A few racing images from Florida

                I photographed a short track race at 5 Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Florida over the weekend. This was an especially neat event, a NASCAR K&N Pro Series East stock car race. It was the first time the series had raced at 5 Flags in quite a while.

During practice, I tried to get an image of every car so I would be
sure to have at least one shot of the winner.

          I have included a pair of action shots and a pair of infield racing life-type images.

          The first shot is a pan during a practice session. The car, driven by Ben Kennedy, eventually won the race. The high, bright sun made for challenging conditions because a pan shot like this one requires a slower shutter speed in order to blur the background and emphasize the speed of the car.

Shooting pans from the infield is more challenging than shooting from the outside of the track because of the angles involved. These images were captured with my Nikon D90.

Showing just the tires...

Safety is an important consideration when photographing something as fast and intense as racing because, in the heat of the moment, a photographer can make unwise moves while concentrating on the camera. I have used a photo buddy in the past to keep me rooted in the best spot. I have done the same for other photogs as well.

The next pair of images shows a perspective image. That’s a group of Goodyear Eagles, mounted and ready for use by the racing teams. See how the feel changes between the image showing only the tires and the next showing the Goodyear technician in the distance?

The addition of the human element is almost upsetting in the balanced image of

...and adding something extra.

the tires. But it is that difference that can make a nice shot a real good one. I’d recommend that any photographer shooting a perspective image try to capture images both with the simple balance of the perspective view and another image of the same setting with something different added. This is an excellent chance to experiment.

This next image is a shot of a restart in the middle of the race. There were very few cautions during this race and I didn’t spend much time on the front straight. Thus, I had to get this one right and its okay. It does show the hard, close nature of the racing in that series.

Restart.

 

 

Hope you enjoy racing and these images.

 

Thanks for reading.