When Your Job is Fun... It's Not Work

Common theme around the paddock at the start of each season is that the off-season seems to shrink year after year. In actuality, there was more time than normal due to IMSA pushing back the start of the Roar Before the 24 a few years ago, but that does not stop it from sneaking up on you. One has just recovered from the holidays with family and a few days later you depart for historic Daytona International Speedway. In 2016 there is excitement and buzz, more so than in 2015. IMSA has changed the rule package which brings in GT3 spec cars into the GTD rank opening the door for a lot of new machinery. The huge addition of the Ford GT to the GTLM field and new cars from most other entrants further increases interest in 2016. I am definitely excited!

With the launch of 'new stuff' for the season this means that many are looking for photography to launch their seasons. Drivers need updated headshots and special photoshoots are setup to create these PR packages. For the photographer, this means the work is a little more entertaining. But of course, it’s not without a little extra stress. Choose early or late session and hope for sunrise/sunset? Middle of the day to hopefully guarantee light but might not be as pretty? Results are worth it and I wanted to provide some behind the scenes footage of how we capture it.

Turner Motorsport debuts their new BMW M6 GT3.

So how exactly does one get to the photo below? A minivan, harness and safety equipment, cars to photograph and a driver for the minivan. Setup in the back and turn laps. Always surprising at how different angles and car placement change the look of the photos completely.

BimmerWorld Racing returns with a pair of BMW F30 328i.

CJ Wilson pilots his new Porsche Cayman GT4 Clupsport. CJ Wilson Racing.

How does it happen? Enjoy a view from the front of the van.

View from the van w/ safety harnesses. Photo: Foster Peters | MotorSportMedia 2016

Once all the fun car to car is over many setup mobile studios to handle head shots. Of course this is a bit more cut and dry but sometimes some fun is had. Big cheesy smiles.

Jokesters.

While all of these extras are going on the teams are doing what they came to do. Test their cars on track. New cars turn their first laps in anger. Get new drivers track time in their new cars. Sometimes when the cars start up for the first session it is the first time the car has been started to run on track. Below you will find a sample gallery of some of our favorite photos from the Roar Before the 24. We hope you enjoy!

Return to Mid-Ohio

I have not personally visited Mid-Ohio, a favorite track of mine, in a few years as it was a venue removed from the schedule with the merger of Grand-Am/ALMS. However with World Challenge on the schedule for 2015 season it means I have the pleasure of visiting twice. Unfortunately everything wasn't perfect BUT the images captured are awesome!

Heading in the first thing that jumps out is the schedule. With IndyCar and the Road to Indy running it means that World Challenge was left to play second fiddle. This means for those of us there for World Challenge photo meeting at 7am, first session at 9-10am and then 6, 7 or more hours with nothing on track as we wait for qualifying at 6pm. While this does leave us with some extra time for paddock photos and to explore it is a bit frustrating as we are there for long days! One thing though is it left time for editing of photos in our small corner of the photo room with fellow full season photographers. Lots of jokes and interesting conversations. That is one aspect of this line of work that I truly enjoy. Great friendships with awesome people!

What this does mean though is early morning and late sunlight. The best time to photograph racing action! It meant that while we did have a lot of wasted time it left us trackside with the best light of the day. We all left with dramatic images that bring us back for more!

We did run into a major hiccup during the weekend which made actually handling our work very difficult. Since IndyCar was utilizing much of the media tower most of the World Challenge photographers were sent to the "Photo Trailer". Now in most cases this is the jovial/fun room of photographers. Tracks like Sebring, Road Atlanta and others have these trailers and a lot of fun is had! Not so much this time... It wasn't a big open trailer with rows of tables much was a 2 office with kitchen setup. We were crammed in utilizing what space we had. Internet? It simply just didn't work. Most uploads were either via personal hotpot, transferring to phone or walking with laptop to the media tower. Was rough!

Enjoy a gallery of highlight images. Next blog from Road America!

Snakes. Ticks. Wins.

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