190 M.P.H.

“Here he comes, here comes Speed Racer

He's a demon on wheels

He's a demon and he's gonna be chasing after someone

He's gaining on you so you better look alive

He's busy revving up the powerful Mach Five.”

There is little doubt, when I know nothing about something I am going to photograph I start to wonder, “Why am I doing this?” My quick response to myself, “got me?”

A few weeks ago I was invited to an auto race in Milwaukee, WI by a friend of ours. I was unfamiliar with the race---I actually had no idea Milwaukee even had a race track---I of course said, “I would love to go.” By the way, the racetrack is considered relatively small by Indianapolis 500 standards, but you would be hard pressed to say that’s the case once you get there. It's a one-mile oval track that fit a carnival, thousands of people and all of the cars and gear needed to run a race with “Indy cars” whipping around it inside the oval grass area. It was cool, actually hot, and it was noisy.

I was in my glory.

Before we all went up to Milwaukee (it became a multi-family event) I researched auto racing, Indy cars, and even looked up the race track to determine where I would want to be photographing. I learned about as much as I could in a very short time, except where I thought I wanted to be was not where I would end up taking pictures.

Here's why.

We arrived on Friday afternoon for the Saturday race; they were doing trial runs and as I stood in the pit (yes I was right there by the track) and I knew I had gauged it all wrong. The cars were going more than 150 MPH and even though my trusty Nikon shoots 7 pictures a second, it was no match for what I was experiencing. (I would push the shutter, click, click, click, etc. and saw, nothing, nothing, nothing, the back tire of a car, and nothing, nothing, nothing.) These would be awesome photos if you wanted to shoot the wall that surrounded the course--woo who.

I figured the pits were out of the question and went to one of the turns where the cars come racing down the track. These cars go fast and I figured I needed to make sure I could see them before they zoomed by; this gave me about a whopping 2-3 seconds to focus and shoot.

To make it more challenging, I wanted the photos to be clear and sharp---not a complete blur as they sped by. I did it, but the problem was, I was shooting at such a high shutter speed that it now looked like the cars were standing still on the track; you could actually read the lettering on the tires. 

I was now really concerned as I had made promises to myself and my friend that I would deliver cool pictures.

On Saturday I ventured over to the same spot where I stood the day before; I was determined to get photos of speeding machines with tires and background in a blur. The cars, however, had to be clear; this was my personal challenge and I knew I was screwed at that point. I had no idea what to do, so I did the unthinkable “guy” move---I asked another photographer for help.  This is tech talk for, “I have no idea what I am doing and how I am going to do this?”

He was really nice about it and helped me out.  I said, “Why aren’t you wearing earplugs?” as the noise level was unbearable. He screamed and said, “I forgot them.” It was payback time---I had an extra pair with me. That was the last I saw of him as I took to shooting ridiculously fast cars.

The photo above was taken at the turn as cars sped by; I was there to take photos of Graham Rahal for our friend who knows the family quite well. (Some of the Rahal family live in our community---I guess you could call this my 15 minutes of fame from afar.)

On the 4^th of July, a few weeks after the race, I was at our same friend’s home and met Mr and Mrs. Rahal Sr. (The parents and grandparents of these racing legends); I was told they liked my photos--I was honored---as I had dropped a few off photos as a way of saying "thank you" to my friend for including us a very fun weekend. Mrs. Rahal asked, “If I took racing photos often?” I said, “No but it was a lot of fun and would love to one day do it again.” I then went on to boldly say how I would one day like to take photos prior to a race while their grandson is alone and mentally preparing to go 200-plus MPH. Her response, “I can do that for you.” More to follow---maybe.

Thanks for stopping by.