Lucas Oil Off Road Series — 2012 Drivers and a buggy or two

For the 2012 season of the Lucas Oil Off Road Series racing (LOORS) I tried to mix it up a bit with my images and I found some personal gratification from producing images of some drivers in their trucks. The way the screening and window net as well as the dash configuration sometimes made fitting my wide-angle lens between everything difficult so not every driver is represented and some shots just came out better than others. Here are a few that I liked:

Todd LeDuc gives me the eye as I grab images through the window net.

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NASCAR Sprint Cup — 6,000 gallons of race fuel and 6 guys trying to change tires in ten seconds

Six guys over the wall trying to change tires, make suspension adjustments and put race fuel in the car, what could possible go wrong?

There is a lot of action on pit road during a NASCAR Sprint Cup race, there is also action on the track.

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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.

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NASCAR Sprint Cup practice – stalking the garage

During this years NASCAR race weekend activities I vowed to produce images that were somewhat different from what I had typically produced in the past, which was clean shots of cars on track. Having said that, most of my time was spent hanging out in the garage area and looking for interesting photographs of the drivers or crew’s preparing the cars for qualifying and racing action.

02 March 2012: Matt Kenseth (17) waits in his car before a practice session for the SUBWAY Fresh Fit 500 Sprint Cup Series Race at Phoenix International Raceway in Avondale Arizona.

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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:

2012 Lucas Oil Off Road Series Racing Round 1 – Friday practice and qualifying

Lately all my posts have been very random, out of event sequence and somewhat disconnected, so in keeping with the randomness of things I thought I would put up a quick peek at some of the 2012 Lucas Oil Off Road Series racing trucks.

The 2012 Lucas Oil Off Road Series racing season kicked off with some new trucks, some new drivers and some new sponsors, but all the dirt slinging fun remains the same. Here are a few images from the round 1 Friday practice and qualifying session. I’m sure you won’t want to miss the upcoming posts with more coverage from the round 1 and 2 racing action.

CHANDLER, AZ – MAR 30: Carl Renezeder (1) at speed in Pro 4 Unlimited Lucas Oil Off Road Series racing qualifying on March 30, 2012 at Firebird International Raceway in Chandler, AZ.

Carl Renezeder has partnered with Nissan once again and his new truck looks really fast.

To see the rest of the LOORS Fri. practice session images click on 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.

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Hit me up on Facebook or Google + and tell me what kind of things you would like me to post.

2011 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series – Kobalt Tools 500 from Phoenix International Raceway – part 2

When we last left our hero’s they were hurtling at break-neck speeds towards their doom . . .   Oh wait, that’s not right. Both Tony and Carl were fighting tooth and nail for every inch of track position they could get. That sounds more like where we left our story.

At this point it was anybody’s guess who would win, Tony is a proven champion, but Carl has won here in Phoenix in both his Nationwide car and in his Sprint Cup car, and all on the same weekend.

See the rest of the story by clicking on 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: