NASCAR Lilly Diabetes 250 in Indianapolis

By on July 27, 2014

Nascar_Brickyard_2014_006Today, Saturday July 26,  was the NASCAR Lilly Diabetes 250 Nationwide Series Race, and I arrived at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to photograph the Brickfest Music Festival. The concert was eventually rained out so I have to post something. Prior to the concert, I wandered over to the track to do some people watching.

I’ve never photographed a race, and have never been in a pit, but somehow found myself in one today. I looked for my friends Joey Foley or Steve Mitchell to tell me how to do it, but couldn’t find either of them, so I just played with settings until it looked ok.  I learned something though. Concert photography is tough, but if you do it enough, you can have results good enough to get invited back.  Race photography is REALLY tough. By the time you lock focus on a car, it’s gone, but over the course of two hours, I was catching on a little. You can not turn your body fast enough to stay locked on a car going 150 mph.

I’m not going to post everything I photographed because I don’t know what’s good or bad about racing photos, because I only photograph concerts. However, this is a NINE shot series of a pit stop that lasted 14 seconds. Yep, 14 seconds to get gas and a complete tire change. It started at 5:10:47 pm and the car was pulling away at 5:11:01. This event was so amazing, I’m surprised I kept shooting. Comments welcome, good or bad.

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