Lime Rock Park is referred to a nickname, which doesn't shed light on how awesome the place is, of Slime Rock Park. This year however massive upgrades were made and there was no rain! The improvements made what was once a paddock that was a nightmare to deal with, easy to get around and with all the paving everyone was on solid ground(not the grass that most had before). This was welcome upgrade to all including photographers!
What Lime Rock is known for in the photographer corp is snakes, ticks and potentially bad weather. Every year you are warned of the snakes and most have had at least one tick. How does one get them one might ask... we are just taking photos?!?!?! To give you one idea to get to one of the best photos you have to drive ~1/2mi on a dirt path in a golf cart that is heavily wooded. Then you hop out and pretend you are on a tight rope while you navigate your way through the woods next to the track and finally you are down in a hole to get that shot you want... but wait! Not this year... there is now a rattle snake nest down there so we were not allowed.
So we skipped that area this year and while disappointing no one seemed to want to risk a snake bite for a photo. An interesting note that this area has the highest concentration of an endangered/threatened species, the timber rattle snake. There are still a lot of excellent photo opportunities with such a beautiful backdrop. We even hide in the wilderness to create those type of photos! Thanks, Wes for the photo. His exceptional work can be found at http://www.wesduenkel.com/
Photographer in the wild. Photo by Wes Duenkel | www.wesduenkel.com
Over time as you work with clients you begin to be attached to their efforts on track. Their ups and downs are experienced first hand and you get to ride the emotional roller coaster right along with them. This happened this weekend with the Turner Motorsport crew. An off track excursion in the first practice session left their BMW Z4 in need of a visit to a body shop.
It returned to the track and was 'completed' at 3am. It made Warm-Up and then waited for the race. It started off in a bad way with Michael Marsal getting spun by another racer, however this would not be the end of their weekend. He clawed back and aggressive strategy put Dane Cameron out front with a questionable fuel supply on board. Roll the dice and race... and to the checkered they went. A true roller coaster win for BMW and the Turner Motorsport team!
A fun, and hectic, two day race weekend. Next up is a "Midwest Swing" for MotorSportMedia. We have Mid-Ohio with World Challenge/IRL, Road America with IMSA and then back to Mid-Ohio with World Challenge/NASCAR. Will be fun but will be ready to get back home once the three weeks is over!
As always enjoy a sample gallery from the weekend! More on www.racemsm.com
