Winter Doldrums or Brief Hiatus?

Acura Leaves Team Penske Next Season

Now all the major North American racing series have wrapped up their seasons and the 12 Hours of Sebring just concluded the wackiest year in memory for major motorsports series in America. Sadly I couldn't shoot at Sebring this month but next March is a possibility since it fits into my teaching calendar better. I have photographer friends who were in Florida for Sebring so I just enjoyed their photos and the television coverage of this year's delayed IMSA sports car classic. Ironically, Sebring was the last major United States race of 2020 and was one of the first races postponed this year by the coronavirus. It was great to see long-time Penske Indycar driver Helio Castroneves finally win a season championship, even though it was in sports cars. He'll be back in Indycar next year with Meyer Shank Racing for six races including the Indy 500 to go after that elusive fourth 500 win which would elevate Helio to legendary status along with AJ Foyt, Al Unser, Sr. and Rick Mears.

Mazda finally won an endurance race 

I am working on scheduling race assignments for next year which might include the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona at the end of January. That would be an awesome start for 2021 and it would be my fourth Rolex since 2014. Given how virus cases are spiking across the country right now, I must say I'm a little skeptical that the Rolex will be held without restrictions on fans, media or both. Shooting at Daytona would mean a short hiatus for me from racing which I would dearly love, but like seemingly everything else these days, planning must remain flexible so I won't be booking any flights or hotel rooms anytime soon. Watching Mazda win at Sebring over the weekend was satisfying since the marque has consistently had beautiful machines since joining the prototype ranks in 2014, which was ironically the first year I shot the Rolex 24. Even though I'm personally a Honda/Acura guy, I've had several of my Mazda prototype photos used in Autosport Japan magazine so they hold a special place in my heart.

Will Tony Kanaan return to the 500  in 2021?

I have three main goals for my 2021 racing photography. First, shoot the Indy 500 again. To do so, I need a team or media assignment and I will be in hot pursuit of that the next few months. Second, I must get back to the 24 Hours of LeMans, preferably as a credentialed photographer, but that will take some work. Absent credentials, if travel to Europe is allowed, then I will go as a spectator anyway as I know plenty of places where I can still get photos of this epic event. On top of that, I have friends in France now that I'm dying to see again. Third, I'd like to continue my relationship with the ARCA Menards Series in support of their marketing efforts and hope to do more than the one race I got to shoot this year

LeMans is calling with echoes of 2017

I have other photography goals for next year, including doing more assignments for Speedway Illustrated magazine and promoter Track Enterprises that I hope will involve dirt track races in USAC or other open wheel series. Of the seven races I shot this year, four were on dirt tracks and I loved them. They took me back to when I first started shooting races but more importantly, they reminded me of how my love of racing was originally sparked by my Grandpa Jay Shue at the fairgrounds track in Warsaw, Indiana before I was even in kindergarten.

My other photography goals involve branching out into other ventures. I've already put some of those into place by contributing stock photos to Adobe Stock, setting up a retail store on my Alleygroup website, and creating artistic content for sale on the website Fine Art America. Along with my photo work, I have a non-fiction book that I've been working on especially hard during this pandemic that I should have more announcements about very soon. If you are a regular reader of this blog and would like to among the first to get those announcements, I am starting to build an email list so please let me know if you'd like to be added to the list. Until next time, please visit the store on my website and order some unique photo products - just in time for Christmas! Thanks!

All Eyes on 2021

 

Kody Swanson was quickest in Silver Crown at LOR

My last blog post was looking ahead to the 104th Running of the Indianapolis 500 and deferring to friends who got to shoot the race. Afterward, I saw lots of amazing photos from my photographer friends who were allowed to cover the race on August 23rd. Unfortunately, I was not at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway that weekend but I was able to watch and listen to the race. Most importantly I got the opportunity to shoot two USAC Silver Crown races as bookends on the weekend. I was really happy to see Takuma Sato win his second Indy 500 and I know my friends at Autosport Japan magazine were too. When Taku won in 2017, they used a lot of my photos so this year I could have perhaps had another nice payday with his win. It was not meant to be, however, so we move on and that's what I've done.

Kody Swanson set quick time in Pro 2000 also

 As it turned out, I got to see lots of great racing over the weekend after all, on two very different kinds of race tracks. They got my creative juices flowing and with my family having the ability to finally have a memorial service honoring my late Father on Saturday, the whole weekend brought a sense of closure and peace about all the loss I've dealt with this year personally and professionally. Added to the two other recent races I shot at Terre Haute at The Action Track, the two around Indy 500 weekend brought my total for the year up to four races photographed. That's a far cry from what I worked in 2019, but it's still way better than nothing. The first event of the weekend was Friday night August 21st at the paved 5/8ths mile oval at Lucas Oil Raceway and featured the USAC Silver Crown cars and the Road to Indy F2000 and Pro 2000 series. Sunday the Silver Crown series moved to the venerable one-mile dirt track at the Indiana State Fairgrounds for the Hoosier 100, a legendary open wheel race which at one point had been canceled by the State. I've been shooting races at both these tracks since I started in motorsports photography in the 1980s. It's still a thrill to stand next to the guardrail as the Silver Crown beasts roar past me just inches away and fling dirt all over me and my camera gear. That never gets old.

Kyle Larson set fast time and took the win

I have to give a big shout-out to my friends at Track Enterprises, the promoter of both events, who I had gotten to know during the years I served as Chief Photographer for the ARCA Menards Series. They made it possible for me to shoot both these events. I was joined by my former ARCA colleague Rich Corbett at the Hoosier 100 who got some spectacular shots of two accidents on the backstretch. Both events gave me the chance to shoot night racing, to work more on my flash photography, and try some experimental photos that I might not normally get to do when I am concentrating on editorial and documentation style photos. Ironically, the Hoosier 100 was the first time that former NASCAR driver Kyle Larson had raced in Indianapolis since his now infamous utterance of a racial slur during a virtual race earlier this year. I am not condoning his use of racially derogatory language in any way. Seeing him sling that Silver Crown car around on the dirt was a sight to behold. I know Kyle has applied to be reinstated by NASCAR and I hope there is a thorough vetting of his application. As a motorsports photographer, having Kyle race on the Indy mile was newsworthy so I made sure I got photos.

Back to racing at the Fairgrounds again!

Being able to get back to racing of some sort was a real Godsend for me. This has frankly been a shitty year for me in many ways and it has affected my outlook on life and my relationships with people around me. Call it grieving or depression or whatever, it sucked and these races, along with my Dad's service, and some counseling help through my EAP at work, have helped me turn the corner on a year of emotional turmoil. Being in a high-risk group during the Covid-19 pandemic has added a layer of anxiety that just won't seem to go away but if you really know me then you know how important my photography work, especially in motorsports, is to me. If you think it's fun hobby that I dabble in then you really don't know me at all. I'm still in good shape physically, I have proven what I can do for more than 30 years, and I will travel. I just need an assignment and I will be there.

Pro 2000 at LOR reflections

This blog post title refers to what's next for me. I don't have any idea. I'm still going to be teaching full time as I have a few more things to accomplish in that field before I am ready to retire. Rest assured I will be taking photos, whether it's increasing my stock photo offerings, boosting my social media presence, ramping up my sites with Canon and Adobe, or contributing to Google Maps. I expect to be looking for new opportunities in motorsports and will be back shooting the Indy 500 next year for some media outlet. I also plan to return to LeMans but it is not clear what MPS Agency plans to do in 2021. The help and assistance of my friends in France at MPS will never be forgotten and I look forward to seeing all of them again next June. As crazy as this year has been, I am certain that next year will be exactly the opposite. When I said, I had turned the corner, that last statement says it all. See you at a racetrack somewhere soon. When you see me, be sure and say hi. I'll take your picture.

Finally: A Race to Photograph

USAC Sprint Cars at Terre Haute

After what has seemed like an eternity, I finally got a race to photograph this week and I feel better already.

The coronavirus pandemic has wreaked havoc on every kind of event and motorsports has by no means been exempt. My entire year's plans went up in smoke when the pandemic quarantine was initiated back in March and until Wednesday night July 29th, I had not been to a race since the ARCA Menards Series finale at Kansas Speedway last October 18th. That's 285 days without a race car photo. For someone like me who thrives on the excitement and creative joy of shooting races, that is a record-setting duration to do without. Thanks to the fine folks at racing promoter Track Enterprises and the help of Speedway Illustrated magazine, I made it to the Terre Haute Action Track for Round 4 of the USAC Indiana Sprint Week Wednesday night so I no longer suffer from a dearth of 2020 racing photos. At least I got something, but I have to say I felt a little rusty and out of sorts.

The view from outside Turn 3 at Terre Haute

Last year I worked a total of 21 race events and for Terre Haute to be my first of 2020 at the end of July is almost unbelievable. Terre Haute is less than a 200 mile round trip from my home in Indianapolis, and it turned out to be my very first trip to the Action Track, although I have known of its existence for decades. I'm not sure why I had never been there before but I'm so glad I finally got to shoot a race there. It's a nice little fairgrounds track which is a true oval since there are two looping corners connected by two straightaways in its half-mile length. The clay smelled fabulous and I didn't mind getting pelted by some flying bits of mud when I was shooting on the outside during hot laps.

Ve rapido!

It's been awhile since I've shot a dirt sprint car race and I will never cease to be amazed by how those drivers throw those non-winged sprinters into the turns. They say you have to know how to turn right to go left on dirt and some of these guys were flicking their machines sideways at the start-finish line and flying into turn one completely sideways! The sound those USAC sprint cars make was music to my ears, as the drivers blipped the throttle to help set the car into its slide and then drove through the corners mainly with the gas peddle. I love seeing the drivers work in the cockpit too since they are sawing at the wheel seemingly all the way around the track on the very edge of being out of control. Perhaps most amazing was the fact that there were 42 cars entered and there was not a single flip or wall contact all evening.

A unique push vehicle!

So where did my feeling rusty come into play? As with anything else, practice and repetition are necessary to hone any skill and shooting motorsports is no different. I had a hard time getting my camera and my Canon app on my phone to communicate so I was unable to send out photos to social media until the evening was almost over. I managed to get two photos downloaded and posted, but it was a good exercise to remind me of the steps that are needed for the technology to work properly. I also struggled getting my flash set up to work the way I wanted it to since the lighting during the feature was not very good. Shooting night racing in those conditions has always been a challenge and I never invested in a big Norman flash unit, so I needed the practice. I got it figured out as the night wore on so by the time race winner Justin Grant climbed on top of his car in victory lane, I was in good shape. Shooting during the daylight hours was like riding a bicycle. I was back in the groove almost immediately and happy to have the opportunity.

Beautiful Indiana clay in Vigo County

Before I went to Terre Haute, I had posted on social media that I was going back to my roots at a dirt track, and there were multiple times I thought of my grandfather and the little dirt track he helped get constructed at the Kosciusko County Fairgrounds in Warsaw, Indiana. My Grandpa Jay Shue, my namesake, was on the County Fair Board and started taking me to the races when I was four years old, so the feeling I get now when I feel the clay on my face is the same I got when I was a toddler. I have come home again.

I have no idea what the rest of 2020 will entail for me in racing photography, but I am available for assignments! This year has already been the least busy one of my life as far as motorsports assignments are concerned. My staple has been the ARCA Menards Series the last five season but it's clear that the decision-makers there do not plan to use me for any races this year. It doesn't look like I will be among the few photographers who are fortunate enough to get media passes for the Indy 500 in three weeks. To top it all off, my dream of going back to LeMans in September was recently scuttled when my French friends learned they would be limited on credentials too, never mind the fact that flights from America to France are still highly restricted. People say the only constant in life is change and this year has sure served up a bunch!

My personal mantra for 2020 has been "Go Beyond" which I chose long before the Covid-19 pandemic reared its ugly head and that's exactly what I plan to do. Lots of other photographers have had to re-invent themselves so I am working hard to craft some breakout plans in new areas for the rest of this year and concentrate on new opportunities for the future. Maybe I'll see you at a racetrack or maybe I won't, but you can be damn sure I will be taking pictures. See you soon. Wear that mask! Most importantly, whatever you are doing be safe.

To see more photos from this race event, please check out this Google photo gallery.  

Winner Justin Grant

C. J. Leary on the rail in Turn 1

And they're on it!

Getting down and dirty!

DuQuoin Doubly Delightful Under The Lights

The picturesque DuQuoin State Fair track has a lake in the infield

I was able to make up for the Springfield rainout of the USAC Silver Crown race two weeks ago by adding the DuQuoin round for the series to my ARCA duties this past weekend. The weather was perfect Saturday for the loud and fast open wheelers to do their thing under the lights on the hard southern Illinois clay. And they put on one helluva show as ageless Jeff Swindell led for much of the race before Chris Windom passed him for the win with less than 2 laps to go in the Ted Horn 100. There was only one incident for the whole race, which in itself was amazing considering how close these guys run with one another,. It is hard to beat the thrill of standing next to the guardrail taking photographs as they race by you just inches away. Oh my, how I love that feeling! The "Magic Mile" definitely earned its nickname Saturday night.

AJ Fike  (3) ran in the top five all night until he got a flat tire on the last lap

Only one USAC competitor was doing the DuQuoin double last weekend as AJ Fike has run almost a full time ARCA schedule this year in addition to taking in selected Silver Crown races. I love being able to see guys like AJ show off their versatility and then have the chance to talk to them in the hotel elevator late at night to get their take on how things went. This weekend was my first shooting an ARCA event since the series added my name to the staff page on its website as "Chief Photographer" and I think that helped me gain credential access through the nice folks at Track Enterprises for the USAC portion of the DuQuoin weekend. Back in the 1990's, a bunch of us used to come over from Indy to DuQuoin for the Silver Crown race when guys like Tony Stewart, Johnny Parson, Jr. and George "Ziggy" Snider were regulars in the series so this was my first time shooting Silver Crown here in years. Those races were usually hard fought affairs and this year's version was no different. And they raced close and clean all night. Imagine that! If you want to see more of my Silver Crown photos, then follow this link.

Ryan Unzicker looked like a winner but couldn't maintain the pace

The next day was ARCA's day to headline on the mile dirt and the weather was noticeably hotter than it had been on Saturday. Thankfully we did not have a "stupid-thirty" meeting at the track, as I heard someone describe it, and I was able to eat a good breakfast at the hotel before driving back the 40 or so miles to the track. The track was in good shape and unlike at Springfield, we were able to maintain the planned schedule of practice, qualifying and racing. I went outside Turns 1 and 4 during our practice session to get shots of the cars running ass-end out through the corners, so naturally I got a nice dusting of fine Illinois clay on my cameras, face and clothes.

Overheating was a serious problem and it ruined Grant Enfinger's race

The expected onslaught during the race from the local dirt track "ringers" did not disappoint as Ryan Unzicker and Kelly Kovski both looked like potential race winners throughout the day and the ARCA regulars knew they were in for a dogfight all night. Last year's ARCA champion Grant Enfinger appeared to have the field covered until a blocked radiator caused his engine to overheat which knocked him out of the race just past half distance. Late in the race, veteran Tom Hessert caught Kovski after a restart and passed him for the lead when Kovski got bogged down by a lapped car with less than five laps remaining. Kovski lost momentum and dropped back which allowed Kenny Schrader to put his Venturini Motorsports machine into second. Schrader was dogging Hessert until Kenny's own team driver, Matt Kerzejewski, spun on the white flag lap to bring out a caution and set up a one lap shootout. Quite a few eyebrows were raised when that happened but Hessert took the outside line on the restart and motored away to the win with Kovski taking second and Schrader third ahead of points leader Chase Briscoe who was penalized for jumping the last restart.

Tom Hessert and the Venturini Motors gang were ecstatic with the win

All in all it was a great two days at the race track and the Silver Crown race was kind of a bonus shooting day for me but it really helped me get ready for the ARCA race since last year we ran in the daytime and I wanted to check out the lighting. Now we go to Salem Speedway this Saturday for the 100th ARCA race at the rugged, high banked half mile in southern Indiana. This is the track where I really started to appreciate the ARCA series back in 2006 and I've been going religiously ever since. I've got some good friends down there and the racing is always fierce. Chris Bell is entered to defend his win in this year's spring race, Frank Kimmel will be in Cunningham's 22 car, and Bobby Allison will be there along with a host of other former ARCA winners at Salem. It should be another long day but it will be a blast. Until then, check out more of my photos from DuQuoin at this link.

The infield lake at DuQuoin makes a nice reflection of the Josh Williams machine driven by Michael Lira in his first dirt race

Berlin to Springfield: ARCA Versatility on Display

2015 Series Champion Grant Enfinger (23)  led at the start last year

It's been a couple weeks since I worked the ARCA race at the Berlin Raceway short track in Michigan, and I have not written anything about that trip yet. Today I break that silence as I look ahead to this weekend's road trip to Springfield, Illinois for Sunday's 100 lapper on the Illinois State Fair mile dirt track. The weekend also includes the USAC Silver Crown series with its own 100 lapper Saturday. With Bryan Clauson's recent death, it will be good to be with my racing friends on a dirt track this weekend and I will have two races to shoot and much more to write about.  I know I will see lots of photographers and racers this weekend who are still grieving for Bryan so it will be good therapy to be together and share stories with one another.

AJ Fike taking the checkered flag in 2015

This will be my second consecutive trip to Springfield as my brother and I did the weekend together last year. That was great as it was our first opportunity to spend time together after our mother's funeral the previous month. He can't make it this year so this will be another solo trip for me, albeit a relatively short one of only a couple hundred miles from Indy. Prior to last year, I had never seen ARCA race on dirt and of course the guys with dirt track experience were at the front. AJ Fike got the win after also racing the previous day in the Silver Crown event. AJ is doing the double again this year and should have a chance to be a repeat winner for ARCA and maybe even win both races. That would be quite a story. He'll have some stout competition in current ARCA points leader Chase Briscoe whose main experience before this year was in USAC dirt sprint cars! I can't wait to see that. There will also be a few other dirt track "ringers" entered so it should be highly competitive!

Corn dogs and crispy fries are on the menu this weekend

Springfield is one of two dirt tracks that ARCA runs each year and they are both in Illinois. We go to DuQuoin Labor Day weekend to run the mile dirt track there under the lights so that should be quite a spectacle. One of the big selling points of the ARCA series is the variety of tracks on the schedule. No other major national stock car series can match ARCA in that regard and ARCA has been doing it for over 60 years. Daytona and Talladega superspeedways are early season stops. Flat paved short tracks such as Berlin are  mixed in with the high banked asphalt bullrings like Winchester and Salem. We race on two mile dirt tracks this month and then the season winds down with races at intermediate tracks Chicagoland, Kentucky and the season finale at Kansas.

Ageless dirt track veteran Kenny Schrader will be back with ARCA this weekend

The ARCA series loves to boast about staying connected to its roots by continuing to race on dirt which is understandable. In NASCAR, only the truck series has taken the plunge with a single one-off race at Tony Stewart's Eldora Speedway in Ohio. I like the fact that these dirt tracks take me back to my roots as well, since my love of racing got started on a little dirt track in Warsaw, Indiana at the Kosciusko County Fair that my Grandpa Jay helped get built. All over the Midwest there are fairgrounds with dirt tracks which were originally horse tracks that sometimes host auto or motorcycle races. Someone had a template for the State Fair tracks way back when too as the mile dirt tracks at Springfield and DuQuoin are carbon copies of the one in Indianapolis at the Indiana State Fair. In my early days as a motorsports photographer, we went to DuQuoin on a regular basis for the Silver Crown race and I've shot the Hoosier 100 numerous times at Indy, not to mention shooting at lots of other smaller dirt track races at places like Kokomo and Putnamville through the years. So going to Springfield almost feels like coming home, and it's a double header weekend so I get to have twice the fun. It couldn't get much better than that!

Dalton Sargeant got a kiss from Big Bill at Berlin after his first win

While my focus in this post has been on this coming weekend, I would be remiss if I didn't say something about the Berlin race as it turned out to be quite a thriller. The ARCA series points leader Chase Briscoe was going after his fifth straight win and it came down to a dogfight between him and Josh Williams. Josh had already won twice this season and was the only other driver besides Chase with more than one win and you know he wanted another to help close the gap in the points race. Josh was leading inside 20 laps to go and Chase was driving the wheels off his #77 Cunningham entry trying to catch Josh, bouncing it off the wall on the front stretch once that I saw, and finally making a pass stick. But it lasted all of two corners as Josh fought back on the inside going into Turn 3 and they made contact with both going off track. Josh got the worst of the contact and was unable to finish the race. Chase had damage on the front of his car and dropped back so rookie Dalton Sargeant ended up getting a gift wrapped victory for Venturini Motorsports, becoming another first time ARCA Series winner in the process.

Chase Briscoe (77) and Josh Williams went after each other at Berlin

So that's where we stand going into this weekend. You really should come out and see all the young talented drivers that race in ARCA now since many of them won't be here for long as they move up the ladder in the racing world. I know I sound like a broken record when I say that, but now's the time to get to meet these kids and help them on their way by being a part of their fan base from the early days. And you have to love how excited they are when they win! See you at Springfield! 

In the meantime here's a link to a photo gallery from my work for ARCA at Berlin: https://goo.gl/photos/TsWeurmCoHZjWWR8A

Next Up: ARCA Goes For More Dirt at DuQuoin

ARCA Races on Dirt Twice Every Season

After a week away from the race track and another trip to Akron to work on my Mom's house, another doubleheader weekend awaits: a follow-up trip to Akron to deal with some legal matters on Mom's estate, then back to Indy, then off to southwest Illinois to work another ARCA race on dirt. Two weeks ago, it was the Springfield mile dirt at the Illinois State Faigrounds and now its the other Illinois Fairgrounds mile dirt at DuQuoin. I haven't been to this racetrack since the early 90's when Tony Stewart, Chuck Gurney, Johnny Parson, Jr., Ziggy Snider and that bunch were racing USAC Silver Crown so I am looking forward to shooting for ARCA on their second (and final) dirt track of the 2015 season. While I was also able to shoot Silver Crown at Springfield, I won't be able to do that particular double at DuQuoin since USAC runs Sunday and that's just too short of a turnaround after returning from Akron on Saturday.

Steve & I can't get to many races together these days

I really miss shooting dirt track racing so getting to work both Springfield and DuQuoin have helped rekindle my love for that style of motorsports. The contrast between the Silver Crown and ARCA races at Springfield wasn't as great as I had expected as most drivers in both series preferred the low line right against the guardrail. The SIlver Crown guys were faster in their lighter machines and would experiment with sliding sideways and riding the cushion on occasion but the heavier stock cars definitely liked the hard packed clay up against the rail. And man did I ever love leaning on the guardrail shooting as the racers flew by inches away from my feet! My brother made the trip with me to Springfield and he had never experienced the roar and thunderous vibration of racing so close that it shook your insides, so it was great to share that experience with him. He's back in Arizona now so this weekend's road trip to DuQuoin will be a solo trip although my son is going with me to Akron, so I will be racking up some more road miles across the Midwest this Labor Day weekend.

Kody Swanson took a 2nd Straight Springfield Silver Crown Win

It was so much fun to be there on Saturday for the Silver Crown race, even though I only really knew one of the drivers: AJ Fike, who has been full time in ARCA this year and runs a heavy Silver Crown schedule. I recognize a lot of the USAC drivers but they don't know me, so one of the first things my brother and I did when we got there was go talk to AJ. I didn't realize it at the time, but Fike has won twice at Springfield in Silver Crown and it was fun sharing the ARCA connection with my brother. Wouldn't you know it, AJ went on to win the ARCA 100-miler on Sunday after hanging on to what looked like a bucking bronco Silver Crown car on Saturday. My brother and I had a blast just hanging out taking pictures Saturday and we were able to go where we wanted with the $35 pit passes we bought. A slideshow of photos from the Silver Crown action follows this post.

The field takes the green after very little track time

The ARCA races at Springfield and DuQuoin are one day shows, with a single practice session followed by qualifying and then the race. There's lots to get done in a short period of time and a rainy mist cut short the only practice session and qualifying was cancelled altogether, so the field was set based on owner points. The track looked like a muddy mess about 2 hours before the race was supposed to start but the Fairgrounds crew got out the road graders, scraped off the top layer of mud, and once the sun came out, the track was ready to go, and ARCA was motivated to start on time since the race was being carried live on CBS Sports Network. It turned out to be a beautiful day and I hustled all over that track during the 100 lap race to get shots from a variety of angles. For just my first time at Springfield, I was really glad I had the chance to scope everything out on Saturday as it paid dividends Sunday during the ARCA race and made my job easier.

ARCA Points Leader Grant Enfinger

The ARCA season is winding down now with only four races left to crown a season champion and Grant Enfinger would appear to be the favorite to capture the series title, which would be his first. There have been ten first-time ARCA winners this season so anything can happen, especially with some dirt track "ringers" on the entry list for DuQuoin. After this weekend, only the fall race at high banked Salem Speedway, and races at intermediate tracks Kentucky Speedway and Kansas Speedway will settle the points for the year. By that time, I will have been ARCA's photographer for 14 out of 20 races on the schedule this season and I love that I continue to learn every time out. Shooting the series has given me the chance to experiment with some things and get to know the teams and drivers, which has been very rewarding. It looks like I will get the chance to do much the same schedule in 2016. I will also be shooting the season ending championship awards banquet for the third year in a row in Indianapolis in December as well.

If you read my blog regularly, then you know I write about my journey as a motorsports photographer, and this year has been one wild ride, especially the last two months. When you mix in my Mom's death at the beginning of July, the tragic death of Indycar driver Justin Wilson last weekend which brought up all kinds of feelings of grief and loss related to my Mom's death, and the stress of starting a new teaching job at the beginning of August, I have been feeling emotionally spent lately. Driving a UHaul back from Mom's this past Sunday was especially hard as I knew there wouldn't be many more trips back to Akron, and I felt like I was hauling her life along with me in the items I was bringing back to Indy. It's all part of the transition to whatever is next and I knew I was being taken care of on the road as I saw 7 gorgeous hawks along US 30 West, all perched on fence posts facing the highway, and then an eagle flew over me on I-70 back in Indiana about 50 miles from home. The universe speaks to me in these ways and you can call me crazy if you want, but we are all connected in the spirit world and these sightings were not coincidental.

But I keep going because that's what I do. And I try to channel whatever I'm feeling through my creative efforts behind the camera, in Adobe Lightroom, through this blog and through journaling I do which is not for public consumption. Why? I can't not do it. It's who I am. If you know me, then this is no surprise but I don't let many people outside my close friends and family know me that deeply, so if you take all these things together, then my messages to the universe may begin to make a little more sense. But then again, maybe not. Just come out to the racetrack and join me so we can share the passion and talk awhile. Until then, I hope you enjoy these photos.

The Past is Prelude to the Future

Teo Fabi in Turn 2 at Indy in a Porsche - 1989

One of my usual off season projects involves organizing a boatload of digital image files from the previous year and digitizing another boatload of slides and negatives from races shot long ago. I shot my first Indy 500 for UPI in 1984 when just about to turn 27 with only a little more than a year under my belt shooting with a Canon A1 and a T70. I wanted to shoot racing so bad back then - and I still do. The funny thing about looking at my early film work is seeing all the crappy pictures I shot while my learning curve was Everest steep. In hindsight, of course I learned photography the hard way by just shooting lots of film and slides, reading lots of books and never taking a class or getting any kind of formal training. Even while looking at a number of shots which were underexposed, soft, wrong shutter speed, poorly framed, etc., it was still fun looking at images that I had not looked at in years.

The beautiful Nissan Camel GT machine at Columbus, Ohio 1988

But there were some gems among the thousands of frames. Mind you, I have three-ring binders filled with Tri-x and Ilford black and white negatives, Fujicolor and Kodak color film negatives, Fujichrome, Ektachrome and Kodachrome slides, that no one but me will ever see. But I can still learn from those. Going through these old shots has also made me think of all the little notebooks I used where I kept track of every roll I shot: film type, subject matter, lighting, time of day, camera settings. Nowadays almost all of that info is in the Metadata of digital files, and it's there for anyone to study. I'm glad I learned photography the way I did, and it's amazing now to think of all the things that went wrong when I was still sorting out the basics. Yet I still managed to get photos, and that has been the enduring legacy of my work with a camera, especially in motorsports: I bring back pictures.

My first year with a decent camera was 1983 - this was taken in Broad Ripple that summer

That learning process seems laborious now but it was just the beginning of my education by camera. I used to talk to any photographer who would put up with my questions. I examined and studied photos in print and kept file folders filled with shots torn from newspapers and magazines.  If I was at an event where other photographers were working but I wasn't, I watched them work and tried to imagine myself in their shoes. I still do that, and although I don't keep as close track on my settings as I used to, I still keep notebooks and fill them with lessons learned from shooting now in the digital age. Many purists love to talk about using film as the "good old days", but I much prefer digital. Not only can you see immediately whether you "got the shot" or not, the images are so much crisper and filled with detail than film ever was in my opinion.

My first race other than Indy was F1 in Detroit 1984

Even as a committed digital shooter, I find that much of what I learned in the early days has become applicable again, and I re-learned that from shooting for wire services like Associated Press and for the ARCA stock car series. I am much more conscious of being efficient with my images and not shooting millions of pictures. This means I don't just lay on the shutter release button and blast away - anyone can do that. I have gone back to really visualizing images in my mind's eye before I pull the trigger and it has helped my photography immensely. No one has time now to edit thousands of images looking for the perfect shot. There's no such thing anyway, as the idea in today's media market is to tell the story with pictures and get them out there before anyone else. While it is a little different working for ARCA, as the series has a variety of objectives for me to meet to support their competitors, timeliness is still essential so my own editing process has become more efficient as well. Perhaps the biggest lesson I have learned through the years is to watch those backgrounds! No poles sprouting from peoples' heads, and by no means are portalets ever to be seen behind your main subject! Those get trashed right away.

Paul Newman racing at Mid Ohio in Trans Am - 1988

The shooting environment has changed immensely since I first started aiming a camera at fast, loud, shiny things with wheels. At road courses like Mid Ohio, there were no tall catch fences and you could really get up close with unobstructed vantage points which made shooting easier without credentials. On the other hand, there were plenty of times where we raced back to Indy from Michigan or Mid Ohio to turn our film in at the Indianapolis Star so it could get souped for the next morning's edition, so the travel demands sometimes made up for the ease of access in an inverse sort of way. But those were fun trips too as several of us would ride together and we knew we were the Star's crew for that event. I still have a lot of my old credential approval letters from those days and think back on the excitement of those road trips when I was first getting started.

The esses at Mid Ohio for the CART race in 1983 - up close and personal

Of course the track I know best is Indianapolis, since that is where I started. I've shot more races there than anywhere else and shooting there has changed immensely too. As a turn shooter (the starting point for most stringers), there used to be a photographer every ten feet in the corners - and that was just on practice days! Then there were the characters. Guys who would drink beer all day long but never seemed to miss a crash. The tall guy with the stereo camera who always seemed to want to stand in front of you. The fellow who borrowed all of his gear from Canon and brought it out to Turn 2 in a paper grocery sack - I don't think I ever saw him look through the viewfinder. But the best was the guy in Turn 3 who had two cameras mounted on a small platform that was propped up from his chest, one loaded with color and the other with black and white film, and both focused on the same spot on the wall in the impact zone. The mantra was f8 at 1000 so you hoped depth of field would help you out, and the inevitable cry afterwards was "did you get it?" People who have only shot digital have no idea what it is like to hold the last 12 frames on a roll of 36 just in case something happened. At least then you had about two seconds of film at five frames a second so you really had to be ready when the moment came to shoot that spinning race car in front of you.

Emerson Fittipaldi  and I were both rookies at Indy in 1984

Then of course your batteries would die. Or you discovered later that the film leader didn't get picked up properly and all your shots were on the first frame since the film didn't advance. Or the tall guy stepped in front of you at just the wrong moment. Or you spun the focus ring the wrong way in the heat of the moment so your images got softer rather than sharper as the sequence unfolded. Back then I hoped to get a good shot on one out of every five or six images I took. Now I just delete the bad ones before anyone else has a chance to see them so the majority look like winners. 

When I started this post, I had no idea where it would lead me, although I had a feeling that I would end up coming full circle in terms of my photography lessons. That's why the post is titled the way it is. For now, I leave you with a few more images from my archives and look forward to going to Atlanta at the end of the month to get my 2015 racing season underway. Godspeed to you all. Go make some pictures!

The late Jim Crawford, Turn 2 Indianapolis 1987

Hugging the rail at the Hoosier 100 USAC race in 1988

Street racing at Columbus, Ohio in the mid -1980s

Go karts in Noblesville's Forest Park in 1987 - another chance to practice