wfooshee
O, Woe is me!!
OK, Saturday morning. It's a little less than an hour to the start, and at Sebring, the grid is open to all ticket holders. How cool is that?!?!? So here I am on the front straight of the race track, walking amongst the cars.
This is the only one I actually got to the side of, but it wouldn't fit in the frame, so I shot four frames and stitched them on the computer. This is the only car I did this for, and obviously that's why this car ended up winning the race. I did it!!! I gave it the mojo!!
Glad I got this one early . . . .
Because it retired only a half hour in!
I have to say that this is one of my favorite pics on the day, because it's technically brilliant (if'n I says so mah-self.) Slow shutter for motion blur of the background and the wheels, but the camera is moved exactly with the car so it's sharp and crisp. Once in a while I do it right!
The camera and your computer screen do not come close to doing justice to the green-ness of this car!! The green has a metallic sheen to it, like an anodized surface.
About an hour into the race, this Audi and one of the Peugeots got together in Sunset bend, had to limp the entire lap back around to get to the pits.
Another hour into the race there was another incident in Sunset, a Porsche trying to dive under one of the Corvettes. The Porsche hit a bump and the front end move out, tapped the 'Vette, and both cars spun to a stop facing the wrong way. This Ferrari cam oh so close to squeezing by, but its rear wheel snagged the Corvette, throwing the Ferrari hard into the outside wall, destroying the back of the car and removing the rear wheel, suspension and all!
Wandered around some more, and ended up at the approach to the hairpin for a while.
Honda (Acura) powered Highcroft Racing entry, finished second overall. Note the brake discs glowing.
Please do not ask how many pictures I took of this car that did not have the exhaust flame I was trying to capture!
A little further around now, somewhere between turns 8 and 9. I like this area because the track is slightly elevated compared to the rest of the course, raising the cars up for a different viewpoint.
Now the straight before the hairpin again, but towards the beginning of the straight, coming out of turn 6.
The Jag has seen a little action, it seems:
This is the older Ferrari, the 430.
This is one of the newer ones, the 458 Italia.
Wandered out to the tent to dump the camera's memory cards onto my laptop so I could keep shooting, and came across this. US Army sticker on the bottom of the windshield. Anyone we know?
What I want to know is how the @#&$ does someone ride this through the dusty dirt road and grassy field at the race track, park it all day, and it stays that frickin' clean?!!!!??!
Hyper-ultra-flappy-hands-ghey!!!!
Nice-looking bike, though, truth be told.
With empty memory cards, headed back to the stands at Turn 16 as the sun settled low in the west. On the back straight and the straight leading to the hairpin the road is aimed directly at the setting sun, and there's nothing to do but squint and drive!
Corner workers have to deal with it, too.
Walking through the paddock a few minutes later, this shows what they're looking at on the track!
Looking across Sunset bend from the inside. By the way, that orange semi in the background is almost on top of where my tent is set up.
Dusk, and I have to go to the hairpin to get brake pics!!!!
Here's the Highcroft car again, whose brakes were visibly glowing in daylight:
And again, fully dark out now.
The BMW M3s seemed to have more heat in the rear brakes. Maybe the fronts are better cooled, or they carry too much rear bias. Seems to work, as they won the GT class!
Mount the big flash for the rest of the pics. Many of the cars' markings are - um - reflective.
The wfooshee Best Reflective Markings Award goes to the Flying Lizard Porsches!
I managed to catch the flame one more time!
The front straight at night. At this point I had no clue what the standings were. There is no PA except in the paddock right behind the pit area, so unless you have an AM radio you have no way to know what's going on. I decided to hoof it to the tent and catch the end live on espn3.com, only to discover when I got there that the network at the track did not have espn3 available!!! Just as well, the battery was close to dead anyway.
If you have some reason to be really really interested, all 589 of the pictures I kept are available for viewing here
This is the only one I actually got to the side of, but it wouldn't fit in the frame, so I shot four frames and stitched them on the computer. This is the only car I did this for, and obviously that's why this car ended up winning the race. I did it!!! I gave it the mojo!!
Glad I got this one early . . . .
Because it retired only a half hour in!
I have to say that this is one of my favorite pics on the day, because it's technically brilliant (if'n I says so mah-self.) Slow shutter for motion blur of the background and the wheels, but the camera is moved exactly with the car so it's sharp and crisp. Once in a while I do it right!
The camera and your computer screen do not come close to doing justice to the green-ness of this car!! The green has a metallic sheen to it, like an anodized surface.
About an hour into the race, this Audi and one of the Peugeots got together in Sunset bend, had to limp the entire lap back around to get to the pits.
Another hour into the race there was another incident in Sunset, a Porsche trying to dive under one of the Corvettes. The Porsche hit a bump and the front end move out, tapped the 'Vette, and both cars spun to a stop facing the wrong way. This Ferrari cam oh so close to squeezing by, but its rear wheel snagged the Corvette, throwing the Ferrari hard into the outside wall, destroying the back of the car and removing the rear wheel, suspension and all!
Wandered around some more, and ended up at the approach to the hairpin for a while.
Honda (Acura) powered Highcroft Racing entry, finished second overall. Note the brake discs glowing.
Please do not ask how many pictures I took of this car that did not have the exhaust flame I was trying to capture!
A little further around now, somewhere between turns 8 and 9. I like this area because the track is slightly elevated compared to the rest of the course, raising the cars up for a different viewpoint.
Now the straight before the hairpin again, but towards the beginning of the straight, coming out of turn 6.
The Jag has seen a little action, it seems:
This is the older Ferrari, the 430.
This is one of the newer ones, the 458 Italia.
Wandered out to the tent to dump the camera's memory cards onto my laptop so I could keep shooting, and came across this. US Army sticker on the bottom of the windshield. Anyone we know?
What I want to know is how the @#&$ does someone ride this through the dusty dirt road and grassy field at the race track, park it all day, and it stays that frickin' clean?!!!!??!
Hyper-ultra-flappy-hands-ghey!!!!
Nice-looking bike, though, truth be told.
With empty memory cards, headed back to the stands at Turn 16 as the sun settled low in the west. On the back straight and the straight leading to the hairpin the road is aimed directly at the setting sun, and there's nothing to do but squint and drive!
Corner workers have to deal with it, too.
Walking through the paddock a few minutes later, this shows what they're looking at on the track!
Looking across Sunset bend from the inside. By the way, that orange semi in the background is almost on top of where my tent is set up.
Dusk, and I have to go to the hairpin to get brake pics!!!!
Here's the Highcroft car again, whose brakes were visibly glowing in daylight:
And again, fully dark out now.
The BMW M3s seemed to have more heat in the rear brakes. Maybe the fronts are better cooled, or they carry too much rear bias. Seems to work, as they won the GT class!
Mount the big flash for the rest of the pics. Many of the cars' markings are - um - reflective.
The wfooshee Best Reflective Markings Award goes to the Flying Lizard Porsches!
I managed to catch the flame one more time!
The front straight at night. At this point I had no clue what the standings were. There is no PA except in the paddock right behind the pit area, so unless you have an AM radio you have no way to know what's going on. I decided to hoof it to the tent and catch the end live on espn3.com, only to discover when I got there that the network at the track did not have espn3 available!!! Just as well, the battery was close to dead anyway.
If you have some reason to be really really interested, all 589 of the pictures I kept are available for viewing here
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