Having caught a glimpse of this past weekend's Sebring 12 Hour race it was only natural to reminisce about my own impressions of an endurance racing weekend. Going into the WEC/ALMS sports car weekend last year the expectations were extremely high. A chance to catch two premier sports car races in one weekend on America's own F1 track. A world class track with left and right turns. A chance to finally see and hear my favorite race team in action in many years, I saw the original R8 over a decade ago. Since I have followed the R18, R15 and R10 before that, through more than a few all-nighters at Le Mans on my couch. I argued and debated my fair share of ACO restrictor equivalency charts online but here was my chance to witness it. All in all, the weekend went even better than expected as thunderstorms turned into sunshine and cooler than average temperatures, the Camry rental turned into a Mustang convertible, oh and the racing was exciting. The larger ALMS grid provided nice action throughout on Saturday and the GT category was fantastic. The Audi and Toyota battle went the distance Sunday and the R18 of course delivered with a win to cap off the weekend. Wishing to document the sight I flipped out my new smartphone as soon as the R18 hit the track but this is when my hope of getting some print worthy shots ended. Even shooting at top of the hill as the race cars slowed down to one of the slowest turns at the track (1) the R18 and the prototypes were still too fast to get a perfectly composed hero shot.
My photography adventures started out pretty well as the stands at turn one provided an excellent view of the front strait. A simple photo of the front strait looked pretty good but that's as good at things got as all of my attempts at getting the perfect R18 shot had a poor angle and a catch fence in the way. Everything else about the weekend was perfect.
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Hey Not a Bad Photo
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| Here comes the R18 if only that pole wasn't in the way |
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| And it's gone |
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| Hero Shot! |
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