more images from the NASCAR Sprint Cup SUBWAY Fresh Fit 600 from Phoenix International Raceway.

On race day most of the activity in the garage area are just for show and to make the fans happy, but sometimes a few minor tweaks are done to give the cars their final race setup. Here Kurt Busch’s crew make a few tweaks to his number 2 Miller Lite Dodge.

See more by clicking on the link.