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.

To see more exciting NASCAR action click the continue reading link below:

Hot sun, hot fun, sweat and dust at another weekend of Lucas Oil Off Road Series racing

The Lucas Oil Off Road series racing crew rolled into Surprise Arizona for round 11 and 12 of this fun-filled, hot, dusty action at Speedworld, and I was lucky enough to be there to try to capture the intensity and excitement.

I love covering LOORS (Lucas Oil Off Road Series) racing, although it’s tough on camera equipment, lots of dust and dirt, as well as hot, bright sun and sweaty, sunscreen covered faces pressed into the viewfinder and on the LCD screen.

To see more hot sweaty images from the weekend’s racing, click the more button below.

Lucas Oil Off Road Video

I covered the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series – April 15-17, 2011 Speedworld Off Road Park, Surprise Arizona and talked about shooting some video during the weekend. I am finally able to share that video with you here.

As mentioned in the following post: MORE Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series – April 16, 2011 Speedworld Off Road Park, Surprise Arizona  I split my duties capturing stills and shooting video and learned a great deal about what to do next time I try shooting video.

Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series – April 15-17, 2011 Speedworld Off Road Park, Surprise Arizona

Holly cow, that’s a long title. I’ve got a bunch of Motorsports posts and a few different events to catch my viewers up on so let me start with some Lucas Oil Off Road racing from Surprise Arizona. Speedworld Off Road Park in Surprise Arizona hosted rounds 3 and 4 of the Lucas Oil Off Road Series (LOORS) and this was the first time covering an event at this track. A great facility with an interesting and exciting track as well a lots of great shooting positions. I spent the weekend trying out different shooting positions and angles for the best light, cleanest backgrounds and best shots. I’m still working the bugs out of shooting at this track but here is a sampling of the images I captured during Friday’s practice and Saturday’s round 3 action.

Friday’s mid-morning practice session had me shooting through the fence and in harsh-bright-sunlight so I tried some cross-processing on this shot of Brian Deegan (38) putting the power down.

See more dirt-slinging action photos by clicking on the more link below.

NASCAR images for your viewing pleasure

Everyone is deep into basketball and baseball this time of year so I thought I would post some Motorsports images for my viewers. I’m sure putting “for your pleasure” in the title will get me a few views, but maybe people who use the search phrase “for your pleasure” aren’t exactly my target demographic.

I enjoy shooting Motorsports and would like to shoot more. I enjoy a number of different types of Motorsports events and I am constantly trying to improve my shooting skills so here are a few shots for you to check out and comment on.

Here is a nice shot from 2010 of Brian Vickers siting in his car during practice for the SUBWAY Fresh Fit 600 Sprint Cup Series Race at Phoenix International Raceway in Avondale Arizona.

To see more great NASCAR images click the more link below.

Lucas Oil Off-Road Series Round 15 and Challenge Cup practice and qualifying on Dec. 10th, 2010 at Firebird

I don’t know if I mentioned it in my last post, but this was the first time I have shot off-road racing. There are a couple of other photographers in the area that shoot off-road stuff and I have looked at their work for inspiration, but no matter how hard I try my stuff still sort of just looks like “my” stuff. I guess over the years I have developed a “style” without really knowing just what “my style” is exactly.

I keep trying to capture good sellable images and maybe my images are more feature related or more journalistic in their approach or maybe I’m just winging it based on images I found interesting in the past.

Whatever the reasons, here are some more from the Motorsports mud-fest filled weekend.

I’ll post these at their big size because I think they have more impact that way. I call this one “flat-out sideways.”

See more muddy images after the jump.

NASCAR Nationwide Series – Wypall 200 Nov. 12, 2010 from Phoenix International Raceway

Wow, long headline. At least my long headline will help readers find my blog and images.

I didn’t get many views or comments on my truck race coverage, granted it was somewhat un-inspiring image-wise and the fans don’t seem to be very interested in the Camping World Truck series anyway, so I guess I shouldn’t expect too much.

The NASCAR Nationwide Series is a little bit more popular than the trucks even though a lot of the drivers are the same.

I still struggled a bit with my creativity on this set, in some cases resorting to just getting cars-on-track shots, but at least I tried to use shots with nice afternoon sunlight or flames coming from the exhaust. So, on with the show.

Some would say this was the Carl Edwards show, and rightly so as he was fast all day and took home the big prize.

Carl Edwards jumps out of his Copart car in victory lane.

See more images and the rest of the story by clicking on the more link below.

NASCAR Sprint Cup – SUBWAY Fresh Fit 600 April 10, 2010 Phoenix International Raceway Part 3

I wanted to finish off the NASCAR Sprint Cup SUBWAY Fresh Fit 600 images before I moved on to some other images, but it turns out I just have way too many images to post them all in one story.  I’ll post another group and hope you enjoy these images as much as I enjoyed shooting them.

During the opening laps of the race everything was getting a little mundane, with the cars just going around, and around. The cars were a bit bunched up and things were very exciting for us photographers because every time the group of cars came by a big cloud of dust and track debris would get sucked behind them and pelt us photographers and our gear which is a bit like being in a sandstorm/dust storm.

Click the link to read the rest of the story.

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.

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

Make no mistake this is a show on a grand scale, the coordination and production that go into this event is over the top.

Joey Logano’s No. 20 Home Depot Toyota comes off the hauler as the Sprint Cup teams arrive at Phoenix International Raceway.

See more images by clicking on the “More” link.