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4-21-08 Update - Made the short haul out to Fontana for the Nostalgia Shootout event on Saturday. I shot pics and video of the entire first round of qualifying and most of the second round of qualifying. To me the Nostalgia drags are some of the neatest racers to photograph because of the awesome look and detail to the cars they race. The look of the race cars in the 60's and 70's have much more flavor to them the majority of the current race cars in my opinion. I shot the entire event with a slow shutter in the hopes of getting some nice pan shots and got some real nice ones. I will be putting the pics up as soon as I am done with the SCSC Spring Classic event which will hopefully be this week as I am heading to the IHBA opener in Phoenix Arizona.

4-21-08 Update - I enjoyed two days of nice relaxing picture taking at the SCSC Spring Classic event. It was a well run event where the only down time came from river traffic that was going and coming from the Blue Water Resort and Casino. The weather was awesome! It was in the mid 90's which was actually cooler than it was at my house in North Orange County. The picture taking on the Colorado River typically produces lots of great shots because of the favorable lighting and I decided to use two different camera bodies, one with the video camera and a 300mm zoom lens. On the other camera body I would utilize my 500mm lens and I would switch cameras after a couple laps during each heat to get some video and some different angle shots. Maybe this wasn't the best idea because it is nice to have all of your pics in numerical order and using two bodies I know have a mess going with the pics. Oh well maybe I will learn my lesson. I got lots of good shots and some great HD video. Time permitting I plan on putting up as many clips as my server will allow but I am still learning what I hope to be a good workflow for the video. I got the pics pretty much dialed in and hope to have the video down soon. I shot about 8 gigs of pics and 12 gigs of video so I have a lot to work with. This comes no where close to the amount of giggage shot by my fellow photogs and good buds Mark and Ken. I believe there might have been some new records set by both these guys for amount of gigs!!!

4-9-08 Update - Made the two hour trek from southern California to Bakersfield for the second NJBA race of the year. This time the weather forcast was for all sun and I was looking forward to it! After spending most of the weekend shooting pics and video a couple hundred feet off the start line I ventured down to the finish line and ultimately to the outramp to shoot some different variety and get some good video of the racers idling into the take out ramp area. The starting line pics from Ming are about as good as they get with the morning sunlight. You also cannot beat the relaxed atmoshpere at the NJBA races and I hope to make a couple more before the year is over. All in all I shot over 2 gigs of pics and about 40 minutes of HD (avchd) video. Got some great pics and video from the event and hope to begin putting video clips up on the site very soon. I will be putting up some qualifying info in the next day or so and I have also put together a spreadsheet for the different NJBA classes that I hope to put up.   Boat count seemed to be down somewhat and that could be a result of gas prices and the economy. I felt the same about the Pro car counts at the NHRA Pomona season opener as the car count seemed down quite a bit. Then I hit the March Meet and you could not tell there were any economic issues there as there was a massive turnout so who knows. The IHBA opener is just weeks away and there has already been speculation that boat count would be down so we will just have to wait and see. Over the last couple of years the IHBA opener has seen full fields in the PRO classes while getting a good turnout of the bracket racers so I am hoping for another great start to the season.

3-17-08 Update - Rolled the dice on Saturday and made the trip out to Bakersfield for the NJBA opener. I say rolled the dice because the weather was looking to be very questionable. I wasn't really worried about the rain but the 15 + mph winds definately can put the stop to a drag boat race. Just as my dad, myself, and good buddy Ken motored through Gorman at 7am we drove through a nice dusting of snow coming down. At that point I was thinking what the heck are you doing. I look forward to the NJBA opener every year as it is a great race to see new boats and wasn't going to miss it. It turned out that all of the qualifying action was completed and there was some extra time for some safety runs. The weather, although really cold in the morning, was pretty neat and there were certainly some interesting lighting conditions on many of the runs with the sun breaking in and out of the big white puffy clouds. Every time the sun went behind the clouds the wind would start picking up but the delays were minimal. I only went Saturday and probably the best moment of the day was when I met up with Tony Scarlata. Yup I said Tony Scarlata. Boat racing is in his blood and he looked pretty darn good for suffering some serious injuries in one hell of a crash just two weeks before. I look forward to seeing him back out on the race course! I will be putting up some qualifying notes and results over the next few days. Enjoy the pics!

3-12-08 Update - Made a second trip in two weeks to Bakersfield. This time the stop was Famoso Raceway the home of the March Meet. It wasn't just any Nostalgia race or March Meet. It was the 50th Annual March Meet!!!! The place was pretty packed on Friday, the only day I went, and I imagine that it was a zoo on Saturday and Sunday. From the looks of things the Nostalgia racing scene is alive and well based on car counts, growth, and the big $$$ toys that were plentiful in the pits. My main interest was the AA/FC and there were a TON of them! The nice thing about the nostalgia fuel scene today is the variety of radically different looking pieces. Its a vast difference from the NHRA where most of the fuel dragsters, funny cars, and PS cars all look a like. The weather was bitchen and there were just a few delays in the program. It was amazing to watch the Hot Rod class run and talk about almost non stop. WOW! One of these days I am going to have to plan on spending the weekend camped out at the March Meet because you just can't see everything in one day! Enjoy the pics!

3-4-08 Update - Went out to Lake Ming on Sunday for the SCSC circle boat race. I had planned on going both Saturday and Sunday but did not make it out on Saturday. I guess this was a good thing because the weather sucked from what I was told. The weather on Sunday was killer with plenty of great light for us photographers and great race conditions for the racers, crews, and spectators. It also looked like a good day to try out some fishing and from what I saw there are some nice sized trout in the lake at this time of the year. I spent the day hanging with good buds who also happen to be photographers Mark, Bill, and Ken and there were certainly plenty of photo ops to be had. We spent the day chasing good light while keeping a close eye on the race action. It was definately an interesting weekend as a good turnout of race teams negotiated the oval (three pin turn) race course. A year ago the race action featured almost non stop action with virtually no mishaps or incidents. Quite the opposite happened on Sunday alone as their were some very weird accidents on the water. A couple of outboard racers had problems on the parade laps. Joey Cucci looked like he hooked the turn out of turn one and tipped the GN24 Body Snatcher machine over onto its side. He got tossed out and the machine never went completely over and came to a stop right side up. He did come back to run later in the day. Tony Scarlata also found himself floating on the surface of Lake Ming as he went over in a Pro Stock heat. Unlike Joey Cucci Tony did suffer what is reported to be some significant injuries. In a very exciting and close battle with the PS80 machine of Dave Rankin with driver Dave Bryant it was Tony leading the heat heading into turn two on the third lap. It was extremely evident how bad both Dave and Tony wanted the win as they charged up the back stretch and both the 80 and 68 machines could be seen moving all over the place. Tony got into turn two ahead of Dave on the inside lane and the machine went over. Unfortunately the machine would end up landing on Tony when it came down from its flight and Tony could be seen floating ride side up with no movement. Definately something you never want to see! The SCSC Rescue team quickly picked up and got Tony to shore where he was taken to a local hospital. I have a very graphic sequence of photos and HD video of the crash and once I know Tony is healing up well I will put them up on the site. Get well soon Tony! To add to the weekend craziness there was some weird a__ controversy going on with the cracker box class. The Saturday final was run Sunday morning and the P66 Mr. Magoo team took the win with Amy Ross Ottinger placing second. With the exception of the P9 and P96 race teams the rest of the race teams (there was a good field of about 10-12 teams from the awesome class on the premises) packed up their stuff and headed out without running on Sunday. As a huge fan of the class I was bummed to see this happen. What a way to reward one of the hardest working promoters in the sport! Without him I believe there would be at least five less races in the region. I hope things get worked out as the Cracker Box race teams put on an awesome show. I will have a nice photo gallery posted on Thursday 3-6-08. 


2-18-08 Update - Yesterday I traveled to San Jacinto for some sand drag action. I went to my first sand drag race a couple years ago at Primm Nevada while the ASDA was running the event. It was very cool and I was hooked!There were like 20 + alcohol dragsters on the property along with 10 nitro dragsters. Similar to drag boat racing the action on the sand is extremely photogenic. Last year I attended my first NSDA event at San Jacinto and was hooked! The association does one heck of a job putting on the show and and they get some quality race teams at their events. The 2008 Larry Minor Winter Nationals seemed a little light on car count and I would attribute this to it being a three day weekend and many of the weekend warriors were probably out and about at Glamis, ect. There were 8 Top Fuel cars, 8 alcohol cars, and 20 + TE cars. The course is only 300 feet and the race is over in a hurry especially for the TF cars as they run in the 2.3 second range. I was only able to shoot the first session of eliminations on Sunday morning and the NSDA staff was extremely accomadating by letting me shoot at the edge of the track where a K rail served as the outside of the course. Standing next to the track that close while the TF and TA cars were running it nuts! Not only do you have to contend with the noise and extreme power of the machines but also with dirt, rocks, and a fine spray of dust and it happens regularly as the machines get a little sideways. Plain and simple its some wild shi_!!! Next time I am going to be out of the way and on a ladder! Along with the high dollar and fast cars I also got to see the kids participate. And watching them was just as exciting as the big guns as you will see in my pics! I did a lot of experimenting with settings as you will see in the pics. I would highly recommend a trip out to the NSDA sand drags if you have never been and I bet you will go back for seconds!


2-11-08 Update - For the first time in 2008 I ventured out to a race to shoot some pics. I began the year spending about two hours a weekend hiking at a local wildlife preserve shooting pics on the weekends but have not shot any motorsports pics. Last Thurs and Fri afternoon I found my way to Pomona Raceway for the 2008 NHRA Winternationals event. I work about 10 minutes from the track so I can get some work in before the Alcohol sessions at noon and also made it back to work around 5pm to clean up. The NHRA season opener is always neat because you get a chance to see all of the new teams, cars, and paint. There were some awesome looking rides especially in the Pro Stock class as a number of apparel companies are prominent in the class. I prefer going to the Pomona races on Thurs and Fri and then too watch the action in HD at home on the weekend. On Thurs I shot pics on the East side grandstand spending some time at about 300 feet then moving to about 900 feet for the pro classes. Then on Friday I moved to the West side grandstands and shot from the bottom of the stands at about 500 foot. I am happy with the many different looking pics that I got as I tend to mess with the settings quite a bit to get some variety. In the coming days I will be uploading about 50 of my favorites. Some of the story lines from the event included: Team Force is back as Robert Hight drove to the win, Tony Pedregon experienced a massive motor explosion during eliminations that destroyed his Q sponsored machine, Melanie Troxel debuted in AAFC and qualified third, Antron Brown debuted with the number one qualifying spot in TF, the car counts seemed down a little for the TF class, the track conditions were awesome on Thurs and Fri. Photos to come. If there might be a specific car you are looking to see pics of send me an e-mail and I will send them your way if I have anything decent. Next race is the NSDA Sand Drags in San Jacinto.

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