Trekked from the tundra, where we still had snow in our yard, to sunny Road Atlanta last weekend for The Mitty vintage races. I was there primarily to shoot a single car, a 1970 Datsun 510 B/S, but fully intended to shoot as much as possible. A few things conspired to limit my photographic activities, however.
In the very first session legendary Datsun racer John Morton blew an engine in front of my target car, which spun into the concrete barrier and bent the heck out of the right rear and right front corners. This necessitated a massive repair effort that cost much track time, but did see the car return to action. Unfortunately, the racing gods weren't inclined to cut us a break, and there followed chassis alignment issues, a coolant leak, an electrical gremlin and -- the coup de grace -- carbs that stopped synching. So the 510 was pushed into the trailer and began the long tow home.
The team photographer also dinged himself in the first session. I strained a calf climbing the hill up to T2 for the initial qualifying round, and later hurt it some more climbing the hill out of the pro paddock into the infield. And because I was a dumba** northerner seeing his first warm weather in months, I managed to dehydrate myself severely. That led to huge leg cramps later in the evening that left me barely able to hobble around the next day and ruled out any serious hiking around the very hilly grounds.
But overall, we all had a great time--except for the car owner/driver, I suppose. Nissan was the featured marque and all of us were long time Datsun heads. I bought a new 510 when I got out of the army in 1972, later owned a couple of 240Zs, and raced another 510 with SCCA for several years. There were a number of classic Datsuns in attendance, including a couple of Zs driven by Paul Newman, one of the old Bob Sharp 610s now owned and driven by Adam Carolla, John Morton's champsion winning 240Z and the Nissan GTP prototype. The highlight, though, was the presence of the most iconic Nissan ever, the number 46 2.5 Trans Am 510
There was a scary accident at The Mitty. I heard conflicting stories, but a race official told me that a driver made a reckless move at the fastest section of track and punted a VW Rabbit, which flipped/rolled multiple times, destroying the car. The VW driver walked away from the crash, but we later heard that he was hospitalized with collapsed lungs. We also heard there was some talk among officials about kicking the guy who caused the wreck out of the track. Don't know if that's true, because there was an active rumor grapevine about the incident, but no official word. On thing I do know for sure is that the car was mangled. Note the bent roll cage.
That is one wadded up race car right there. I like the vintage Datsun stuff. My dad had a 1200 back in the early 70s and I rode in the back seat of it on more than one road trip from the Midwest to Colorado. Even got a little woozy back there riding up Pikes Peak.
I also suffer from calf spasms when dehydrated, they are no fun.
Max Power wrote:
That is one wadded up race car right there. I like the vintage Datsun stuff. My dad had a 1200 back in the early 70s and I rode in the back seat of it on more than one road trip from the Midwest to Colorado. Even got a little woozy back there riding up Pikes Peak.
I also suffer from calf spasms when dehydrated, they are no fun.
We paddocked next to Peter Zeckert, who was there from St. Louis with a 1200 GT5/GTL Datsun.
The original injury to my calf and the full leg cramps really, uh, cramped my style because afterward I was severely limited in where and how far I could walk. That sucked because there were places I really wanted to go, such as down to the pre-race grids. There were some celebs present, such as Bill Elliott, John Morton and Adam Carolla and many great cars to shoot. But, alas, I just couldn't do it. The last real shooting I did was Sunday morning at the Bridge Turn. When the mandated two hour quiet period began at 10 a.m., I had a heck of a time even standing up on the uneven ground, and almost had to ask for help walking up the incline to my ride back to the paddock. It was all very disappointing, because it was my first time at Road Atlanta and I had lucked into a photo vest that I was unable to fully exploit.
The light was mostly a bummer, except early in the day. Blue sky, bright sun, harsh shadows. I got this one during the first session Friday morning. The car is well known to SCCA production racers. It's a 1968 Datsun 2000 Roadster (50 years old!) that was campaigned by Rock Vest for a couple of decades. It's now owned and driven by Michael Anderson. D4 and 200-400.
Got to shoot Ferrari Challenge at Laguna Seca last weekend; first event since switching to Sony. Very happy with the new setup, and think I got some nice shots:
darthalal wrote:
Got to shoot Ferrari Challenge at Laguna Seca last weekend; first event since switching to Sony. Very happy with the new setup, and think I got some nice shots:
I have the FE 85mm f1.8, and rented the Sony 100-400mm GM and Sigma Art 35mm + MC-11. I shot with the 35mm a lot more than I expected, and was pretty happy with how all 3 performed, except for an occasional delay in shutter response when using the MC-11.
The 100-400mm was fast to focus and very sharp, but I would love some extra "pop" for the shots that aren't getting the subject isolation from movement, so this weekend for Spring Classic, I'll be renting the Sigma 120-300mm f2.8 to try out before I decide which tele lens(es) to actually buy.
