ARCA, Alonso and Alabama

ARCA raced at Salem for the 101st time on April 30th

Since the last I had the chance to write, I've been kind of busy! You may wonder what the heck ARCA, Alonso and Alabama have in common and why I used these in my title. On the last weekend in April, I made two trips to Salem Speedway in southern Indiana for the 101st ARCA race at the old high banks. Then Wednesday May 3rd I went out to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to cover the first test session for two-time Formula One World Champion Fernando Alonso on the IMS oval since the news came out that he was skipping Monaco to run the 101st Indy 500 instead.

ARCA teams turned out in force for Talladega 

Then the first weekend in May I did a banzai trip to Talladega, Alabama, driving through torrential rain Thursday night, to shoot the ARCA, NASCAR Xfinity and Monster Energy Cup races, before returning home to Indy at 2:45 a.m. Monday morning so I wouldn't miss any work that day. The Alabama weather was miserable on Friday when we were supposed to have run the ARCA race as it was cold and rainy, although we did get on track for 30 minutes of practice. as a result, the race got postponed to Saturday afternoon once all of the NASCAR track activities were completed so I ended up shooting the Xfinity Series race for AP and the ARCA race for ARCA that afternoon. The night before we had gone to a Mexican restaurant on Cinco de Mayo, which probably wasn't the best decision, but we had fun and I was ready to just relax Saturday night.

Four wide at Talladega is the new normal

I was still dealing with a credential snafu that night for the Cup race and I wasn't sure it would get worked out at all, but I went to sleep trying to trust the process and hope for the best. The next morning I not only got into the track with the right credential to shoot for AP, I got assigned to the Turn 1 tower so I had a great view of the pack racing which made for some interesting photos. Even though I didn't sell any pictures to AP from the Cup race, I left via the "secret exit" as soon as I turned in my photo vest and was happy with the work I had done as I headed back to Indianapolis Sunday evening. The common thread is racing of course, and I nearly set a mileage record for the week!

Will Power won on the road course at Indy again

Fast forward a week and I've done another race - this time a little closer to home - at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway where Indycar ran on the road course in its Indycar Grand Prix to kick off May track activities at IMS. Now that the Indycar GP is over, practice has started for the 101st Indy 500 and Alonso has gotten some real track time under his belt, and he has really seemed to enjoy it. He has adapted well to solo and pack running since his limited number of laps to pass his rookie test on May 3rd. Fernando has also seemed to enjoy the close contact with fans and I have been surprised that photographers and fans alike have allowed relatively easy access to him, even in the pits. He ran as high as 4th quick on Fast Friday so he may yet be a real threat to win the 500 next weekend, but there's a host of Indycar regulars who stand between Fernando and the Borg Warner trophy.

Will Power was unstoppable on Indy's road course

Although it is a bit disappointing that there are only 33 cars entered for this year's 500, the quality of the field is high and three crashes during practice (veteran Josef Newgarden, youngster Spencer Pigot and rookie Zach Veach) is about normal for the first week at Indy. I have had a blast shooting for Vision Sport Agency (VSA) and adapting to their more sophisticated techniques in Adobe Lightroom for processing daily images. It has also forced me to be more critical of my own work so I am trying to do hard edits each day as I cull through my photos looking for the 4- and 5-star images.  It's nice to see the results of my work immediately on the internet and I hope it generates more interest for the series and for VSA's involvement both now and in the future, especially here at Indy since this is my home race.

Penske, Ganassi and Andretti drivers made the Indycar GP podium

Will Power won the Indycar GP again this year leading 61 of 85 laps to get his second win at Indy, albeit not on the oval in the big race. Michael Andretti has six cars entered this year for the 500, including Alonso's so on sheer numbers alone, an Andretti driver has the best chance of winning this year at 18.18%. Roger Penske and Chip Ganassi both have four cars entered so they will certainly have much to say about who wins this year's race. In any event they will have to fend of the Andretti phalanx of cars which may get an additional technology boost with the involvement of the McLaren braintrusts from Formula One. Since I'm a numbers guy (I teach Algebra after all) the odds of an Andretti, Penske or Ganassi entry winning the 500 stand at 42.42%. That's a number I would bet on. So as the late Sid Collins used to say, "Stay tuned for the Greatest Spectacle in racing." I will do my part to bring it to you in photos so be sure to check the Vision Sport Agency website on a regular basis.

Fernando Alonso seemed quite comfortable on his first laps on Indy's oval 

Spencer Pigot found the wall in practice but is expected to be ready for qualifying

Race Photography Adventure Begins

Salem Speedway will host the ARCA series for the 101st time this weekend

And so it begins: a race photographer's heaven full of events starts this weekend with a road trip to Salem Speedway to work the ARCA race for the series. The weather forecast isn't great for either Saturday or Sunday but ARCA knows how to get an event in so I am pretty sure the 200 lapper scheduled for Sunday afternoon will get run sometime before I have to be back on my teaching job Monday morning. Those old Salem highbanks drain fast and the track workers know how to get it dried off. There have been numerous times where it didn't look like racing was possible there but it happened despite my prediction, so I am going to stay out of the weatherman business and just go with the flow. I will have pictures to make regardless.

Dega is one monster of a racetrack: I love it

This Salem weekend begins a stretch of racing unlike anything I have ever experienced before. Next Wednesday May 3rd is Fernando Alonso's test on the big oval at Indianapolis Motors Speedway (IMS) so my plan is to get out there for a couple of hours in the morning to get some photos for Vision Sport Agency. Then Thursday night May 4th I hit the road for Talladega as soon as I get out of work, which usually means I get there about midnight Indy time. Friday is ARCA's day on track at Dega so I will be there shooting for the series as we practice, qualify and race all on Friday. Then Saturday and Sunday I will stay over and shoot the NASCAR races for Associated Press, which should be interesting since Dale Earnhardt, Jr. announced this week that he intends to retire from NASCAR at the end of this season. The Alabama fans absolutely love Junior so I will be trying to get some candid shots of him at one of his best racetracks. Then I drive home Sunday night to be back at the head of my class Monday morning.

Simon Pagenaud won the 2016 Grand Prix

The following Friday May 12th action picks up on the road course at IMS for the Indycar Grand Prix event which includes support races for the Indy Lights series. I will be there both days for VSA and hoping that Simon Pagenaud or Sebastian Bourdais can snag a win as those pictures would go over well in Europe for VSA. I will be a one man gang for VSA at Indy this May so I will probably end up setting some steps records by the time the month is over. After the Grand Prix May 13th, I get Sunday off but I will probably still be doing some editing as the track time far outweighs the editing time for the road course event. The rest of that week I will be teaching all day and trying to zip out to IMS for Happy Hour any day the weather permits for Indy 500 practice and more photos of Alonso and all the rest of the Indycar regulars who will be getting ready for the 101st running of the 500. I will also keep an eye on Takuma Sato for Autosport Japan magazine which has used quite a few of my Indy 500 photos of Taku in its publication the last few years. Keeping up with international and domestic relationships has become a major goal of my photography work in motorsports. I am grateful for every opportunity.

There's nothing like the start of the Indianapolis 500

Saturday and Sunday May 20 and 21st are qualifying days for the 500 so I will be working at IMS both days. Then it's race week and after teaching Monday through Thursday I will be at IMS for Carburetion Day Friday May 26th, covering the final practice session for the 33 qualified cars, plus the Freedom 100 Indy Lights race and the pit stop competition. I have always considered race weekend my birthday weekend since my birthday is May 31st, so we will be celebrating my 60th the day after Carb Day. Then 300,000 or so people will join the celebration the next day at IMS for the 500 on May 28th. So between now and the 500, I will have one day off where I am not teaching or working a race event. And I couldn't be happier about that.

Then life calms down for a few days as we wrap up our school year and make final preparations for my biggest travel adventure ever. We leave 10 days after the 500 for Paris, France and the 85th 24 Hours of Le Mans. My fiance and I are going together and while I am unsure what kind of access I will have for the 24 Hours race, you know I will bring back pictures. That's what I do.

So stay tuned race fans! Follow me on twitter @alleygroup to read all about it!

Salem Speedway is a historic track which used to test the best that Indy had to offer

Talladega is a high speed crapshoot to see who can miss "The Big One"

Running clockwise at Indy during the Grand Prix still seems a bit odd to me

Indy 500 pit stops are choreographed mayhem where the quick and precise prevail

ARCA Nashville - New Winner Chad Finney Emerges From Crashfest

Chad Finney grabbed his first career win in the ARCA Racing Series

This past weekend was the second race weekend of my 2017 season and it was a study in contrasts compared to my initial photo assignment for this year back in January at the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona. Thousands of laps were run by IMSA's WeatherTech sports car series competitors across four classes on the Daytona road course and it rained buckets throughout the night. By comparison, my Nashville weekend involved an aging half-mile banked oval where the ARCA Series ran the Music City 200 lap under the watchful eye of MavTV personnel and a live television audience. I had perfect weather from Friday through Sunday so driving to and from Nashville from Indianapolis was a piece of cake and race day Saturday was quite pleasant. The sports car race had a battle for the lead right to the end and the longest caution period came during the night when rains peaked between 5:30 and 7:00 Sunday morning. At Nashville, the lead was held by the #78 of Kyle Weatherman most of the night but tire strategy handed the win to Chad Finney after the completion of 95 laps under caution. They were even crashing after taking the checkered flag!

Kyle Weatherman led 134 of 200 laps but finished second

Perhaps it's not fair to contrast my IMSA and ARCA series weekends but as a photographer, they have a lot more in common than you might think. For instance, Saturday at Nashville stretched from 7:30 in the morning at the ARCA officials meeting to well past midnight once my editing was completed. That's about a 17 hour work day whereas Daytona is a few hours longer. A big similarity was my approach: I had photo goals for both events in order to keep my personal challenges elevated and stay sharp creatively. I did not meet all of my goals at either race event so I know I still have more to work on. I will get the chance with ARCA again in three weeks when the series goes back to Salem Speedway in southern Indiana for its spring visit. I will have to wait until June to hone my chops on 24 hour sports car racing again when we go to Le Mans.

Christian Eckes (15) took 3rd Place ahead of Austin Theriault (52)

Another contrast involves travel. In January, I flew to Orlando and then drove to Daytona. For Nashville, as I will for all of my scheduled ARCA races this season, I drove solo in my 2015 Honda Civic. I cracked the 32,000 mile mark on way back from Nashville, which seems like a lot given I only got the car in September of 2015. I truly love to drive and it's nice to find someone to run with on a long trip, like the white Grand Am south of Lousiville on Friday. Hearing the wind and the singing noise that my Continental Tires make on the highway when I'm at speed is a love song I look forward to hearing every road trip.

Nashville is a historic short track with some very old pavement

This was my third trip to Nashville's Fairgrounds Speedway for an ARCA race and it is an interesting old facility, located on the State Fairgrounds property south of downtown Nashville. Some people may think the ARCA race was being held at the Nashville Superspeedway; while it is true that ARCA has raced there in the past, that track is pushing up daisies now after going through bankruptcy. Daytona's road course is huge compared to the little Nashville bull ring which is only a half mile long.

Austin Theriault is on a comeback tour to restart his career

One of the common themes for race weekends nowadays is the friends I see at the racetracks, and it doesn't matter what series I am covering or which track I visit. Invariably I see people I've known for years as a photographer. More and more, however, I am renewing friendships with drivers, crew members, team owners, PR people and many more, as I return to familiar tracks. Or I am meeting people in person, some for the first time, with whom I've connected on social media. Sometimes the word "family" gets used in this context, but to me it's more like a community of like minded souls who love motorsports in all its forms. That is really a cool thing to be a part of and I have been very fortunate to experience that in many different settings.

Brehanna Daniels has her eye on a NASCAR crew career

And then there's the surprises, like the young woman I met on pit lane during ARCA qualifying on Saturday afternoon. I noticed she was wearing an Excalibur Pit School shirt so I asked her how she was doing and whether she was on a crew. She very excitedly told me her name, Brehanna Daniels, that she was a former Division I basketball player at Norfolk State University, and that she was going to be the first African-American female pit crew member in NASCAR! My first thought was, oh to be that young again! I will be keeping tabs on this young lady and I hope she makes it, as ARCA is a great training ground for crew members, crew chiefs, team support personnel  and others - not just for stock car drivers.

And then there's the fans. While many people don't know much about ARCA, there's also people like Rowdy Maglite who has an internet radio show and covers the series extensively. Or the shirtless guy in Victory Circle after the the Music City 200 was over and was yelling "Hell yeah!" as loud as he could towards the winning team members for some reason! Whatever your flavor, you can find it in racing and the attraction is strong as half the starting field in the Nashville race was making their first season start - and some were making their first ARCA start ever. So ARCA really is the place to go if you want to see tomorrow's stock car stars today. Plus, you can do it for a whole lot less money than a Cup race. If you don't believe me then come out to Salem Speedway April 29th and 30th, camp out at the track and watch the action all weekend. It will be ARCA's 101st time race at Salem so the history is there; you should be too. See you then! In the meantime, here's a few of the photos from my Nashville gallery and a link to the full gallery.

Nashville Music City 200 Photo Gallery:

https://goo.gl/photos/Zg6nPCkXcsrhfqr7A

Countdown to France: My First Le Mans

Pre-race pageantry at the Rolex 24

Now that the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona, the Daytona 500 and Sebring have been run, it's really beginning to feel like spring and I am just two weeks away from my first ARCA race of 2017.  My calendar is full of countdowns for this racing season which began with my second Rolex 24 Hours race in January. I haven't started a countdown to next year's Rolex yet because I definitely want to go back, but you can bet I will start one! We are, however, less than 90 days away from leaving for an epic trip to Italy and France where I will get to shoot the 24 Hours of Le Mans. While that will be my second endurance race of this year, it will be my first Le Mans and first trip to Europe. I couldn't be more excited even though it is not clear yet who I will be shooting for, or even, for that matter, if I will get credentials as I have hoped. But it really doesn't make any difference if I get credentials or not, although I would love to have it on my photo resume. We're going anyway and I will make some freaking pictures one way or another.

There's no place like Indianapolis

We are also less than 70 days away from the 101st Indy 500 and this year marks a change of the guard for me after shooting 2013-2016 for motorsport.com. I will shoot this year's Grand Prix of Indianapolis and the Indy 500 for Vision Sport Agency (VSA), a French company run by one of the gentlemen I met and worked with last year at the 500. This is another exciting opportunity for me to make photography connections on the international motorsports scene. It is also a nice complement to the work I have done in the past for Autosport Japan as VSA is active worldwide on many endurance racing series where it serves as an official photo media outlet. I will get the chance to add to the VSA Indycar portfolio this year. With the 2016 Indycar champion, Simon Pagenaud, a Frenchman and another Frenchman, Sebastian Bourdais, already a winner in Indycar this season at St. Petersburg, I expect I will be taking their photos a lot this May. If that connection extends on to Le Mans, then all the better! 

The monumental countdown is to the 24 Hours of Le Mans. I hope I can remember some of the French I have been trying to learn! My fiance and I are taking the trip of a lifetime with the encouragement of our friends from France at VSA, and with the spiritual guidance of my mother from beyond. I have been making arrangements since last fall and know generally what our itinerary involves. By the time all is said and done, it will sound like planes, trains and automobiles! We will fly through JFK in New York to Paris first for a few days, then take the train to Tours where I will commute to Le Mans during practice. The Loire Valley was always one of Mom's favorite parts of France so I hope we will get to see some of the historic estates while we are there. For the 24 Hours itself, we  have an Air BnB place reserved for race weekend which is within walking distance of the circuit. The day after the race, we will fly to Venice from the western Paris airport for a quick visit and then take the high speed train from Venice to Rome to wrap up our trip, finally flying back from Rome the next weekend. 

Josh Williams with the spoils of victory

My immediate countdown is for ARCA now since there are just two weeks before I head south to Nashville, Tennessee and the Fairgrounds Speedway for the second race of the season for myself as well as the ARCA series. These guys haven't raced since Daytona last month and there was a lot of torn up equipment at that race, so hopefully everyone has their repairs made and are ready for short track racing in the Music City 200. Several teams have been at Nashville testing this week to get ready so you know they are taking this seriously.  Josh Williams got his first ever ARCA series win last year at Nashville and his family's celebration was one for the ages. It will be fun to see if one of the crop of new drivers in the series this year can have a similar breakthrough on Nashville's weathered half mile of pavement. I am excited to get back to ARCA racing and meet all the new people as well as see my friends from the last few seasons. The ARCA series is a great series for up and coming talent and races on all kinds of tracks, including dirt miles! The new 5 Star composite bodies and Ilmor engines make the racing affordable and competitive for everyone. Two weeks after Nashville, I will be back at Salem Speedway with ARCA in southern Indiana before hitting the big track of Talladega Superspeedway the first weekend in May. After Talladega comes Indy and then Le Mans, so the calendar pages will start flipping past quickly here very soon. Hopefully you will follow along here on my blog, or find me on Twitter @alleygroup as my motorsports photography journey continues.

We are having some fun now! See you at a racetrack somewhere soon. 

500 Blog Posts - And Counting Thanks

Sam Hornish takes Turn 1 at Indy in 2006

This is the 500th blog post I have written here since I started in 2007, and it's hard to believe that 10 years has passed already. When I began blogging, a marriage of 18 years had ended and my career in real estate development and utility management was also in transition, so this blog was a creative outlet to write about my passion for motorsports. I still tell the joke on myself that when I got divorced, I bought camera equipment instead of furniture and went racing again, with the Indy 500 in 2006 my official re-entry into the changing digital media world. It was also my first race shooting high speed digital still photography. I am still grateful that Greg Griffo at the Indianapolis Star gave me the chance to shoot Indy again that year after I sat out 2004 and 2005 when I went as a spectator. I have had a number of great opportunities since then and now 11 years later, I am facing another transition as I search for a new media affiliation for my home races at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Shooting for American Motor Journal included  USAC dirt racing

If you read my blog regularly, then you know I started shooting Indy in 1984 as a turn shooter for UPI. After that, I shot for the Indianapolis Star for five years and the Speedway's staff for five years before taking 1997 and 1998 off due to personal problems that were masquerading as burnout. Even though I kept my consecutive string if 500's alive by going as a spectator, I  discovered I missed the media work terribly and came back in 1999 with Agency France Pressed for the next five races. After the 2003 race my personal life imploded, everyone at the track switched from film to digital, and I needed time to assess where my life was going. After much soul searching, a move out of my marital home, and changes in my professional career when the housing market crashed, I bought my first good digital cameras and was ready to go racing again. And I was ready to get serious about numerous life changes I had been wrestling with. So May 2006 was a renaissance for me and I also met someone else that month who would help me rachet up my racing photography: Don Hamilton.

Chicagoland was a great track for Indycar

I had known Don for years but that May he told me he had acquired American Motor Journal (AMJ) and asked me if I'd be interested in shooting some races for him. Don passed away unexpectedly a few years ago, but the seven years I worked with him I shot Indycar at the 500, Chicagoland, Nashville, Kentucky, Mid Ohio and Michigan, plus Grand Am and American Le Mans at Mid Ohio, plus the Brickyard 400 and ARCA races at Salem every spring and fall. Throw in a few USAC dirt races here and there and I felt I was living large while doing what I lived. More changes were in store for my professional career as I got out of the utily business and went back to graduate school at Marian University to get a teaching license. My hope was to teach math, coach basketball or soccer, officiate both sports, and shoot even more racing during breaks from teaching.

Sunrise at Daytona; I slept in my car more than once here

In 2010 I started looking to branch out from AMJ as I had gotten tremendous experience shooting all aspects of race events and felt I was ready to do more. I reached out to another photographer friend from Indy, Glenn Smith, about shooting for Associated Press at places like Daytona and Talladega. He introduced me to the AP folks down south and I did my first Daytona 500 and Talladega races in 2011 and have been going back ever since. I also got to shoot my first Rolex 24 Hours race in 2014  and make new connections  that led to shooting at Atlanta for AP as well. Glenn ran into his own life problems and then passed away a few years later but I am forever indebted to him for the help he gave me with those introductions.

Shooting Victory Lane at Indy in 2013 was the thrill of a lifetime

Another key aspect of those experiences was meeting other photogs and while I didn't know it in 2012, I would be branching out again the next year as a result of the relationships I had developed. At Indy in 2012, I happened to be sharing a drop gate outside Turn 3 with another photographer and of course we were chatting during down time. That photographer turned out to be Eric Gilbert with motorsport.com who gave me one of his business cards. Over that next winter,  I contacted Eric about shooting for his site during 2013 and found out that one of his photo editors was someone I had already met and worked with at AP at Talladega, Rainier Ehrhardt. Don Hamilton had passed away in the meantime so AMJ had folded and I had nothing lined up going into 2013. Thank goodness for relationships as I got the opportunity at Barber Motorsport Park in April 2013 to shoot the Grand Am and Indycar weekend as a trial run for motorsport.com. That led to shooting the Indy 500 that year and shooting in Victory Lane for the 500 for the first time, which also happened to coincide with fan favorite Tony Kanaan's first Indy win. I also shot Indycar and ALMS at Mid Ohio and the Brickyard that year for the site. I've shot the Indy 500 since then for the site and just last month I shot my second ever Rolex 24 Hours. 

Indianapolis is still home for me

I can't even begin to tell you how much I have learned from all the people I have worked with these last eleven years, and I hope that my gratitude for the opportunities has come through loud and clear in my blog posts since I started writing on a regular basis in 2007. Those lessons and relationships have also led to the role I currently have with the ARCA Racing Series as its chief photographer through the help of Harlen "Doc" Hunter. I have learned this week that I must find another media outlet for the Indy 500 this year so I am actively pursuing other opportunities. I am still hopeful of working as a credentialled photographer at Le Mans this June for the 24 Hours but if that doesn't happen, my fiance and I are going anyway and I will do what I always do: bring home pictures. I trust the experiences I have gathered these last 11 years will continue to show themselves through my photos. So if you need someone reliable who knows how to shoot racing, then I'm your guy. Give me a call, or check my website. I am excited to see what the future holds as you know that when one door closes another opens. I am confident that I'll be there to walk through that door, but above all, I want everyone to know how thankful I am for the chances I've been given to show what I could do. It means the world to me.

Talladega has become one of my favorite tracks to work and the folks at AP have been great

American Le Mans at Mid Ohio was always a treat

Bump drafting at Daytona keeps you on your toes for the "Big One"

Indycar races at Kentucky were usually nail-biters with photo finishes

The Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona this year had more than its share of drama and "moisture"

Wet and Wild Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona

The winning Wayne Taylor Racing team enjoyed Victory Lane

Lately I have had to pinch myself to be sure I wasn't dreaming about some of the events in my life. Last weekend I celebrated one year tobacco free by photographing the IMSA WeatherTech series Rolex 24 Hours race at Daytona. It was my second Rolex 24 and my first race to work for 2017. The only other time I went was in 2014 and I shot for AP but this time I was fortunate to go as a contributor to motorsport.com. On top of an exciting race event to wrap up January,  earlier in the month I was interviewed by two different websites about my experiences as a racing photographer. One of those interviews was the first time I had ever been on a podcast as a guest so that was fun and humbling. Links to those interviews are here: Wide Open Wheel (article) and Formula One Blog (podcast). Special thanks to Paul Henry and Doug Patterson for those opportunities. Above all, I have to thank my friends and the editors at motorsport.com for the chance to contribute to its coverage of the season opening sports car event at Daytona.

I planned for rain and it came in buckets during the race

As cool as it was getting interviewed by friends in the media, the coolest was flying to Florida and working the Rolex 24 from Thursday practice through the end of the race Sunday afternoon. I don't often get the chance to fly to races so I viewed the Rolex weekend as a real tune-up for Le Mans. I had new camera covers in case of rain, I had a 400 mm I borrowed from Canon and it was the first trip I relied on my backpack bag to cart all my gear on the plane. The trip started with a 2:30 a.m. alarm Thursday morning to catch a 6:07 flight from Indy and I actually got to the Delta ticket counter at Indianapolis before any of the airline staff, so that was a first. I got lucky on the flight when a very large man who was ticketed in the seat next to me couldn't get his seat belt buckled so he got moved and I had two seats to myself on the emergency exit row so I had lots of room. 

I enjoyed the pre-race pageantry IMSA displayed

The flight got to Orlando ahead of schedule so I got my rental car and headed for the Daytona credential office. I got inside the track near the end of the first WeatherTech practice session and was super excited to get set up in the media center for my first race of 2017. I remembered how to get in the infield even though the last time I was at Daytona was in 2014, but the parking security people sent me away to "Lot 6" which turned out to be outside the track Ali g the backstretch. My first thought was how to get my gear inside the track, which turned out not to be a big deal since there was a shuttle operating nearby and there were lots of team personnel who were parked in the same getting back and forth didn't turn out to be a big deal after all. My second thought was about sleeping Saturday night during the race. I had a hotel room for Thursday and Friday nights and my plan was to catch a few hours sleep Saturday night in my car inside the track like I had in 2014. I had to adjust that plan to include the shuttle ride but that worked out OK too as it turned out, and I was able to get through the race with a couple hours of sleep.

Night pit stops were quite a sight to behold

The Rolex 24 is such a unique event compared to most of the rest of the racing I cover. The ARCA races I shoot are seldom even two hours long and even the Indy 500 or NASCAR at Talladega seldom go four hours at most. My goal going into the race was to shoot for a couple hours and then edit and upload photos; rinse and repeat, and that's pretty much how it worked out. The race itself is a wall of sound for 24 hours and once it was over, it was amazing how quiet Daytona became. I got to test out my camera covers during the night and was out shooting at 4:30 in the morning in the rain after my brief nap in the rental car. I went in to the media center around 5:15 as the rain really started to pour down and the race went under caution for a long time so I just stayed at my computer and watched the TV monitors as I edited. It was fun hanging out with FoxSports commentator Justin Bell during that lengthy rain caution just chatting. I asked him why he was slumming with us photogs and we talked about the Facebook live report he did for the Roar Before the 24, and just generally talked about racing. By that hour Sunday morning, people were sleeping on their computers in photo room or catnapping wherever they could but by 7:00 a.m. everyone started heading back out to shoot as the race went green again.

A happy Jeff Gordon in the winning team's pit when the race ended

It seems funny now in hindsight, but I remember thinking throughout the race every time I stopped to edit and download that I had plenty of time left: 16 hours to go, 11 hours, 9 hours, etc. But when it was all over, I was ensconced next to the Wayne Taylor Racing team pit box taking a chance on them being the winning team so I could get reaction shots, wishing I had done more throughout the race. From the time I got there Thursday until I left Sunday evening, I shot about 6,500 frames and walked almost 70,000 steps, so maybe the thought of "doing more" was just my perfectionism talking. In the end I was generally pleased with my production and how I met the challenges of pacing myself, shooting at night and dealing with the rain. Starting around noon Sunday, I had done a final lap around the infield from oval Turn 2 and the pumphouse where I had shot several Daytona 500's, down the backstretch to the bus stop and then back into the pits so I could be ready for the last 90 minutes. My flights back were uneventful and I was pleasantly tired after a long weekend which seemed to go by so quickly once it was over. I am grateful to feel like I am still learning after all these years shooting racing and I think the lessons learned at this year's Rolex 24 will help me at Le Mans this June. I can't wait for the next chance to show what I've learned. To hear that roar of engines singing through the night once again will knock another bucket list item off so stay tuned and I will tell you all about it here. For more of my photos please check motorsport.com or follow me on Twitter @alleygroup. Safe travels everyone!

Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac DPi was flawless in its debut race

The GT category was hotly contested with the Ganassi Ford GT40 program showing the way

Night racing is a thing of beauty - lights, sound and fury

Daytona Addendum: More Rain and It's My Fault

Well I made it to Daytona exactly on schedule Thursday and everything has been great: until last night. I had a flashback to my last Daytona trip, in 2014, when I came for the Daytona 500 and rain delays pushed the race into the evening. This time the "moisture" started hitting the track around 8:30 last night and persisted through the early morning hours as the clock ticked on the 55th Rolex 24 Hours race. Back in 2014, I got back to my hotel at 3:30 in the morning and had to get up at 5:00 to catch my flight home. This year there were no rain delays per se, but the field ran behind the pace car for nearly 2 hours stating around 5:15 this morning. Thankfully, I was in the media center when that occurred, although I did get blamed by at least one photographer friend accused me of starting the rainfall. Ironically that was about the time I finished shooting some rain shots after getting maybe 2 hours of sleep in my rented Jeep between 2:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m.

This weekend has been every bit the experience I had anticipated. I have taken over 5,200 images since I got here Thursday around noon. There has been all kinds of unusual situations to photograph and lighting has fluctuated wildly so I have been able to do some "concept" photos like this one as experiments in slow speed panning. Since I have not been the lead photographer this weekend, I have been able to do variety of shooting without the need to ensure a certain image is produced. That may or may not be what motorsport.com is looking for, but I have certainly submitted enough photos so they could decide what gets run and what doesn't. The Rolex 24 is such a unique event and I am so glad I chose to come down to start my 2017 racing season here. I even went to the beach yesterday so I could see the ocean and today the rain is supposed to stop so the finishing hours will be dry.

Now there are less than 6 hours in the race and then it will be over, seemingly as quickly as it began. But after a year's worth of anticipation and planning, that shouldn't come as much of a surprise now, should it? Until next time, got to motorsport.com to see my photos and I won't be surprised if see you at a racetrack somewhere soon.

Daytona Here I Come

As I sat at Indianapolis international airport long before dawn this morning to board a flight to Orlando, I was reminiscing about my previous trips to Florida to shoot a race at Daytona. This will be the fifth race I've worked at the "world center of speed"  but only my second Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona. I am sure this trip will be another adventure, and you can bet I'll have a story to tell with photos by the time Monday rolls around.

The first time I went to Daytona was 2011 when I got to shoot the Daytona 500 for the first time and got to work for Associated Press. That was my first race ever for AP and it's ironic that I got introduced to AP in the deep south by a photographer friend I knew from Indy who was living in Columbus, Georgia at the time, the late Glenn Smith. I will always be indebted to Glenn for that introduction as it opened other doors for me. On that trip, I tried to drive straight through by myself in my beloved 1999 Acura Integra, but had to stop at 2:00 in the morning in Jacksonville after 15+ hours of driving. The Red Roof Inn I stayed at was barely acceptable but it was either stay there or drive another 90 minutes to sleep in the parking lot of the credential office. I chose to stay and do the last leg of the trip in the morning and I'm glad I did as I stopped in St. Augustine, saw the old fort and waded in the Atlantic Ocean for a bit.

The next year I went back for the 500 but made sure the trip wasn't such a banzai effort as I did it solo again in my trusty Integra. For 2012, I drove 10 hours one day, staying the night in Augusta, Georgia, which left me a 6 hour drive the next day. That was certainly more manageable and I was definitely more rested on arrival at Daytona International Speedway than I had been the year before. I was shooting for AP again and after getting some pictures on the AP wire at Talladega in 2011, I hoped I would have some luck at Daytona. I shot the first two races on 500 weekend but nothing spectacular happened where I was positioned, and then the 500 got postponed by rain for the first time in, well, forever, so I headed back to Indy to resume my teaching job with very little to show for a weekend of about 2200 miles on the road. Sometimes you're the bug. Sometimes you're the windshield.

After proving to myself that I could drive those long road trips on my own, I got "smart" and decided to fly to Daytona in 2013 for the 500. Mother Nature intervened however, as an ice storm hit Indy the day I was supposed to fly out and my flight got cancelled. At one point I loaded my Integra and started out but the roads were so treacherous in Indy and along the routes south, that I feared I'd never make it so I turned around and stayed home. Lesson learned that year? When the airlines start predicting changes in schedules due to winter weather, change to an earlier flight!

With the aborted 2013 attempt as experience, I decided I would do both the Rolex 24 and the Daytona 500 in 2014, and I decided I would fly to both race weekends. That way I figured if weather intervened again, my odds of getting to at least one race would be better. Both weekends went off without a hitch but AP didn't use any of my photos. Evenso, I had a great experience at the 24 and vowed to return.

So now it's 2017 and I am finally going back, but only for the Rolex weekend. I am flying again and this time I am shooting for motorsport.com so it will be a hectic weekend as a contributor to its website. I have been looking forward to this trip for a year and have basically paid for it with savings from quitting smoking a year ago this weekend. It's another goal I've set and met, so stay tuned for more this weekend!

Racing Past Is Prelude to the Future

When I started working on this blog in 2007, I had no idea what I would end up doing with it. What began as an effort to document my travels as a racing photographer has been all of that and more, as the title suggests a travelogue through all the little towns and villages one sees on the road. Now it is 2017 and I am closing in on 500 blog posts and haven't earned one red cent from all these words. So why do I continue to write? Because I have to.

I grew up dreaming of playing pro basketball and being a writer. My hoop dreams didn't pan out but I never gave up on being a writer. And then I discovered I also had a passion for photography and the die was cast. Not only do I feel compelled to write, now I can't dream of a future without photography. I still haven't "made it" as a writer or photographer, if making it is defined as making a living with them on a full time basis. But I don't live by that definition, and I don't define myself by the expectations of others. So I will keep doing what I've been doing for the last ten years and hope that my work is discovered by new people through social media and appreciated by those for whom I work. And so my journey continues.

2016 ARCA Champion Chase Briscoe relaxing at DuQuoin

Now that it's 2017, I have a couple of other interesting memories of last year that I want to share. First the events from last year were memorable in their own right:  over 18 different weekends, I worked 14 ARCA Racing Series races as the chief photographer for the series, contributed to motorsport.com for three Indycar races and shot two NASCAR weekends at Talladega for Associated Press (AP). Then there were the crazy situations, either on the way to a race, at a track or away from the racetrack; chalk those up to life on the road. The scariest was encountering a wrong way driver on Interstate 70 early on a Saturday morning on the road to Springfield, Illinois for the USAC Silver Crown and ARCA Series weekend. The funniest was driving past the Ponderosa Sun Club, in Roselawn, Indiana en route to Chicagoland Speedway for the ARCA race. In case you didn't know, the Roselawn is a nudist colony; Lord only knows why it would be in the Hoosier state, bastion of conservatism and rural Americana that Indiana is known to be.

My AP colleagues at lunch at 'Dega

Then there's the people and scenes at the racetracks. At Talladega, for instance, I always look forward to the catfish and hush puppies served at the media center for lunch on Saturday and the southern barbecue on Sunday. It's the only time all year I eat catfish but it sure is good. Ironically, that weekend there was a heavy police presence with officers in SWAT team gear and automatic rifles posted all around the garage area, but no one ever said what that was about. Perhaps the most fun is meeting people I have connected with on Twitter and other social media. For instance, I met Rowdy Maglite at Springfield and heard the story of how he got that name at a Talladega race weekend years ago. That meeting led to being interviewed by Rowdy for his online radio show to talk about ARCA racing so that was really fun.

One of my new friends from France & I before dawn at Indy

Indianapolis is always a treat as people come in from all over and this year I met and worked with two men from France who encouraged me to consider coming over to Le Mans which put our whole plan for 2017 in motion. I met Twitter followers Paul Henry (@gforcepaul) in the garage area and Pat Kilkenny (@theapexshop) on the grid for the Angie's List Grand Prix during May's festivities. The most unexpected was meeting a Twitter follower on the flagstand of an ARCA race. After all, it's the people that make the sport and one goal I have for 2017 is to get more photos of people than race cars. I hope I can deliver on that goal but I know it will be fun trying.

Sports car racing will be a big part of 2017 for me

There's also a lot of exciting events on the horizon for me as a photographer for this year and I expect to have one of my best years ever. I am going back to Daytona this month to shoot my second Rolex 24 Hours race as a celebration of being tobacco free for one whole year. I will be shooting for motorsport.com this time so I hope my contributions to the race coverage will be good supplements to their photo crew which normally covers the sports car scene. I will be shooting for the site at Indianapolis in May and then at my first 24 Hours of Le Mans in June and checking off another bucket list race in the process. I am also penciled in for 14 ARCA racing events in its 20 race schedule for the third consecutive year. I expect to go back to Talladega for both its NASCAR weekends for AP again. I am hoping to add some other sporting events such as football and basketball to my calendar for AP this year as well, even if I have to go south to make it happen.

NASCAR on the big tracks is always a thrill

There's still nothing like the Indy 500 and it is my "home" race