Bucket List Daytona Rolex 24 Hours: Check!

In another week, if all goes as planned and the racing gods part the wintry Indiana weather and allow my plane to escape Indianapolis, I will be fulfilling another bucket list item on my racing photography journey:  The Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona. I have wanted to shoot this race for years and I am very fortunate to finally get the chance to do it with Associated Press. When I heard over a year ago that GrandAm and the American LeMans Series were going to merge, I targeted attending this 2014 edition of the Rolex grind. I knew it would be a historic event, the first for the combined series, now known as the TUDOR United Sportscar Series, and would include all the best teams and drivers from both series under one banner for the first time in over a decade. The only thing missing, it seems, will be the LeMans spec and all conquering Audi prototypes! But I will be there and that's all that matters to me right now.

As a numbers guy I looked over the entry list for this year's race (I teach algebra and geometry after all), this 24 promises an epic battle over four classes among 67 entries. A twitter friend @Shayzen has written a nice piece on all the open wheel drivers who will be racing next weekend, and I encourage you to check it out at her More Than A Fan site. By my count, there are roughly 30 drivers with ties to open wheel racing, including Indy Lights, Indycar and Formula 1. There are three teams entered with drivers "TBA" yet the entry list already boasts 242 drivers among the 67 cars entered! There's an all-Brazilian driver team (#65 Scuderia Corsa) that will wheel a Ferrari 458 Italia. There's another team, also using a Ferrari 458, with three Russian drivers, including the newest Indycar rookie, Mikhail Aleshin. Oddly enough there are only two drivers listed with NASCAR connections, and one of them is the hottest young guy in racing right now:  Kyle Larson. I could count Kyle as an open wheel guy too since he came up through USAC. It appears that lady racers outnumber the stock car boys as I noted 3 women drivers listed. Katherine Legge has arguably the plum job of the women entered:  co-piloting the radical Deltawing machine. Can't wait to see that machine at speed!

The Gainsco Red Dragon leads Wayne Taylor Racing at Barber in 2013

All of these men, women and machines are vying for the coveted Rolex watches which all the winners get. With 19 of the big prototypes and all the best North American sports car racers in attendance, the race will almost surely be a series of sprints between pitstops. The top protoype teams are still the ones people will recognize - Ganassi, Wayne Taylor Racing, Gainsco, Muscle Milk, Starworks, Michael Shank, Action Express - and they have most of the big names behind the wheel, as well as team cars in many cases so different strategies can be pursued. I think this 24 is wide open and I wouldn't be at all surprised if one of the Prototype Challenge teams made its way to the front and won. Winding their way through 40 GT cars will make for exciting racing. Then there's always the element of weather to add to the mix:  rain, cold, fog, etc., not to mention a grueling trek through over 12 hours of darkness where everyone is just trying to get to sunrise Sunday morning to hit the reset button and go for the win.

Scott Pruett

My pre-race favorite still has to be the Ganassi #01 entry with Scott Pruett as the lead driver. I have been wacthing Scott race since the glory days of Trans Am in the 80's and he knows how to win these endurance races, and so does the Ganassi team! But the 24 Hours is a truly global event with drivers, support personnel, engineers and crews representing countries throughout the industrialized world. I am so excited to have the chance to walk through the garage area and down pit lane to hear the cacophony of languages being spoken.

Patrick Dempsey

The universal language of speed will tie us all together, and I am hoping that this trip south will be both creative and fruitful. Sports car racing also has its share of star power and sometimes plays out like a hollywood script. If you saw the effort put in by Dempsey Racing at LeMans last year, then you know what I mean. And if the maze of car classes and acronyms for the new Tudor series makes your head spin like it does mine, then be sure to check out Tony DiZinno's blog post which likens sportscar racing to the periodic table of elements. Let's hope that the mixture of the GrandAm and ALMS elements this year is not too volatile, but then a race twice around the clock has the potential for just about anything to happen. I can't wait to get there and get to work! Until then, here's a few pix from my GrandAm and ALMS work the last couple of seasons to get you going. See you at Daytona.

One of the top GT teams, the Flying Lizard team colors will adorn an Audi R8 this season

Bruno Junquiera at Mid Ohio 2012; the Prototype Challenge class includes drivers like Alex Tagliani this year

Even with the demise of the P1 category, the Muscle Milk team should still be a contender for the overall win at Daytona

GT traffic will be heavy for the prototypes to negotiate in 2014

Magnus Racing with Andy Lally as the lead driver is a GT favorite every race

A second Ganassi entry at Daytona is loaded with Indycar driver talent - Scott Dixon and Tony Kanaan

New Year News: The Good & The Bad

New Year's Hawk 2014

One of the first things I saw out our front window this morning was a redtail hawk in the tree next to the driveway. I see these magnificent birds everywhere I go, especially while traveling as they perch on fence rows, in treetops and on electrical power poles. I even have a tattoo on my left shoulder of one from a photo I took several years ago. I always know I'm being watched over when I see a hawk. That's the good news.

This time I think he was a messenger of bad news. Soon after I saw him and took some photos, I checked Facebook and saw a post from a fellow photographer about the sudden passing of AP photographer Dave Martin who I had worked with at Talladega the last few years. Dave apparently collapsed after shooting the Chick-Fil-A bowl game in Atlanta, taking photos right to the end. I will miss him a bunch as he taught me so much about wire service photography and always treated me well when I would make the 500 mile trek to Talladega twice a year. I can't believe I am starting off the new year with a post about another photographer friend who has passed away, but then we are all getting older and I've been doing this for quite awhile myself so I suppose it is inevitable. If you want to know more about him then please read the AP "Big Story" article which I first saw on Facebook this morning.

Dave Martin

Dave's nickname was "Mullet", not for the hairstyle but for the "Mullet Festival" party he used to throw at his home, which apparently involved cooking mullet fish and then throwing fish guts at some point in the evening once the party really got rolling. I heard the whole story about the nickname this past October while hanging out with Dave, other AP staffers and photographers at dinner at the Tilted Kilt in Birmingham after a day's shooting at Talladega. The "Festival" earned some degree of notoriety for Dave and even made the television news one year in a segment about things to do in town that night. Quite a crowd showed up unexpectedly as you might imagine. And Dave was quite the storyteller so I will really miss his wit and wisdom. I admired him for knowing what he wanted to do and going after it. He told me about taking photography classes in a rigorous program in Florida where he got his start, and taking photos to the local paper and asking that they consider using them just so he could get images published.

Dave had a love-hate relationship with Talladega but he had been covering the races there for so long that it was not really surprising as there had been a lot of changes at the track, and not all of them had been favorable to the media. I loved his stories about Dale Earnhardt parking his motorhome right next to the AP building in the media area and sharing barbeque or gumbo with the legend. His stories about other photographers were priceless, and I especially loved the one about a stringer who was shooting a crash and in mid sequence turned to shoot a babe flashing her ta-tas in the infield and then finished the crash sequence without missing a beat. That sequence was in the days of film shooting so apparently the photo editor had quite a moment when he realized the infield babe pix were taken in the middle of the crash sequence. Another favorite story he would tell was about the infield drunk who stole the pace car before a NASCAR race at Dega and took it for a joy ride around the track with Alabama state troopers in pursuit. When he and the other AP veterans would share stories about shooting Super Bowls or covering the Olympics, I was spellbound. I knew when I went to Talladega that I would hear more stories and I always looked forward to that. I am saddened that I won't have that opportunity again with Dave. Dave was the first person I heard use the phrase "let's go make some pictures" and he would always talk about how important it was to tell the story of the event through our images. The post-race slideshows were a thing of beauty and I was always amazed at how quickly he would sift through everyone's images and pick the ones that told the story. Dave was also highly competitive, having lived through all the changes in the media industry during his career. He would emphasize being safe and doing our work in a way which would top the competition, going for quality over quantity every time.

As I thought about this news earlier today, I remembered thinking on my drive back from Talladega this past October that I needed to suggest to Dave that we take a group photo of all the AP photographers working the race next spring. I'm saddened that we won't get to do that with Dave; I wish I had thought of it sooner. We are most often behind the camera and perhaps he would have wanted it that way. It is with sympathy and condolences for Dave's wife, family and friends that I write this post. AP has lost a dedicated photographer and we have lost a friend.

RIP Mullet. I thank you for all that you've done for me. May God bless your soul and comfort your loved ones through their loss.

2013 Racing Reflections: A Photographer's Journey

Tony Kanaan finally got milk at the Indy 500

My 2013 racing photography season encompassed 22 races over 10 event weekends. I drove roughly 5500 miles to get to and from the racetracks. It started at the beginning of April and ended in late October. I shot for Associated Press, ARCA, motorsport.com and Salem Speedway. Untold thousands of images rang up on my Canon 7D and 40D. Best of all, I get to start all over again in less than four weeks when I go to Daytona to shoot the Rolex 24 Hours. Here are my top five memories of my 2013 season.

#1. While the images I shot were not all winners, my favorite moment of the entire season was getting to shoot Victory Lane at the Indianapolis 500. I've been in a lot of Victory Lanes over the years but never at the Indy 500. It was the most chaotic victory celebration I've ever shot as team owner Jimmy Vasser effectively blocked most shooters from getting Tony Kanaan's initial milk celebration and photographers were very upset. But I just happened to have the right angle to get Tony's face through Vasser's outstretched arms in the photo above and I kept shooting while others around me were yelling for Vasser to get out of the way. It was a crazy happy situation and I was glad to have had the opportunity to shoot for motorsport.com.

Austin Dillon goes airborne in Tony Stewart's #14 at Talladega

#2. My next most favorite moment of the year came at Talladega in October. The fall NASCAR weekend was quite a contrast to the one in the spring, as the weather was much more favorable and the races went off on time both days. I was shooting for Associated Press and had a bird's eye view of the entire 2.66 mile racetrack from atop the tallest grandstand on the tri-oval. I was trying to be patient and just waiting for action during both the Trucks and Sprint Cup races and was rewarded with last lap mayhem as airborne racers filled my lens in both events. At the time, I remember thinking I hadn't shot so many flipping racecars since the last sprint car race I did a couple of years ago. I certainly never saw anything like that weekend's madness on a paved track, let alone during a NASCAR weekend. The best news was that no one was hurt and I got spectacular images that AP was able to use.

Brennan Poole won the ARCA race at Michigan for Venturini Motorsports

#3. Coming in as my third most favorite memory was Father's Day weekend in June at Michigan International Speedway when I was the principal photographer for the ARCA series. Although I had been a support photographer for ARCA several times previously, this was the first event where I was responsible for their entire event coverage. I had to be sure I got everything from driver headshots to the hauler layout to Victory Lane celebrations and everything in between. There was not a lot of downtime during the two days ARCA competitors had the track and I loved the pressure of having to deliver timely coverage for the ARCA website and various team public relations reps. On the way back to my mom's in Ohio afterward, I got pulled over in some small town but only got a warning from the nice officer as I simply told him I had just wrapped up two very long days shooting at Michigan and was hurrying to get to Akron and unwind. He must have seen the roadtrip fast food debris and race promotional materials on my passenger seat, and once he checked my driving record, he was quite gracious and let me go on my way. It was a perfect ending to a great weekend.

#4. The most exciting finish of any race I worked in 2013 was perhaps the best Indy Lights race in history. Getting a vantage point on the lower roof in front of the Pagoda at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway a few laps from the finish, I was prepared for a last lap slingshot move for the win, but getting a four-wide photo finish never entered my mind as a possibility. I recall ratcheting the ISO up on my main camera body so I could shoot at 1/4000th of a second. The last couple of laps, I set the photo up with the flagstand as the main focal point and took a few practice shots as cars came past the yard of bricks. I am sure glad I did as the race to the checkered flag was dramatic, my framing was good and the images I got for motorsport.com were on the money. No one had ever seen anything like that at Indianapolis and it was quite a thrill for me to be able to capture that moment for the ages at my favorite racetrack.

Simon Pagenaud, Charlie Kimball, Chip Ganassi & Dario Franchitti

#5. I had a hard time coming up with this one as there were so many moments which could have made my Top 5 for 2013. But I gave the nod to Charlie Kimball's win at Mid Ohio, his first in an Indycar, as much for the fact that Charlie raced the wheels off his Dallara as for events which subsequently effected teammate Dario Franchitti. While most of the field adopted a fuel saving strategy, Charlie went balls to the wall the whole race and was a deserving race winner. No one could have known at the time that this event might be one of the last times that Dario would earn a podium placing in an Indycar, but barely two months later, injuries suffered in his horrific Houston accident forced him to announce his retirement. A sidebar to this weekend for me was meeting friends from Indy at Mid Ohio and hanging out with them in between traipsing all over the Mid Ohio grounds shooting or uploading for motorsport.com over the three day race weekend.

I could go on and on with memories from my road trip racing life in 2013, but I will leave you with this: more pictures gleaned from all the races I shot in a "best of" slideshow for the whole year. This is probably my last blog post for 2013 but I'll be back again soon to bring you my view from the road - one photographer's journey. Until next time, Welcome to Indiana-ville! Please come back soon.

Firestone Indy Lights Recap 2013

The 4-wide photo finish at Indy was a season highlight for Indy Lights

The Firestone Indy Lights Series has been the last step on the Mazda Road to Indy for several years now and although the car count in 2013 was less than what people would like to see, great things are expected in the future as new series management takes over in 2014. A new chassis and engine combination has been announced for 2015 which should update the equipment to more modern specifications and make the transition to Indycars even smoother for the top series drivers.

Even with small fields, the Indy Lights drivers put on some spectacular races at times, topped by the crazy four wide photo finish in the Freedom 100 at Indianapolis as the undercard to the Indy 500 in May. I knew something wild was going to happen when the top three went wheel to wheel through Turns 3 and 4, but no one expected Peter Dempsey to jump to the high side on the front straight to make it four wide and steal the win at the finish line. I was at the finish line and got the photo finish for motorsport.com in one of my best moments of my 2013 racing season. It was a great moment for the series too and I always love shooting these races since they involve the future stars of Indycar who you can watch learn their craft.

Carlos Munoz

The star of the 2013 season was Carlos Munoz as far as I am concerned. He blew away the field at Barber Motorsports Park early in the season and then nearly won the Indy 500 as a rookie when he was doing double duty during May in the big cars and in Lights. He followed up his impressive month of May with a strong and aggressive drive at Fontana in the season finale to earn a full time Indycar drive with Andretti Autosport for next season. With four Indy Lights wins and a third place season finish in 2013, he's clearly a star on the rise but he also has a lot to learn. His fearless style rankled his more experienced Andretti teammates in May on more than one occasion. I had two memorable encounters involving Carlos in 2013 and the first one involved listening in on a huddle among his teammates James Hinchcliffe, EJ Viso and Ryan Hunter-Reay after Munoz dive bombed one of them during Indy 500 practice in May. Apparently, no one told Carlos you can't (or shouldn't" run below the white line in Turn 1 or that passes during practice needed to be coordinated to avoid an incident. We all know how that turned out as the Andretti boys were strong all month and either Carlos or RHR could have won the 500 if the late caution flags had fallen differently.

Hinch, RHR & Viso discuss a Munoz maneuver at Indy in May

My second encounter with Carlos was during the Mid Ohio weekend when the friends I was traveling with and I decided to hit a Mexican restaurant at the Belleville exit. After a few minutes, in walks Carlos with a few guys in Andretti gear and I said "Hey, it's Carlos!" as his group sat down at a table nearby. From the way he reacted, I don't think he expected anyone to recognize him. It was another one of those moments where it felt good to know people in the sport and be where racers were gathering on a race weekend.

Sage Karam took the Indy Lights season championship

Firestone Indy Lights has produced a number of excellent racers who have moved up to Indycars over the years and I'm sure the 2013 crop of drivers will be no different. Sage Karam won the season title and there were several times where I saw him soaking up advice from various Indycar drivers, most notably Tony Kanaan at Mid Ohio after Sage had an off during an Indy Lights session. You could see how upset he was with himself but TK's advice clearly calmed Sage down, and it looked like he was telling him "It's OK kid. It happens to all of us" so he could go back on track with a clear head and forget about the mistake he'd made. It's another one of the great things about this series running as a companion event with Indycar. Not only do young drivers get experience on Indycar tracks and exposure to Indycar owners, but they get the benefit of counsel from their big car brethren on occasion. I would bet that those words are often as valuable as the seat time for some of these young guys who surely must feel the pressure to perform in a series where sponsorship is hard to come by and where their very futures as racecar drivers may well be at stake.

Sage Karam gets some words of wisdom from Indy 500 champ Tony Kanaan at Mid Ohio

At any rate, I'm glad to have had the chance to experience these kinds of moments while on assignment and I look forward to more of the same in the future. With Christmas now just a few days away and 2013 winding down, I still have a couple more blog posts to complete in order to finish my season reflections, so until then, here's a slideshow of my Indy Lights work this year to tide you over.

2013 NASCAR Reflections

Hoosier Ryan Newman won the 2013 Brickyard 400 but lost his ride with Stewart Haas Racing

One of the best things about my racing road trip life in 2013 was the variety of events I got to shoot: Indycar, ARCA, GrandAm and of course, NASCAR. While I only got to cover three NASCAR races this year, they were each significant and memorable. I also got to grab a few shots at Michigan during down time from my ARCA duties in June, but the spring and fall races at Talladega were ones for the record books and the Brickyard 400 was noteworthy if not spectacular.

Talladega in the spring

After missing the fall 2012 race at Talladega due to my teaching schedule, I was not about to miss the spring event this year. It turned out to be most memorable for the persistent rains and cool weather which plagued both the Nationwide race on Saturday and the Sprint Cup race on Sunday. I spent nearly 10 hours each day in the main grandstand outside the tri-oval lugging my gear up and down multiple flights of stairs both days, in and out of the rain, waiting for the track to dry and racing to resume. I don't think I've ever shot a NASCAR race in the kind of darkness that descended on the track both days as the rain delays pushed action into the early evening hours both days. The weekend began with a long Friday night drive through heavy rain most of the way and ended just about the same as I left Talladega after dark on Sunday as the rains hit again. The most sensible thing I did all weekend was stop and grab a room around midnight that night and finish the drive back to Indy on Monday. I think I called it the 24 Hours of Talladega at the time and my frog togs never came in more handy!

Ryan Newman, Carl Edwards & Juan Pablo Montoya race at Indy

The next NASCAR race I shot was the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis at the end of July and it was really cool to see Ryan Newman, a Hoosier from South Bend and a Purdue grad, take the win, his first at Indy. The weekend included the Nationwide Series on Saturday and the GrandAm races on Friday, so it was a hectic weekend of shooting and editing for motorsport.com. I walked all over IMS for three straight days but loved every minute of it and have quite a few images I am extremely proud of as a result. 

Ryan Newman's baby daughter

My personal highlight of the Brickyard weekend was shooting Newman, his family and his team during the post race ceremonies at the yard of bricks. His infant daughter seemed bewildered by all the people milling around and the attention her daddy was getting but she never flinched or cried as the kissing of the bricks process wore on. She even seemed at home with daddy's bottle of Coca Cola nearby as the cameras clicked away around her. It was a sweet and quiet moment after hours of noise. The race itself was a typical Brickyard with single file racing in the corners and positions being made up in the pits moreso than on the racetrack. With IMS talking about adding the apron in the turns again, perhaps that will improve the racing product and bring fans back to the Brickyard for NASCAR. At least Jimmie Johnson didn't win!

Jamie McMurray won from the back of the pack

My final NASCAR race of 2013 took me back to Talladega in October and the weather was infinitely better than it had been in the spring, even though sprinkles Saturday morning washed out Sprint Cup qualifying. The fall weekend had the Camping World Truck Series paired with Sprint Cup and both races involved flying racecars which was just crazy as I couldn't believe what I was seeing through my lenses when the incidents occurred. The truck race on Saturday ended with a flip coming down to the checkered flag and then Austin Dillon got airborne on the last lap in Tony Stewarts's #14 during the Sprint Cup race on Sunday. Jamie McMurray won the Sprint Cup race when no one could mount a charge as the race ended under yellow.

My text to AP read "32 upside down"

I shot both Talladega races this year for Associated Press and I am so thankful that I have developed that relationship as those people really have taken care of me and given me some great opportunities to "make some pictures", as they like to say. It's awesome to view the post-race slideshow with the other AP photographers and see how they tell an event story through photos. It's also exciting to google my name after a race with AP to see where my pictures have ended up. Calling home after a race weekend like this is also exciting as my friends and family can do a similar search and see my photos picked up by news outlets all over the world. I love that aspect of AP's instant news service and have developed a greater sensitivity for timeliness and efficiency as a result of my work with them.

I have learned so much from other photogs on weekends like these and am really excited to hit the road again in 2014 and head back south to 'Dega. The track's promo tag line is: "This is more than a race. This is Talladega". I can attest to the fact that there's no place like it and just hope to continue having good luck down there. I will be ready to make some pictures, that's for sure. Until next time, here's a slideshow of my personal best NASCAR photos from 2013.

Sports Car Review 2013

Brickyard Superweekend Rolex winners Alex Popow & Ryan Dalziel

While I only got to shoot two main sports car races in 2013, they were epic. My sports car season started with the Rolex and Continental Tire Series races at Barber Motorsports Park in April as part of the Grand Prix of Alabama Indycar weekend. The other sports car race was at Indianapolis as part of the Brickyard Superweekend at the end of July. I did manage to grab a few shots of the Pirelli World Challenge race at Mid Ohio in August but that weekend was consumed with shooting Indycar and Indy Lights so I don't really count that as a race I worked per se. Both the Barber and IMS weekends were part of my 2013 work for motorsport.com which you can see the photos here from IMS and from Barber here.

Wayne Taylor Celebrates win

The Barber weekend was capped by an enthusiastic win by Wayne Taylor's Corvette team with Max Angelelli and Jordan Taylor at the wheel. Max "The Axe" is always a thrill to watch race and the twisty, hilly confines of the Barber track made for some close and interesting racing as the prototypes raced through the GT traffic. Then Wayne gave a little air guitar solo in Victory Lane afterwards to the delight of those witnessing the Victory Lane celebration. As it turns out, that race proved to be the start of something really big for Taylor and Angelelli as they went on to claim would would be the last ever GrandAm season title at the end of the year. Then at Indianapolis, the 8 Star team of Alex Popow and Ryan Dalziel surprised a lot of people by winning  over a field full of experienced drivers from a variety of backgrounds. Indy 500 winner Tony Kanaan, former F1 and Indycar driver Rubens Barrichello was entered, as was Sebastian Bourdais among others. Thankfully the weather this year was better than 2012. although a little rain would have made it even more interesting!

Scott Pruett & Memo Rojas were unable to grab another season title in 2013 for owner Chip Ganassi

Both weekends were a lot of work but resulted in photos I was quite pleased with, especially since I had never been to Barber before and I missed the 2012 Rolex race at IMS due to my photo commitments to ARCA. My biggest disappointments this year in sports cars were missing the Rolex event at Mid Ohio which I have covered for years, and then not having the American LeMans Series (ALMS) race during the Mid Ohio Indycar weekend. Those events have been staples of my sports car photography the last few years, but I was working at Michigan for ARCA when the Rolex race was at Mid Ohio and ALMS just simply didn't schedule a race at Mid Ohio.

In 2014, my season will start off even earlier as I am scheduled to shoot the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona in January for Associated Press. That race will be the first event in the newly merged Tudor United Sportscar Racing series and I couldn't be more excited to have this opportunity. It will be my first chance to shoot the Rolex 24 Hours and it should be a historic event as reports now are that there are 29 prototype cars set to compete. It should be a wild and woolly 24 hours with probably 60 cars or more on the track competing. I will bring back photos and more stories from the road, so until then here's a slideshow of my 2013 sports car work that will have to tide us over.

Indycar Season Review: #ThankYouDario

Scott Dixon snagged his third Indycar crown

Congratulations to the 2013 IZOD Indycar Series champion Scott Dixon, best wishes to a champion's champion Dario Franchitti, and better luck next year Helio Castroneves. That pretty well sums up the late season drama in Indycar. Next year much will change, including the title for the series as IZOD steps aside after this season, there will be two races in May at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and the 2014 schedule ends Labor Day weekend. And while I didn't blog this year about my usual pre-season predictions, there's little doubt that I would have missed the mark by miles, as this season was both tumultuous and unpredictable in many ways. So here's my recap along with my favorite moments.

Dario Franchitti 

I have to start with a sad note:  Dario is leaving Indycar but he is one lucky guy after his horrific accident in Houston which hastened his retirement from Indycar racing. I hate to see him retire under these circumstances but it's good to know that he will make a full recovery and hopefully find a role in the series as an elder statesman or spokesperson. So #ThankYouDario indeed for all the memories.

Tony Kanaan celebrates his first Indy 500 win

My favorite personal moment this year was being able to shoot Victory Lane at the Indy 500 to capture Tony Kanaan's emotional celebration after taking his first Indy win. In a 500 for the ages, I started the race on the roof of Stand E overlooking Turn 1 and ended up in Victory Lane so my day shooting this year's 500 for motorsport.com was quite special. It would be hard to top that day in the years to come but who knows? Maybe next year will be even better! I had picked Ryan Hunter-Reay to win Indy before the month of May started this year but I was really happy for TK to get his first one. And wouldn't you know it - a late crash by TK's buddy Dario brought out the yellow which effectively ended the thrilling lead swapping duels which had transfixed the Indy crowd all race long up to that point.

Ryan Hunter-Reay won from the pole at Barber

Defending Indycar champ Ryan Hunter-Reay started off the season on a role by taking pole position and winning at Barber Motorsports Park. That was where my Indycar season started this year and the race weekend included a couple of firsts. I had never been to Barber before, although I have driven past it several times on my way to Talladega, so it was a treat to get another maiden racetrack visit under my belt. I also got to shoot for motorsport.com for the first time as a sort of trial run and warmup for May in Indianapolis. It was quite a challenging weekend dealing with the terrain at Barber and learning the technical requirements for submitting photos to motorsport.com's website. An added bonus was shooting the Rolex Series that weekend. I felt really good driving home after three days ambling around Barber's rolling circuit and producing images I was proud of. One of my favorite shots of the weekend was taken during RHR's pole award celebration when he was holding his infant son who gave the slightest hint of a smile. He must have been enjoying all the attention!

Charlie Kimball outraced everyone at Mid Ohio to get his first win

The bookend to my Indycar season was the race weekend at Mid Ohio the first weekend in August, again shooting for motorsport.com. I love shooting at Mid Ohio and I used to think it was pretty hilly until I went to Barber! I would love to shoot more Indycar races each year but circumstances and my teaching responsibilities intervened. As it turned out, the Honda 200 was another weekend of firsts, albeit not for me as I have been shooting at Mid Ohio since the 1980's and took part in the track's Acura High Performance driving school in 2006. Charlie Kimball got his first career Indycar win by running hard and outracing everyone else who had adopted a fuel saving pace. Chip Ganassi and Dario seemed genuinely happy for Charlie to get his first win. Although there was no way to know it at the time, that weekend was also to be one of the last times that Dario would spray champagne and celebrate on the podium.

Takuma Sato 

In many ways, 2013 was a season of firsts in Indycar. In addition to Kimball, several other drivers got their initial Indycar wins. James Hinchcliffe got his first at St. Petersburg and then added wins in Brazil and Iowa. Takuma Sato got his first at Long Beach, finally rewarding the AJ Foyt team for their patience with the Honda favorite who's motto has become "No Attack - No Chance" after nearly winning the Indy 500 in 2012. Simon Pagenaud got his first in the second Detroit race and took Baltimore later on. Neither Brazil nor Baltimore are on the 2014 Indycar schedule so those race winners may be "defending champs" at those venues in perpetuity. I would expect both events to return to Indycar in the future however, but schedule conflicts must be resolved first. While not in the category of first race wins, this year's comeback story has to be Mike Conway who got a win at Detroit in a one-off ride. Conway will be with Ed Carpenter Racing in 2014 and run all the road races, so his comeback from injuries in the Indy 500 in 2010 is complete.

Carlos Munoz pits at the Indy 500

The most impressive driver this year had to be rookie Carlos Munoz. He started second in the Indy 500 and could have won the race if the last yellow for Dario's wreck hadn't waved. He was exceptionally strong at California in the season finale and was equally impressive filling in for an injured Ryan Briscoe the morning of Race 2 at Toronto He looked good in his first Indycar road race, he is fast and fearless, and has done such a good job in the Firestone Indy Lights series that Andretti Autosport has rewarded him with a full season ride for next year. I expect he will add his name to the list of first time winners in 2014.

Fan favorite Helio Castroneves was title bridesmaid again

Scott Dixon's championship run started at Pocono in July, then he swept both races in Toronto and closed it out with a first and second at Houston. He overcame a huge points deficit, along with adversity at Sonoma (where he was penalized for a pit lane incident from the lead which didn't really seem to be his fault) and at Baltimore (where Will Power squeezed him into the wall and put him out of the race). Coupled with his late season hot streak, perennial series runner-up Helio Castroneves suddenly became snakebitten during the Hosuton weekend with mechanical gremlins which wiped away his points lead in one weekend. That just didn't seem right watching it at the time, but that's racing and Dixon took advantage. If there was a trophy for the worst luck this season, it would have to go to Helio. For someone who represents Indycar so well, has won Indy three times, and is always upbeat with a smile on his face, he sure got kicked in the teeth by the racing gods this season. He led the points standings for months yet on the penultimate weekend, it all fell apart. Rarely have the words Helio and disconsolate been used in the same sentence but after Houston they belonged together and you just knew his championship hopes were gone even though the final race of the season was still ahead at Fontana.

My plans for covering Indycar in 2014 have not been solidified yet, although I am hoping to shoot for motorsport.com again whenever I can. It's a lot of work but a labor of love. So until next time, here's a gallery of my personal Indycar favorite photos from the 2013 events at Barber, Indianapolis and Mid Ohio.

ARCA Season Review - @arca_racing Is Stock Car Proving Ground

ARCA Veteran and fan favorite Frank Kimmel took his 10th season title in 2013

The ARCA racing series has become one of my favorites over the last few years, not just because I have had opportunities to work for the series directly. I love it for its schedule diversity and the fact that the future stars of American stock car racing almost always get their starts racing fendered cars in ARCA. I've written many times about the "young guns" of ARCA and the 2013 season had these younger drivers in abundance - some as young as 15 years of age winning races - see Kyle Benjamin at Salem for example. Many people don't know that ARCA has been around longer than NASCAR and is preparing for its 61st Championship Awards banquet in Indianapolis December 14th where 2013 season champion Frank Kimmel will collect his 10th title and awards. 

ARCA Rookie of the Year Justin Boston

The youth movement is the real attraction in ARCA in my opinion. Here are some names that you will surely hear more about in the upcoming years who have raced and starred in ARCA: Brennan Poole (two wins), Kyle Benjamin (two wins in 2013), Justin Boston (2013 Rookie of the Year), Mason Mingus (second to Kimmel in 2013 series points), Mason Mitchell, Erik Jones and Chris Buescher (one win and defending series champion). A couple of years ago at Salem Speedway, the pole winner and next two qualifiers were all still in their teens, so the opportunity to race full bodied stock cars on a variety of tracks is an attraction for the drivers as well. Just look at the NASCAR Nationwide Series or Camping World Truck Series rosters: they are full of former ARCA drivers. Ty Dillon, Justin Allgaier, Parker Kligerman, Ryan Blaney, Dakoda Armstrong, and Chase Elliott have all been winners in ARCA and moved up. In Sprint Cup, Michael McDowell, Scott Speed and Justin Marks have all come through ARCA and there are many more who cut their teeth in stock car racing in this series.

Series runner-up Mason Mingus at Michigan International in 2013

There is no other major nationwide racing series which visits so many different types of tracks. The series races on big, fast tracks like Daytona, Michigan and Talladega, plus an assortment of 1.5 mile tracks like Kansas and Chicagoland. They race on plenty of short tracks including the aging but storied high banks of Salem and Winchester in Indiana, the flatter tracks like Elko in Minnesota, Toledo (Ohio) and Mobile (Alabama). Add to this recipe the road course events at Road America and New Jersey Motorsports Park, then spice it further with mile dirt tracks at Springield and DuQuoin state fair tracks in Illinois, and you have a tasty mix that would satisfy the most diehard stock car fans.

Frank Kimmel congratulates Brennan Poole on his 2013 Michigan win

One side benefit of this schedule diversity is the number of different drivers the series attracts. While Frank Kimmel added to his ARCA legacy in 2013 with a 10th season championship and broke the all-time ARCA wins record formerly held by Iggy Katona, seemingly everyone seeking stock car experience races at some point during the season. As a training ground for drivers, there is no better series, but team owners and crew members also find their way to the big time by following the stock car ladder up through ARCA. If you want to see the youth movement and be able to tell your friends that "you knew them when...", then ARCA races are where you need to be. Evidence of the attarctiveness of the series is the fact that 141 drivers scored points in 2013. Granted many of these drivers were there for one-off appearances, but part of the excitement of any ARCA event is seeing who is entered. Anyone can win in ARCA - just look at want Corey Lajoie did this year: three wins out of five starts!

James Hylton

One of my favorite drivers has become James Harvey Hilton. Here is a man who has been around the sport seemingly forever and is finally calling it a day after 2013. He shows up at every race, enjoys a stogie or two and has a good time at the race track even though he doesn't have the pace anymore to challenge for race wins. He did, however, finish 11th in the season standings and clearly just loves to race. A few years ago, he showed up at Salem with dollar bills taped all over his car from fan donations, so while no one would ever confuse his operation with a Roush development team in terms of financial backing, few would argue with his passion for the sport. And he is not alone in ARCA as there are a number of drivers who may not be the fastest on any given weekend, but they are loyal to the series and might be called racer's racers. Darrell Basham is one such driver, and his story is unique in the sense that his race shop got blown away in the Hewnryville, Indiana tornado a couple of years ago but he carried on. ARCA fans know these stories and appreciate guys like James and Darrell trying their best to be competitive and put on a good show.

I have been very fortunate the last seven years to shoot more than two dozen ARCA races, including 15 straight at Salem Speedway. Next year it looks like I will add to that total as I have an opportunity to be the primary photographer for the series at a few of the summer 2014 races. I also have a project involving mathematics in racing that I hope to do with ARCA's support next summer which will tie in with my classroom teaching and involve students from the University of Northwestern Ohio's motorsports program. For me, the chance to support this series, which has a unique history in stock car racing, is quite gratifying and I am looking forward to the photography challenges I am likely to face next year. Until then, I hope you enjoy this photo gallery of my 2013 ARCA work. Look me up at the track next season!

#ThankYouDario - A Legend Retires

Dario Franchitti on his 2012 Indy 500 victory lap with Ashley Judd & Susie Wheldon

It seems my life is full of irony. Or maybe it's all just coincidence - except I don't believe in coincidence: everything happens for a reason. So last Thursday, on the day I posted a "Throwback Thursday" video I had created of my photo sequence of Mike Conway's 2010 Indy 500 crash, Dario Franchitti announced he was retiring from Indycar racing for medical reasons as a result of his similarly frightening crash at Houston last month.

And who won the Indy 500 which finished under yellow in 2010 as a result of Conway's accident? Dario. Then the next day I read about Mike getting a ride with Ed Carpenter for 2014 to run all the road course races next season. So in the span of 24 hours, I wrote about Mike's accident (and the fact that his Indycar comeback from his Indy 500 accident was underscored by a win at Detroit's Belle Isle circuit this past June), Dario retires and Mike gets a new ride for next season.

The common thread here is airborne Indycars. Mike Conway decided not to run ovals after getting upside down at Indy the last two times he ran the 500. Dario decided to retire after climbing over Takuma Sato at Houston and taking out the catch fencing, suffering a concussion and back injury in the process. Dario got airborne twice in 2007 (at Michigan and at Nashville), escaping without a scratch both times but this time he was not so lucky. In the aftermath of his Houston accident, I would guess that the specter of his pal Dan Wheldon was also weighing on Dario's mind with Danny's loss still fresh from the fatal accident at Las Vegas two years ago. Everyone knows that racing is dangerous but that is part of its allure - men and women risking everything at speeds most of us can only imagine:  until the risk is too great.

While I hate to see Dario retire, I am happy he is able to make a reasoned decision and walk away with his health largely intact. From the medical reports I have read, it sounded like his greatest concern is the long term impact of repeated concussions, and who can blame him for deciding that the rewards no longer outweigh the risks? Especially given all of the media attention to the effects of concussions on players in football, I hope he stays retired and doesn't fall prey to the urge to return to the cockpit.

Dario has become one of my favorite drivers the last few years and I would love to see him assume an active role in Indycar similar to other greats like Rick Mears, Johnny Rutherford or Mario Andretti. Since I expanded my motorsports photo work in 2006 to include multiple races on the Indycar circuit, I have been up close and personal with Indycar drivers like Dario many times. After his 2012 Indy 500 win I was standing next to him and Ashley by the yard of bricks and was close enough to hear their conversation. So I feel like I know racers like Dario personally and when someone leaves the sport, either by their own volition or other circumstance, I can't help but feel the loss. I feel like I am losing a hero, but thankfully this time it is not the ultimate loss as with DW. It's a loss nonetheless, so I hope I get the chance someday to tell Dario how much I've enjoyed him as a person, a racer and an icon in our sport.

So this past weekend in my ongoing efforts to experiment with video production, I put together the following video with photos of Dario from races at Indy and elsewhere I've covered the last six years. Some might think the Evanescence song "Immortal" is too melancholy for this, but for me it reinforced the notion that as long as we have memories of our heroes, then they are immortal. God bless you Dario and I sure hope to see you at some races next year so fans can salute all that you've done for the sport of Indycar racing.

#TBT Throw Back Thursday: Mike Conway Indy 500 Crash

By far the scariest racing incident I have ever photographed took place at the Indy 500 in 2010 when Mike Conway ran up the back of a slowing and out-of-fuel Ryan Hunter-Reay near the end of the race. I was shooting in Turn 3 that year as I have for many years and the race had been fairly uneventful from my vantage point most of the day. With a couple of laps to go, I had turned on my digital voice recorder and set it on top of the fence post in front of me to pick up the sounds of the cars and the track public address system announcers making the call of the winner. I don't usually pan during a race at this location as I watch the entry to the turn, how the cars are coming along the apex and looking for the slightest little twitch or for a car running above the normal line. I also listen for changes in engine notes or any unusual sounds. On this day it was my ears that tipped me off to a problem, and then my eyes followed.

Then I heard a loud clunking sound to my left. I swung around to see RHR's car damaged and limping through the turn so I laid on the shutter release button thinking that he might get t-boned by other cars that were trailing him. At eight frames a second, it is hard to tell what is going on sometimes but I stayed relatively wide with my 70-200 and kept shooting, when I realized something (or someone) was airborne and I was seeing black which meant the bottom of the car was facing me. Then it was like a bomb had gone off with more awful sounds and a debris field filled my viewfinder. I ended up with 48 photos in the whole sequence and my first thought afterwards was that someone had gone under the stands. There was a gaping whole in the fencing beneath the North Vista grandstands which safety workers were peering through. The mangled cabling framed a piece of the nose of Conway's car behind the wall and the only other section of his car that remained in front of me was the engine and rear end  assembly. I feared the worst and the crowd in the north end was absolutely buzzing in the aftermath of the accident. Thankfully, the worst was not realized and I ended up with 16 minutes of audio on my digital recorder as it continued to record while I finished shooting the aftermath of the accident and checking with other photographers to see what they had. A lot of spectacular photos were taken that day by members of the Third Turn Society.

2013 Racing Sampler, Part 1: New Video

Part of the thrill of chasing race cars around the country with my cameras is reviewing the finished product. That is also some of the most tedious work involved since there are usually hundreds, if not a thousand or two, images to sift through after a race weekend. Multiply that by the number of race events I've done (and this year there were 10) and the editing process can be overwhelming. Thankfully, however, because of the nature of my assignments, most of the concise editing is done at the racetrack on any given weekend and I am still quite happy if 1 out of every 10 pictures is a keeper. Of course, I consider myself my own worst critic, although photo editors of the people I work for often make the final call. So putting together slideshows or other presentations is often not as daunting as you might think.

One of my goals going forward is to create more video content, even if it means putting still photos together with music, wild sound or narrative soundtracks (or some combination of them all). The following is one attempt to do so and includes photos from the IZOD Indycar Series, the Rolex GrandAm Series, NASCAR's Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series and the Firestone Indy Lights series taken at Indianapolis, Barber Motorsports Park, Mid Ohio and Talladega. I am calling it Part 1 for 2013 as I intend to do others over the next few months before I head to Daytona to shoot the Rolex 24 Hours race in January. Once that race weekend gets here, all bets will be off for 2013 and the images mostly get archived to make way for a new crop of images at various events. I have a few "sequels" in mind, but I had to start off with one that has music created by my son Max and no narrative track. There will be more as I work to polish my video production skills in anticipation of a major project I am working on for the summer of 2014. Details on that will be revealed as that time gets closer. Needless to say, lots of road miles on my '99 Integra will be involved, and I will be embedded in a six week frenzy of travel, shooting multiple events, and special video compilations to add to this blog as continuing chapters in this photographer's journey. Welcome to Indiana-ville, y'all!

October Insanity - Road Trip Life

Austin Dillon flips Tony Stewart's #14 at Talladega with help from Casey Mears

October was an insane month of activity - witness the fact that I haven't been able to write here in 30 days. The month started off rather slowly with a weekend at hone in Indy when the highlight was going to see the movie "RUSH", which I thought was fantastic. That weekend also featured Dario Franchitti's scary flip into the fence at the Houston Indycar race, which in hindsight was a portent of things to come for me.

The second weekend of October was filled with soccer officiating at local tournaments. We had passed the halfway point of the semester in my teaching job the previous week and the decks were then cleared for my last racing road trip of the season:  to Talladega Superspeedway, where I had my best weekend ever shooting for Associated Press. I had 15 photos used by AP over the weekend and several featured flipping race cars. I felt like I was at a sprint car race. I had never shot so many upside down race cars in one weekend on a paved track before, let alone in NASCAR and at someplace like Talladega which is huge and fast. The road trip entailed 1279 miles round trip and I made it back to Indy on only one stop - which I had never done before - at 3:00 a.m. Monday morning. Going in to teach that day I was still running on adrenaline after an awesome weekend, and it was a thrill showing my colleagues and students some of my work. Naturally there was some teasing involved about being "famous" but I knew it was more about opportunity and being ready than anything else. That was especially true in both the truck series and Sprint Cup races as the big melees with airborne race cars happened on the last lap both days. I learned a lot at the track that weekend, and using a big lens taught me some valuable lessons which I will put to use in the future.

The next weekend involved a much shorter road trip, to Bloomington, Indiana, for a family wedding where I didn't have to be "the photographer", although I did have a lot of fun putting together a slideshow of the bride and groom for their rehearsal dinner. I ended up shooting lots of video that weekend which I still have to edit, but making movies from video clips is something I need to do more often and this was a great opportunity to capture some memories for a very happy couple which did not conflict with the work of the wedding photographer they hired. After the wedding, school was on Fall break so it was back home in Indy for two days before I headed to Akron, Ohio to help my mom. I logged another 650 miles or so on the road in my '99 Integra and she just keeps rolling along, now with over 231,000 miles on her. On the way back that Friday, I was sailing along past New Castle when everything came to a screeching halt and I got stuck in a 90 minute traffic jam for an accident involving two semis which blocked Interstate 70 near Knightstown. The weekend and fall break wrapped up with my last two soccer games to officiate this fall, a visit to Scotty's Brewhouse before going to the Pacers game, and then my son and I went to see the movie "Ender's Game" on Sunday afternoon. In and around all the travel, teaching and photography, I managed to finish a grant application for several photo projects I'd like to do next summer which will put me on the road even more and take me to places I have never been and others I haven't been to in a long, long time.

Next up is the holidays but I am already scheduling my racing work for 2014. I will be shooting for AP at Daytona in January for the Rolex 24 Hours when the combined GrandAm and American LeMans series will debut as the Tudor United Sportscar Series. I have never shot the 24 before so I am really excited about that opportunity and already have my plane flight booked. So even with a little less than two months left in 2013, it's never too early to start making plans for the year ahead. Until the next time I get to go racing again, I leave you with slideshows from my super weekend at Talladega Superspeedway. See you on the road or at a racetrack somewhere soon!