Historics Race at Mission Raceway

[Technological]

Spent a good portion of my weeked out (in the rain mostly) at Mission Raceway Park for the Annual Historics weekend. Was an impressive turnout even with the rain. My employer was a major sponsor and we kicked in the pace car (2005 Lamborghini Gallardo) for the event. The highlight for myself was a ride along for two hot laps of the rather small track in a Gallardo, my first time in the car as i've only been employed by them for about 6 weeks.. AWESOME.

Anyways, back to the point. I put about 450 shots through my 20d, mostly using my 100-300 5.6L lens which is in questionable shape at this point. Poor thing has some fungus on the front element and a scratch on the lens, it's had better days. The weather was pretty poor and the sun didn't even make an appearance all weekend, so i did the best i could.

http://public.fotki.com/cstenersen/20d_photography/mission_raceway/

http://images16.fotki.com/v301/photos/4/413925/3599761/IMG_0107-vi.jpg
AMAZING Ferrari 512M, it did a couple parade laps and got into it pretty well on the straight, what a sound!

http://images16.fotki.com/v301/photos/4/413925/3599761/IMG_0347-vi.jpg
My employer suppied the pace car (Lamborghini Gallardo) and took people out for 2 laps at a time in both the Gallardo and a Lotus Elise.

[Technological]

http://images17.fotki.com/v305/photos/4/413925/3599761/IMG_0365-vi.jpg

Pace car in front of the grid for the start of the Group 4 race. The can-am car DOMINATED this group.

http://images16.fotki.com/v301/photos/4/413925/3599761/IMG_0437-vi.jpg
Beautiful Bobsy MKII, one of my favorite cars of the weekend.

[Technological]

http://images1.fotki.com/v318/photos/4/413925/3599761/IMG_0371-vi.jpg
1972 Rawlson Can-Am car leading the pack - This is heading into the 2nd corner and the car completely dominated the entire race.

http://images17.fotki.com/v312/photos/4/413925/3599761/IMG_0497-vi.jpg
Beautiful RHD 1967 Datsun Bluebird - Did a great job of holding off some pretty fast cars. Wonderfully kept car.


This was my first shot and an event like this, i didn't get very good placement, but i managed to grab some decent shots i think. I'd like your input. I have another 120 shots uploading overnight tonight and some of the best shots are in that group so i may add a couple later.

I'm going to a track day next weekend in Seattle (Pacific National Raceway) so any pointers you can give would be appreciated! Hopefully i can get into better position for this event as it is being held by my employer ;)

[beckybun]

Nice shots. A little bit of everything :)

[Technological]

Took me about 6 hours to upload all the photos. Here are a couple favorites.
I've got a pair of Kensington 1gig 80x professionals, one is bad. Gets to 120 shots and quits on me. I think i'll pick up another 2gig and a battery before this weekends event.

http://images17.fotki.com/v307/photos/4/413925/3599761/IMG_0178-vi.jpg

http://images17.fotki.com/v309/photos/4/413925/3599761/IMG_0064-vi.jpg

http://images17.fotki.com/v306/photos/4/413925/3599761/IMG_0445-vi.jpg

[ibdb]

I wish I could tell you that Pacific Raceways was going to offer you a lot of sunshine this weekend, but it's not looking that way right now. My kids have baseball games Saturday morning, and I'm already trying to figure out how to dress them for a rain game, and since I'm the head coach for both teams, how to keep everybody else's kids safe and relatively dry.

On your shots -- the Camaro, the Datsun, and the Can Am car give me a sense of speed and motion as they move through the corners. I don't get that sense from some of the other shots. Maybe a little of the slower shutter speed pan would be worth a try. There are a few distractions in the backgrounds, too (the red car in the corner of the Datsun shot, whatever it is behind the Camaro). Still, looks like it was a lot of fun.

What kind of cars will be running this weekend? I had thought about going out there for their Historics event just before the 4th of July, but I'll be on vacation and won't be able to make it. Do they have anything scheduled for Friday? Practice or Qualifying?

[Technological]

Actually the event i am going down for this weekend is a closed track day for our customers ;)

Hopefully that means i can get into some places i can't normally.

And i don't even want to talk about the weather! Crossing my fingers for sun.
Monday is the actual track day, we'll see.