Christian Eckes Tops Nashville Cats; It's Pagenaud at Indy

Christian Eckes won the rain delayed Music City 200

Now that the merry month of May is here, life is about to really get crazy -  as if everything else this year wasn't already nuts! We had an extended stay in Nashville the first weekend of May for the Music City 200 ARCA Menards Series race as the weather Saturday only cooperated long enough to get a practice session in so a Saturday night race became a Sunday afternoon race. None of that mattered to youngster Christian Eckes who got his first win of the season for Venturini Motorsports and really had the field covered for more than half the race. The last fourth of the race, I kept checking his front wheels to see if I could detect glowing brake rotors from overusing the brakes, but I never saw it! I love those kinds of photos on short tracks but Christian had his Toyota on cruise control. He did an impressive little burnout in the tight confines of the narrow front stretch at Fairgrounds Speedway before going to Victory Lane.

Mother Nature hit 2 weekends in a row

Shooting night races is a special challenge so it is always nicer to shoot day races for the simple reason that the light is just better, but the delay to Sunday afternoon meant getting home much later than I had originally planned. I just about set a record with my post-race editing and for sure set another personal best on the drive home to Indy, so it wasn't too late after all and I felt great knowing I had done some good work. So Nashville kicked off May with a bang; now comes the craziness. Over the rest of the month, my schedule is as follows: I worked this past Friday at the Indycar Grand Prix at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and then shot my niece's Sweet 16 party on Saturday instead of the Grand Prix. This coming Friday night, I will be driving to Toledo, Ohio for a two-day ARCA showat one of ARCA's "home" tracks, then the following Wednesday I will drive to Charlotte, North Carolina for an ARCA race the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend, and driving back to Indy on Friday so I can shoot the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday, the day before Memorial Day. The Indy winner's photo shoot is on Memorial Day morning then the following Thursday, I drive to Pocono for another ARCA race, which in this case is on my birthday May 31st. Oh and I forgot to mention working Indy 500 practice each weekday afternoon this week when I will race from my school in Noblesville to IMS after work each day to photograph Happy Hour. I figured out that for the month of May as a whole, I am either traveling to or at a racetrack 17 days. Never mind the fact that I still have to manage my teaching job and close out the school year while all of the above is going on!

Team Penske's Simon Pagenaud prevailed in the Indycar Grand Prix

Trust me, I am not complaining, especially since I am just now 12 weeks past my lung cancer surgery. I feel like I've been given a new lease on life and I'm so grateful for the opportunity to shoot the Indy 500 again for my friends in France at MPS Agency in addition to my ARCA series work. The ARCA race at Nashville was another perfect segue for my recovery since it's only a half-mile track and it's not quite a five hour drive from home, neither of which is too daunting. And lately when I am at a racetrack, I start to feel like a spinner at a Grateful Dead show as the joy wells up inside me while doing what I love. I hope the people I work with can see that and I really hope it comes through in my photos. If any of you out there have an opinion on that, then I'd love to hear it.

I like road racing but the 500 is a special race

I was not able to work the Grand Prix on Saturday and it's the first one I've missed since they started this event at IMS a few years ago. The race has become a Penske playground and the rain near the end added some drama, but I was not disappointed to miss it since I got to photograph my niece's Sweet 16 party. She asked me months ago to be her photographer before she even had a date for the party and I was not about to back out after the year she's had. It was so much fun seeing her enter womanhood ceremoniously and I was thrilled to be able to document the event for her. I know she will remember it for a lifetime and for me, it was a chance to put family over racing in the month of May which has rarely happened for me. I would make the same decision in a heartbeat. But please don't schedule anything over the Indy 500 - I can't imagine missing that! Be forewarned!

This week they start going the "correct" way on the track

So now practice for the 500 begins and I will be hustling out there as much as possible after work this week and then working late to upload photos to the MPS Agency website. Friday evening I travel to Toledo, Ohio to work that ARCA Menards Series race for the first time and will be there through Sunday evening. I am looking forward to another short track race with my ARCA friends and the experience of working a new racetrack is always fun as well. At IMS last Friday I logged nearly 19,000 steps walking around the Indy road course so that exercise helps with my physical recovery and increases my stamina. I am going to need it for the next several weeks as I will be working races somewhere every week through the end of June. This promises to be the busiest stretch of my career as a motorsports photographer and I can't wait to get into it. Not only that, I still have my Hoosier Cemeteries photo book to complete in June to wrap up my Indiana Arts Commission grant so there's no rest for the weary. Or is that no rest for the wicked? Either way, I am going to have some creative fun and hope you find me at a racetrack down the road to tell me how I'm doing. Thanks for reading! Until next time, here's a few more photos from Nashville and the Indycar GP.

The Nashville ARCA winner gets a guitar trophy every year which has become quite coveted

Rookie Felix Rosenqvist put his Ganassi machine on the pole for the Indycar Grand Prix

ARCA points leader Michael Self's day was ruined by another driver's mistake

Will Power was the odds-on favorite to win another GP but couldn't get it done this time.

The old Petty STP colors were out in full force at Nashville with the King's grandson Thad Moffitt at the wheel

Talladega For The ARCA Menards Series Win!

Todd Gilliland and father David enjoying the spoils of  a Dega victory

Today's blog title is for both myself and for Todd Gilliland, who led more than half the laps at Talladega Superspeedway last Friday and snagged his second career ARCA Menards Series win! For me, I made my longest drive so far this year since my lung cancer surgery in February and set a new personal best time on the return trip after shooting for the ARCA series at the biggest and fastest oval track around! The race itself was a blast. It was my third this season and it had its share of surprises, including having Brandon Lynn jump into a Venturini Motorsports Toyota and take pole position in group qualifying. He ran an excellent race but couldn't get around Riley Herbst in second or Gilliland who had the field covered most of the second half of the race. The top 10 finishers included other one-off entries like Ty Majeski and Gus Dean and they, along with the ARCA regulars, put on a good clean show right to the finish. And then Todd did himself proud afterwards with a very nice burnout! The ARCA Menards Series website has all the details on the race along with photo galleries so click here to check those out.

Brandon Lynn took a surprise pole position at Talladega

I love Dega and I love the drive on I-65 from Indianapolis, especially the section through Nashville as the road bobs and weaves through the city. This coming weekend will seem like deja vu all over again since I follow those same tire tracks south for the next ARCA race which is at Fairgrounds Speedway in Nashville. For the Talladega weekend, I left Indy Thursday night and came home Saturday afternoon so I drove 1080 miles in three days. The one track day I had was Friday and I shot over 2200 photos on the day which started at 6:00 a.m. and ended about 10:00 p.m. when I got back to the ARCA hotel east of Birmingham. I was a tired puppy when I got home to Indy Saturday afternoon since I barely got 5 hours of sleep Thursday night after working 8 hours at my teaching job and then driving 8 hours to Birmingham. Then Friday was a 16 hour day at the track followed by another long drive home on Saturday. But it was all worth it and I still think this gig is a helluva good deal. Plus I am feeling better each day as I get stronger and am able to renew something close to my regular physical activity. The month of May will be a real test of how my physical recovery is going!

Sean Corr led quite a few laps

The weather on Friday and Saturday was a massive improvement over Thursday and I had daylight to work with. Driving down on Thursday, I hit alternating periods of heavy rain and spray pretty much all the way from Indy. Then I got to Birmingham very late and discovered the interstate was closed in downtown. Getting to the hotel was a challenge as the detour signs weren't very helpful and I drove around in circles in downtown Birmingham for awhile before I found a side street I recognized and took that to I-20 and then to the hotel. I drove through some interesting neighborhoods around midnight that night so I was happy to get out of there as I saw a lot of old, abandoned industrial sites, quite a few boarded up houses and the street lights often didn't seem to be working, so it was kind of sketchy. Thankfully I have been going to or through Birmingham since 2011 and I felt like I knew my way around or it might have been scary. I guess that's one benefit of traveling a lot by car - I am very confident I can find my way no matter where I am.

Michael Self leads the driver's points again

It might seem a little crazy to some people to make a banzai round trip of more than 1000 miles to photograph just 200 miles of racing, but that's what I'm called to do for ARCA and I am happy to have the opportunity. Through the years, I've made some good friends in Alabama while shooting for Associated Press (AP) so I look forward to seeing my "Alabama Gang" whenever I go down there. Many times I have shot for ARCA first and then stayed to shoot for AP for the Xfinity and Cup races, but I didn't think I'd be able to handle that physically barely 9 weeks after surgery so I had planned all along to blitz home on Saturday. I also wanted to get home to my fiance who was recovering from her own even more recent cancer surgery. She's one of the real stars of this road show as she supports my passion for racing photography and I send her photos or texts from the road or the racetrack to stay connected. I've tried to talk her into coming to Dega with me - she's been to the Indy 500 dozens of times - just to see how big and crazy Talladega is, but she won't do it unless I stretch the trip out a bit more. Maybe one of these days I can add a couple of extra days off to do the trip in a more leisurely fashion. She used to go racing with me quite a lot when we first started going out in 2008, and it helped her understand how passionate I am about what I do. But now with deadline pressures and specific responsibilities to address for ARCA, it's not as much fun for her. But we do love to travel together. After all, we did LeMans together in 2017 and hope to do it again next year.

Fast and wide - that is what makes Talladega great

Having made the drive to Talladega now more than a dozen times since that first trip in April 2011,  the long drive seems rather pedestrian now whereas I used to be scared to try it on my own. But that was only because I had never done it before and didn't know what to expect. Now a drive of eight hours or more is no big deal and I will have several more this season, but thankfully Nashville is relatively close - about five hours from Indy. So it's back to short track racing this weekend and ARCA is teamed up with the super late model teams from CRA and the Southern Super Series, so there will be some great racing on that storied old half mile. And another blog post to write next week after taking a couple thousand more photos. Until then, please check out the photo galleries on the ARCA website and my own at this link. Here's a few to tide you over! Thanks for reading. See you at Nashville, Or Indy. Or Charlotte. Or...

The 26 car field was full of competitive equipment with multiple potential winners

2016 ARCA champion Chase Briscoe (left) walked the grid before the race and spoke with drivers like Thomas Praytor

Todd Gilliland did a dandy burnout all along the Talladega tri-oval

Christian Eckes bounced back after missing Salem but go caught up in someone else's wreck

Grandson of "The King" Richard Petty, Thad Moffitt, ran a very reminiscent of the STP glory days

Back In The Saddle at Salem Speedway

Race day teased us with sunshine

Last weekend was one of the strangest race weekends I have had and it had nothing to do with the ARCA Menards Series itself: it was all about factors in my personal life that created some unique circumstances to deal with. While it was strange, it was also beautiful. Plus there was the issue of "moisture" on Sunday that turned out to be perfectly timed on a number of levels which was another complicating factor. Michael Self won the race for Venturini Motorsports in an event that was originally scheduled for 200 laps on the high banks of Salem but barely made it to the halfway point before more rain hit on Sunday and shortened the race to 101 laps. For his second straight short track win, Michael and his team were not complaining and from the ARCA side, we were all glad to get the race in.

Michael Self

Ever since I had my lung cancer surgery in mid-February, I had been targeting last weekend to return to the racing photography I love so much. As smaller track, I thought Salem would be an added advantage as I continue to build my strength back up just a little more than seven weeks since I went under the knife and had the upper lobe of my right lung removed. But I felt great and I couldn't have been more excited to be back at a racetrack. When I decided to change careers in 2009, I told my girlfriend (now my fiance) that I wouldn't be able to do it without her support  and this past weekend was a perfect example of how great she and her family have been in helping me pursue a dream. This is also what made the weekend so strange but beautiful at the same time.

We did get gorgeous light on Saturday but not as much on Sunday

Before I tell you what was strange, I have to tell you about my beautiful fiance and her kids. Not long after I was diagnosed with lung cancer at the beginning of this year, she found out that she had breast cancer and that her brother also had lung cancer, so since February we have all been dealing with uncertainty and the prospect of surgery or other treatments. My surgery got scheduled first but for hers, two surgeons were involved so it took awhile to coordinate their schedules. Naturally it ended up being scheduled the Thursday before the Salem weekend I had been targeting to get back to my photography. So Thursday and Friday I took off work from my teaching job and was at the hospital with her and friends and family. The whole time leading up to her surgery, she was encouraging me to stick with my plans for Salem as it appeared she would be in the hospital the whole weekend as her cancer surgeon had told us she could expect a four or five day stay. 

ARCA has raced at Salem 105 times now, 25 of which I have worked

Naturally, if you know my fiance, you know how much she cares for other people, always putting others first, which is one of the reasons I fell for her. As you can imagine, I am so grateful that she didn't waiver in her support of my ARCA work commitment. She has three grown children who have all stepped up to help their mother and even though I am not their father, I brag on them all the time as they have become such exceptional adults. My fiance is a nurse and each of her children have found their way into the medical field in one way or another and have embarked on great careers with Fortune 500 companies here in Indiana. The oldest child works for a major pharmaceutical company and is married to a rising star executive at an Indiana industrial company with two little girls and a third baby on the way. The middle child is a nurse practitioner specializing in children's care. Her youngest child is a Purdue educated biomedical engineer for another major Indiana company. Among themselves, they figured out a schedule where they could come help their mother following her discharge from the hospital which indirectly supported me as well, since I had burned up all my leave time following my surgery and wouldn't be available much. As it turned out, they were needed early too as my fiance exceeded everyone's expectations following surgery and was released from the hospital after only three days which turned out to be Sunday, my race day at Salem.

Christian Eckes was MIA with food poisoning

You can imagine the stress that we have all been under the first few months of this year so I can't begin to express how grateful I am for the support of my fiance and how proud I am of her kids in how they stepped up to support their mother (and indirectly me). The strange part of the weekend was simply all the traveling and hospital time. Thursday was my fiance's surgery day and I got her there at 6:00 in the morning and didn't see her again until 6:00 in the evening. She was not moved to a room until 8:00 that night and I then went home to the house we share with two cats and a dog who all seemed to know something weird was going on. Friday morning I was back at the hospital by 8:00 in the morning and spent the day with her. Saturday morning I was at the hospital by 7:00 and it takes about 2 hours from Indy so I left for Salem at 8:00 to shoot the 11:00  practice session. The weather was gorgeous on Saturday and I was back on the road to Indy after qualifying at about 4:30 and back at the hospital by 6:30. I made a quick trip out to Chipotle to get my fiance and I some dinner and finally made it home about 9:00 pm.

The race started as planned under mostly sunny skies

The weather forecast for Sunday in Salem was not favorable, showing rain and storms most of the morning and again at around 2:00 when the race was supposed to start. Having worked with the ARCA series for quite awhile now, I know how persistent ARCA officials are about getting a race run even when there might be some moisture around, so I was still planning on heading south no matter what my Accuweather app said! I went back to the hospital early Sunday morning and kept an eye on the weather radar to determine if (or more accurately when) I would leave Indy.

Michael Self was singing in the rain at Salem

As it turned out, my fiance was doing great and the weather system kind of split around Salem so I decided to leave Indy around 10 and as I hit the southside it was still raining. My fiance's younger daughter, the nurse practitioner, was also at the hospital and was going to make sure she got home and situated alright. I knew she was in good hands so I headed south on I-65 and got to the track at noon just as the track drying was wrapping up and learned that everything was on schedule for the live MAV-TV coverage to start as planned. And the sun was out shining brightly with some nice fluffy clouds in the sky for the most part. There were some dark clouds to the west that were worrisome but it was time to go racing and I had my rain gear, so I went about my pre-race shooting duties and prepared as though the whole 200 laps would be run. So while the recurring travel and the hospital time made for a strange combination amid a roller coaster of emotions, the beautiful light at the start of the race more than made up for all the tension and stress of my fiance's situation. After all was said and done, the rains came just past halfway, the race was called, we shot Victory Lane under the General Tire awning and I was able to get home by 6:30 that evening to take over caretaking duties. It was a whirlwind weekend and the perfect way to get back in the saddle while hitting another milestone in my own recovery. Thank God for friends and family. I love you all! Until we meet again, here's a few more photos I took at Salem.

I still think Michael Self's Sinclair sponsored car is one of the prettiest in the ARCA series - and he wins races!

In what has become one of my signature photos, Travis Braden goes through Turn 4 through an old ESPN camera hole in the wall

The weather on Saturday was perfect for practice and qualifying

Sixteen year old Carson Hocevar won his second ARCA pole position; at Berlin last season, it also rained!

Defining Normalcy Again

My brother Steve (left) and I at Daytona 11 days before my surgery

I went back to work at my teaching job three weeks and one day after my lung cancer surgery, and it feels great! The surgery itself was seven weeks and two days ago and if you read my blog regularly then you know I am a full time teacher in an adult high school called The Excel Center in Noblesville, Indiana. Now that my surgery is behind me, I have to define a new normal for myself as I have never missed so much work in all my life and I am still testing out what kind of limits I will have physically since I had the upper lobe of my right lung removed. And just so you know, I don't claim to be a cancer fighter since I haven't really done anything - the doctors did it all - but I am relieved that all the pathology shows I am cancer free. Thank God for early detection so if you've been a smoker like I was for 40 years, get yourself checked out. My journey started with a $49 heart scan last October and now five months later, I have cleared a significant hurdle in my life journey thanks to the medical professionals at IU Health.

The oddest thing in all of this is that there are times when it feels so surreal - as though it all happened to someone else. Throughout the process, I have found support in areas I would never have anticipated, especially through my social media contacts, many of whom I've never met in person but who have given me a boost nonetheless through their comments, feedback and encouragement. I have really appreciated that and during my recovery have spent a lot of time trying to thank people for their support. I apologize if I've missed anyone but please know that it has meant so much to me. This whole experience has helped me to start looking at life differently so I am extremely grateful for that. Who ever says they are grateful for having had cancer? I don't know but I am, and it feels like I have a second chance at life so I don't want to waste a minute.

My jump shot in 1976 

Growing up all I wanted to do was play pro basketball but I didn't quite make it there. I was fortunate to play high school football and basketball and then play Division III college basketball at the University of Chicago. I have been lucky to be an athlete all my life and I remain very active even now closing in on 62 years young.  I even played 30 minutes in my UC alumni basketball game in January a few weeks before my surgery so when the doctors were asking me the last few months if I could walk up two flights of stairs, I would just laugh. Now I'm not saying I'm ready to get back on the court and play ball again, but the racing season is upon us and I will be getting thousands of steps at racetracks this year starting this weekend with the ARCA Menards Series race at Salem Speedway. 

Before my diagnosis I had planned on going to Sebring last month for the combined WEC and IMSA sports car races. Instead I got to watch a lot of it on television after returning to work at my teaching job on Thursday of Sebring week. I was pretty worn out from the renewed level of increased activity so having the Sebring races on television was some consolation for not being able to attend. I knew  several photographers who were there and it was great to follow their work on social media both Friday and Saturday. My next race with the ARCA Menards Series is at Salem Speedway and while I realize that bumpy little high banked half mile in southern Indiana bears no resemblance to the flat Sebring airport road course in central Florida, it will be great to get back to my racing photo work nonetheless.

Jasper's Fairview Cemetery overlook to St. Joseph's church and beyond

In the meantime, I have my Indiana Arts Commission photo book project on older Indiana cemeteries to complete. I have a couple more road trips to complete to gather photos but I have a lot of material to use already and the concept is becoming more clear in my mind as my completion deadline approaches this June. If you have not seen my Facebook page for "Hoosier Cemeteries: A Photo Study", then please check it out and give me feedback. I also have a page on my Alleygroup website at this link with other photos from my various trips. So far I have been able to hit all corners of the state except for the southwest so that is where I need to go next to find some older cemeteries that have been overlooked or perhaps are now surrounded by newer development. It's been especially interesting visiting some "pioneer" cemeteries and a few that have genealogical significance for my own family. surname "Alley". You start to see some patterns and similarities with headstones and grave markers according to time periods across the state when you visit ones that date back to the early- to mid-1800's as I have.

Today I am sitting in a hospital waiting room as my fiance undergoes breast cancer surgery so finding a new "normal" is being thrust upon our family in ways we could not have envisioned even when we went to Nashville, Tennessee at the end of December. To top it off, her brother also has cancer so this dreaded affliction has hit us hard emotionally so if it is true that bad things come in threes, then we should be done with all of that and our luck surely must be changing soon. I sure hope so. In any case, we are going to carry on and live our lives as best we can, trust the process and do the things we are meant to do. Thanks to everyone for the love and support. See you at a racetrack somewhere soon. And if you want to know more about my Hoosier Cemetery photo project, then please drop me a line!

Vevay, Indiana cemetery along the Ohio River in southern Indiana contrast with the mills in Kentucky across the river

Alley-Jones-Gloshen pioneer cemetery near Brookville

St. Ferdinand cemetery with the Immaculate Heart nunnery in the background

See You Next Year Daytona

The ARCA Menards Series has a new logo

The last few days have just whizzed by as I've flown to Orlando on Southwest, shuttled to Daytona, spent the better part of three days at Daytona International Speedway, and then retraced my tracks to fly home Sunday night. This was not my first time at Daytona but it was my first time working the ARCA Racing Series event, so there was a newness to the experience that kept me on my toes. It was a big weekend for the series which got officially rebranded as the ARCA Menards Series during a Saturday afternoon press conference. It was a well kept secret but I was told early in the weekend that I needed to be ready to photograph a press conference at 12:15 Saturday afternoon so I had an idea that something big was brewing. It was cool to be there as ARCA President Ron Drager, the head of NASCAR Mike Helton and Menards owner John Menard talked about the deal. Once the deal was announced, we all got to put on our new shirts and hats so that was exciting to be a part of.

Natalie Decker has become a fan favorite

I am fortunate to have the chance to photograph the series and was excited Thursday to be the person primarily responsible for taking new headshot photos of all the drivers who were entered for the race. I did 33 of 35 drivers, plus had to redo one of them when the driver got a new uniform to start off the season. Those headshots will be used all season long on television when driver introductions or starting lineups are being announced, so I can't wait to see the FS1 telecast I recorded to see how they looked. I knew something was up when I was instructed on Thursday to photograph all the drivers without a hat and then also with a Menards hat, and not to use the ARCA hat we had used the last few seasons. As a photographer, I had a blast using the studio light setup to take those photos as I don't often get the chance to work with that kind of lighting.

Can you tell we're brothers?

I was working with another photographer, Rich Corbett, all weekend and my brother Steve came in Thursday night,  so we had fun exploring the speedway and hitting a couple of restaurants I knew about from previous trips to Daytona. Thursday's track activity was late in the day so Rich and I split up to get different angles of the cars in track. We have to be sure we get photos of every car entered so that's usually one of the first orders of business. The lighting and blue skies were perfect Thursday afternoon for that so Friday  we concentrated on people photos - drivers, team owners, crew chiefs, etc. Friday turned out to be another perfect  day with lots of sunshine and high temperatures near 80 which was a real pleasure to experience after dealing with 40 below wind-chill at hime in Indy the previous week. Racing is a people sport after all so we try to show the human side through our pictures. Most motorsports photographers are gearheads at heart so we naturally love the cars but sharing the excitement the drivers and teams feel at the track is what really makes it meaningful.

Pre-race ceremonies were completed under threatening skies

The weather Saturday wasn't nearly as nice as Thursday and Friday had been, as a persistent cloud cover had rolled in with much cooler temperatures and an occasional misty rain falling. Our race, the Lucas Oil 200, was delayed a little and everyone was ecstatic to see lap 41 go onto the scoring pylon since that meant the race was official. The alternatives if we had been postponed were not pretty so even when I started feeling some sprinkles with a few laps to go I was not in the least disappointed. We got the race in, the race was highly competitive among several young "kids", there were no serious incidents or injuries, so all in all it was a great day.

Christian Eckes led the field to the green flag

One of the best things about race day was getting to start the race in the flagstand. I have done that at many other racks on the ARCA circuit but it was first time doing it at Daytona and that was a real thrill. We had a guest flagger from series sponsor and tire supplier General Tire and I always enjoy seeing their reactions to the full field of race cars thundering past right under our feet. The whole flagstand shakes when the cars are fully up to speed after a lap or two and the view from up there is spectacular to say the least. This is my fifth season as the chief photographer for ARCA and there are "signature" photos I am trying to claim and those flagstand shots when the green flag flies are in that category. It doesn't get much better than that, and this time I ran into those same General Tire people in Victory Lane near the end of the race and they still had huge smiles glued to their faces, so you could tell they got a thrill out of the experience as well. It's hard to leave a racetrack without taking something besides memories with me and I often go through a bit of an emotional slump after a race weekend.

See you later Daytona!

This race I got new shirts and a new ARCA Menards Series hat, plus a few thousand photos and that's going to have to be enough for awhile as I  won't be going back to a race until April. This coming Tuesday I have a date with a thoracic surgeon who will be excising a cancerous spot from the upper lobe of my right lung, so wish me luck. I hope I don't need it and I believe I will come out of the operation with flying colors. I am certainly thankful for early detection and for the opportunities I have to photograph races, sports events, travel locations, and my beautiful fiance and grand-babies. Until next time I get a chance to write, here's a few more photos from the Lucas Oil 200 that Harrison Burton won for Venturini Motorsports. For even more photos from the race, be sure to go to the ARCA Menards Series website and check out the photo galleries. See you soon!

Venturini Motorsports put 18 year old Harrison Burton in Victory Lane at Daytona

Getting close to the action is one of the benefits of being the Chief Photographer for ARCA

John Menard (right) expanded his support of the ARCA Menards Series once again

Stock cars and Daytona are a match made in fan heaven

Fans came out in great numbers for the autograph session; that's why we are able to do what we do!

Daytona Here I Come

Is winter over yet?

I will be living on Daytona time for the next four days as I finally get to make the trek to the "World Center of Racing" for the ARCA race weekend. I say "finally" because it seems like it's been forever since my last race, which was in Kansas last October. I am "finally" getting to work the ARCA race at Daytona International Speedway since it will be my first time shooting for the series at the home of NASCAR. It is not my first race at Daytona by any means as I shot my first Daytona 500 in 2011 and followed that up in 2012 and 2014. Plus I've worked the Rolex 24 Hours three times since 2014, so I feel like I know my way around down there a little bit although I'm sure it will be different with ARCA in some ways. In any case, I am happy to get out of Indianapolis for a few days, away from our crappy February weather and get back to my happy place, which right now would be just about any racetrack. Why not Daytona? I think I could do this every year.

This is going to be a big year for myself and for ARCA. I am writing this post in the Indianapolis airport and am now just 13 days away from scheduled lung surgery to remove a spot in my right lung which the doctors say is cancerous. My fiance and her brother have each had some nasty health news in the last couple of weeks so we are all reeling from these revelations so having a break now is very timely. This weekend will be the first ARCA race under NASCAR ownership of ARCA so it's a chance to be seen and to meet more NASCAR personnel on their turf. I'd like to keep doing this job for a long time, so getting in a solid weekend of photography and networking will help me get through the surgery and recovery with something else to look forward to. I will probably miss the race in March at Pensacola but should be good to go for all the rest of the season starting with Salem Speedway in mid-April. I still don't know what I will be doing for the Indy 500 in May but I'm sure something will get worked out, even if it is just shooting on race day, which looks likely due to my ARCA commitments. That will seem strange but I have to work where the work is and right now that's in the ARCA Series and I am very grateful for the opportunity.

Boiler Up! Hammer Down!

As they say, "it's good work if you can get it" so I can't take that for granted. I have no real idea what the recovery from this surgery will be like but I think it will go well, given my overall physical condition which is excellent. Last Friday I passed the three year mark tobacco free so that's also in my favor. We never know what the future holds and I have worked very hard the last dozen years or so to get to this point with my photography so I am excited to build on that this year. Over the winter I got to photography a Purdue football bowl game and a Purdue men's home basketball game so I know the opportunities will come if I put myself out there. That's what I've been trying to do on a limited budget (I am a teacher after all) so any work that pays is good work! I gave up basketball officiating this winter to open up time for other activities which has worked out well, except for this surgery thing which I hope isn't a setback.

But if it is, then it's just a setup for a comeback and I am ready. Thanks for reading. See you at a race somewhere soon. Look me up - I'll take your picture!

The Big C and Me

Bring it on!

They say I have lung cancer.

But I'm grateful. How can that be? Those of you who read my blog on a regular basis know it's mainly about my journey as a photographer who specializes in motorsports. On January 4, 2019 that journey took on a whole new meaning for me when the results of a PET scan showed I had a cancerous spot in my right lung. I have been scanned from head to toe and those tests show no other signs of cancer anywhere else in my body. I met with a  thoracic surgeon last Wednesday and surgery has been scheduled for February 19th to remove the cancer.

So how can I be grateful they found cancer? I smoked for 40 years but at the end of this month I will be smoke free for 3 years, so I was hoping for good news from the earlier tests but I wasn't surprised to hear the news from the PET scan. After all, my Mom died of complications from lung cancer in July 2015 so the family history and my personal history intersected about where I feared. The good news is that it is a small spot and my doctor says that no further treatment will be required aside from regular scans in the future to see if it recurs or shows up somewhere else in my body. So there's gratitude for early detection.

I'm also grateful because my employer, Goodwill Education Initiatives, encourages and gives incentives for employees to get annual physicals. My primary care physician had urged me to get a $49 heart scan because of my and my Mom's histories of smoking even though I have no symptoms of any kind. I got the heart scan November 2nd last year and followed that up with a CT scan December 7th. Without that series of scans which culminated with the PET scan and a brain MRI January 11th, I seriously doubt that the cancer would have been caught until it was much further along. The surgeon described the spot as the "size of a pea" and it is only in Stage 1. There's still a small chance that a biopsy of the tissue that will be taken during surgery might not actually be cancerous, so I will pray for that outcome but I am not betting on it.

Some funny things have happened along the way that I am also grateful for. During the January 4th meeting with the pulmonologist about the PET scan results, he said he was surprised that there was virtually no history in my medical records for him to review. I have been an athlete my whole life and lead a very physically active lifestyle so we got a good laugh out of his observation. I used to think my level of  physical activity would "blow out" my lungs and counteract the other aspects of my lifestyle but at 61, it appears that fallacy has all caught up with me. Another humorous moment came with the surgeon who asked me if I could walk up two flights of stairs. I laughed at her and said I routinely walk 20,000 steps a day doing my motorsports photography in 90 degree heat carrying 25 pounds of camera gear. She responded "he laughed at me!" so I am grateful for my overall health.

I am also grateful that I get the chance to write about my experiences and have a platform to share what I am going through. I've had broken bones and gotten stitches a few times throughout my life but have been fortunate that I've never had to undergo any kind of surgery until now. Considering all the things I've put my body through, that in itself is amazing! Now I know that lots of people have written about their experiences with cancer so my blog reports may not be anything earth shattering: it's just my story and maybe someone else will read something they can connect with.

A week before I had my PET scan and found out I had cancer, I had the opportunity to photograph the Music City Bowl game between Purdue and Auburn in Nashville, Tennessee. Before the game, I got to see a young man, former Purdue student Tyler Trent, who had almost single-handedly united the Boilermakers during his own very public fight against his cancer. Since my diagnosis, I have thought to myself that if that young man can keep his faith and fight to live at the age of 20 when he had barely begun to live, then I have no reason to mope around or feel sorry for myself. Less than a week after I photographed Tyler at the game, he passed away, so I consider myself lucky to have been in his presence that day which turned out to be so close to the end of his fight. Godspeed. #TylerStrong Boiler Up Hammer Down

So how do I feel about my diagnosis? Initially I felt alternately sad and angry, in nearly equal measure, but today I am grateful and happy things are working out the way they are. I have so much to do in my life and no one is issuing any proclamations about how much time I have left so I plan to carry on as if this surgery will take care of the problem once and for all. The reality of cancer is rarely so simple and none of us gets out of here alive anyway, so I am going to live my life "as if" I have another 20 or 30 years ahead of me and do all the things I've dreamt of doing. We're not even guaranteed tomorrow and I don't want to waste a minute.

Whatever you do, don't feel sorry for me. I appreciate people asking how I am doing and if there's anything they can do, but I don't want to be treated like I have the scarlet letter "C" emblazoned on my forehead. Let's just live and love with all our might and be grateful for whatever time we have together. There's no time like the present - it's a gift after all. And I still have a lot of life to live. Next up for me on this journey is shooting a Purdue men's basketball game February 3rd and then the following week I fly to Florida to shoot the ARCA race event at Daytona, so you'll be hearing from me again soon. To paraphrase the late Sid Collins, "stay tuned for the greatest spectacle in living." And thanks for reading; see you soon!