Tips for shooting Drag Racing?

I'll be going to my first drag racing event this weekend (NHRA in Englishtown, NJ) and I'm looking for some tips on how best to shoot dragsters in action. My equipment will be a Canon 20D with 580ex flash and 70-200 f/2.8L IS. Unfortunatly, I'm going to miss the night qualifying session on Friday, so I'll only be there during the day Sat. and Sun.

I do some motorsports photography, but mostly short ovals where the speeds are a bit less than 325 MPH. I'm pretty good at panning when necessary at short tracks, but I think this may be different. I usually shoot in two ways at short tracks... pan and long exposure (maybe 1/60 second) to give a good feeling of motion. Or crank down to f/2.8 and take a fast shutter speed for stop action.

Any generic "things to try" settings for shooting drag racing? Tips on where to stand and at what angles? If it's nearly impossible to get a good shot of a car once it's going well over 200 MPH, then that's good info. If the Google map ( http://maps.google.com ….008538,0.02437​6&t=h&om=1) is right, the sun will be setting across the right side of the track and illuminating toward the starting line, so maybe I want to wander down the right side of the track and shoot some with the cars coming toward me? Yes? No? I've also been told that I can expect to get covered with lots of crud if I'm near the track. I'm not worried about me, but my gear. Just how bad is the nitro mist/smoke/dust and do you worry about it damaging your equipment (sayeth he who regularly brings his camera to dusty short tracks). Any and all suggestions will be helpful.

Thanks,
Steve

Hi Steve,

You will need ear plugs, I did a shoot at the Super Chevy Show this past weekend at Richmond. I positioned myself along the fence by the burn out pit and got some good pic's there. Track crew members would get between Me and the cars quite a bit and the wall seperating the lanes would cover up the bottom half of the cars. So I moved up the stands where I could see all of the car, It was alot easier to shoot from a distance. The camera would focus on the cars better. I used AI Servo and center metering/focusing sensor. I used AV mode and set the ap to 5.6-7.0 DOF and focused on the wall seperating the two lanes, this made for good launch shots. When I wanted one car in the pic', I would set DOF at 4.0-5.6 and the shutter on auto, I would hold the * button down and fire away as they went down the track. I hope this helps..............Sam