World of Outlaws - Kings Royal

The Eldora inside fence was six feet high. Now it's more like ten feet tall.

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There are a few areas where the fence has been left at the old six foot height, and that's where the experienced guys bring their stepladders so they can get a clear view. Then there are the two holes, about four feet wide, where there's no fencing - like the one in this image. I managed to use them during the King's Royal.

Using those holes gets intense. It's simple to spot the cars at the top of the turns where most everybody runs, but the full width of the track is in play and a few guys run the bottom. It took a few minutes to develop the timing needed to get a 130-mph sprint car in frame when it's a few feet away and you get less than a second to pan with the car. The image of Craig Dollansky at full speed in the black #2 was taken with the XTi's lens at 18mm. Shutter speed was 1/2000: there was no other way to get a recognizable image of the car in frame at that distance. You feel the cars as much as you see them when they blast by

The distances and speeds - the Outlaws run full throttle all the way around Eldora's high banks without lifting - made for some interesting lens choices. Typically, motorsports means a telephoto lens, but the 70-300mm was useful only for qualifying, where you could be certain everyone would run in the top groove. For the feature, I switched to the 50mm f/1.8, useful when the light faded during the main event.

Around five or ten feet away.

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This image of Joey Saldana, working the bottom of the track, gives an idea of the distances involved. You can see how it was possible to peek, cautiously, outside of the fence and post. Clearly, Dollansky was closer than Saldana.

You could look at the approach to the turn, see which cars were going to run the inside line and time your shutter finger to get a car in frame, but you had to get used to the speeds to get your timing down. On that level, time passes in quarter instants, not instants.

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Kerry Madsen qualified 20th, finished fourth in his heat and eighth in the feature. He was one the few guys on Goodyears at Eldora: even Steve Kinser ran Hoosiers.