Waking up last Monday to a slew of notifications about a Delta outage wasn't the plan. It started a long list of travel woes for myself getting home from an event and getting to the next. However as with most things as one door closes another door opens. Always make the most of every situation and keep things in perspective. Stress and worry will fade away.
Traveling from MKE to ATL turned into about a 6 hour delay. Luckily was able to be moved to an earlier flight which meant the 6+ hour delay wasn't nearly as bad as if I stayed on the flight I was on. Unfortunately this meant what little time at home many hours were removed as Wednesday it was time to head to the track formally known as Miller Motorsports Park. Utah Motorsports Campus as it is now known was very high on my list on tracks I had not visited that I wanted to. While most Delta operations had recovered my plane 'broke' not once, twice but three times while attempting to make it to the runway. Was forced to move planes and was offered via the app an earlier flight. Accepted and it placed me on other flights that were worse than I had. Was resolved and made it... my bag? Did not. I landed in Salt Lake and needed to burn what I thought was ~5hrs. Turns out my bag wasn't coming in at 8. It was going to miss 2 flights and arrive around 1am. Joy!
I found that way to burn the hours and if you are ever in Salt Lake definitely check out Antelope Island. It is worth it! I have never seen these animals this up close. Don't actually try and pet them but I swear some of them might let you.
Next stop, Utah Motorsports Campus... but first the Salt Flats! There isn't much to say except it is an amazing place. I definitely want to make my way back during an actual event. Myself and Camden Thrasher stopped by during a setup day. The cars are run of the mill to insane. The bikes are even crazier, if you can call some of them bikes. The salt itself feels like something from another planet. It looks and almost feels like snow(it doesn't taste like snow) but cakes on something fierce. Your shoes begin to get heavier and heavier as you walk around. Until next time!
It was a great event overall. The track is in a bit of holding pattern over the sale but it was run well and track staff was friendly and helpful. As with most tracks the community is very strong and the local shooters that spend the most time here are very open to chatting about photography or providing some insight into where and when to shoot. It is always appreciated by those that have arrived for the first time.
It definitely is an awe inspiring site to see the cars turning laps in what is best describes as a bowl surrounded by mountains. It also is hot, very hot. And dusty, extremely dusty! I am still cleaning out dust from my camera and lenses. It's a very fine dust that I have not experienced elsewhere which makes the clean up frustrating. It seemed that cleaning between sessions was necessary.
Everything wrapped up after a fine event and had a great dinner with colleagues before we headed our separate ways on different flights on different airlines. And I was delayed because they needed to remove a LOT of fuel. We were bound for Atlanta but it was fueled for Tokyo. Lucky for me the travel woes were capped off with a complimentary upgrade to a lay-flat seat so a good sleep was had, during the delay and on the way home. Enjoy the photos!
