At Rally Sweden, 100€ ($136) gets you a wolf pelt.
And in case you are a fan of the rallying action, Discovery Channel’s HD Theater will be covering the races on a somewhat delayed basis.
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Porsche hybrid in action…
The Porsche paddock at the ALMS series finale at Laguna Seca wasn’t exactly with Porsches this past weekend — especially when contrasted with the excellent turnout of the Corvette community. But Porsche owner attendees and visitors were treated to a display of the 2010 Porsche GT3 Cup car by Porsche Motorsports North America.
The unveiling was preceded by a brief talk about the features of the new race car. Unfortunately, the running of the Star Mazda series practice during this talk made it difficult to hear the facts and figures. However, I’m not sure anyone cared at that much since everyone was itching to see the car revealed.
The eventual unveiling of the Porsche revealed a clean but compelling design and no doubt had the wealthier attendees running the affordability numbers in their heads. But even better than the look of the car was the growl when it was briefly fired up. Sadly, we weren’t allowed to take individual test drives and the car was soon packed onto the transporter for further show and tell in the ALMS and GT3 paddocks.
More pictures of the event can be found on flickr
It was a great weekend for the American Le Mans Series and for fans at Laguna Seca. Despite the lack of a full field throughout all the classes and no Audi prototypes, the race was a thriller.
In the GT2 class, the Ferrari faded early on and handed the championship to the #45 Flying Lizard Porsche. But the Corvette of Jan Magnussen and Johnny O’Connell pressed the Porsche of Jörg Bergmeister over the final laps. This conflict included some intense action between Magnussen and Bergmeister until Bergmeister spun Magnussen into the wall on the front straight at high speed just before the finish. It was a nasty and avoidable crash that the Corvette team will likely not soon forget.
In the prototype classes, Gil de Ferran ended his career with a thrilling win in the XM Satellite Radio Acura. De Ferran & Pagenaud edged out the speedy P2 class Acura of Fernandez and Diaz by just 0.662 seconds.
For next year, the GT2 class battle is going to be thrilling. The GT2 Jaguar was on display as a preview of next season where we should have some intense battles between Porsche, BMW, Corvette, Ferrari, Jaguar, and others.
With the expected flux in the prototypes for 2010, it isn’t clear who will and will not be running. The P2 of Fernandez and Diaz is definitely out. But there will be the new Le Mans Prototype Challenge category and the economics of this class should support a larger field. The former distinct LMP1 and LMP2 classes will be combined — though it isn’t clear how this will work out and if major manufacturers like Audi will be compelled to return.
I’ve posted pictures of the final round of ALMS to flickr. Amongst the photos are the Drayson Racing entry, the Corsa Motorsports Ginetta-Zytek hybrid, the new Jaguar, and others.
Until next season…enjoy!
Last Saturday, Grand Am announced the 2010 schedule. Unfortunately, the series won’t be seen on the West Coast like it has been at either Sears Point or Laguna Seca the last couple of years. The sole visit west of the Mississippi is the season finale at Miller Motorsports Park in Utah.
It is true that the races weren’t widely attended at Laguna this past spring. But then, it was asked to be the premiere race since Champ Car disappeared. Previously, it had also run with the Indy Car series at Infineon in Sonoma. Thus it was surely was not a surprise to have small crowds in Monterey this past year.
It is likely that with ALMS switching to a May visit to Laguna Seca, then it made the decision to not come to the West Coast somewhat easier. But it is still a shame and disappointing for fans of the DP and GT cars. Grand Am isn’t going to build toward a larger fan base in the West through this move.
And I won’t have an opportunity to take any pictures of these odd-looking beasts. Of course, that’s the part that really stinks.
I spent a few hours at the Monterey Historics at Laguna Seca today and was pleasantly surprised to see some interesting cars that don’t usually run the vintage festivals. There were Porsche’s galore and attendance at the event seemed excellent.
I’ve posted a small number of shots on Flickr and more on PhotoMarch.
Next week I’m headed to Infineon for IRL action and am looking forward to getting a full weekend of shooting in.
A few photos from Friday practice have been posted to my Flickr account.
The Monterey Festival of Speed back in May was a poorly attended and sleepy affair. It took me a while to get around to posting pictures of the event.
My photos from the Grand-Am action are up on Flickr.
Back in April, I went to the Long Beach Grand Prix and shot some photos of the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) race on Saturday afternoon. I always look forward to ALMS races because of the diversity of cars.
For races, I typically plan out the locations to shoot from based on lighting conditions, passing locations, restarts, etc. But I always try to start by shooting the action from the first turn at the beginning of the race. And in this respect, the ALMS race was no different.
But instead of moving on after the start as I normally do, I decided to stay put to see if there were any caution periods and subsequent restarts. Mostly, this was because I didn’t have good access at other locations where the lighting conditions were favorable. But also, I kept hope for some yellows and restarts that would produce some actions photos.
Unfortunately, after a while this began to feel like a mistake. All the smart photographers had moved on to better locations. But I stayed put anyway (I’m either lazy or stupid…sometimes both). And then it happened…
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a car with flames coming out of it. I had a good angle on it and started shooting as it came into the runoff area after the main straight. Some 40+ frames later I had witnessed a nasty fire from which a driver was lucky to escape.
200mm 1/500 at f/8
And is it turned out, I was the only photographer to have caught the action. Everyone else either didn’t have the angle or had moved elsewhere. I had captured some images that were unique and made the whole wait worthwhile.
More photos from this set can be found here.