Here is a shot of Lucas advertising for PCI Race Radios.

The Las Vegas track is a fun course to shoot because there are a few different options as far as shooting positions go. The Glen Helen track and Surprise track are a little more limited so its nice to be able to roam around a little more. This is the third time we’ve visited this track, so it was a little difficult trying to come up with some new photo ideas.

The biggest jump of the course is right off of turn 1. You come off a wide sweeping 180 degree turn that throws you right into a steep lip that launches you into the air. A good thing about this track is that there are many different view points to photograph the jump.

One shot is from the opposite side of the course, with a 300mm Lens and 1.4x Teleconverter you can get a nice head on shot that works well for the start of the race.

From the inside of Turn 8 you can get a different view of the jump. Here is Kyle Leduc airing it out in his qualifying run on Friday.

Rodrigo Ampudia does the same.

Here is another shot of Ampudia but from the inside of Turn 2 which gives you another good vantage point of the jump.

For a few photos I slowed down the shutter speed to try a few panning shots from the jump.

During the Superlite race on Saturday, Jacob Person and Twitch got tangled up at the top of the jump leaving Person sideway about halfway down the base of the jump. The next Superlite to come over the jump just barely clipped Person, but the next, Brandon Ward, son of Jeff Ward came over the jump and landed right on Person’s truck. Luckily neither of them were seriously hurt.

Another spot on the course where you can get a few different angles of the same jump is the table top along the back stretch before Turn 6.

Head on.

If you follow the fence line along the course you can get right next to the jump.

While shooting the jump head on you also have a few other options once they land.

Here are some more photos from the weekend with a quick explanation about what I liked about them, where they were on the track, or how it was done.

Here is another head on shot from the back stretch, typically on the first lap you can get cars bunched up together.

Here is a shot of Adrian Cenni just after he won his Pro 4 race on Sunday. I didn’t want to get the same shot as everyone else so I stuck the 300mm lens on and shot it from farther back. Ok really I just didn’t want to walk all the way to the podium.

In the last race of the day, the sun was starting to set and the sky was getting some nice orange colors to it. I headed to the back side of the course to try and get a shot with the truck and the sky in the same photo.

There was a bunch of crap in the way, fence, krail, etc so was too happy with the shot so I headed back to where I was shooting before along the fence right next to the table top. The sky opened up again with some great clouds and I was able to get this shot of Robby Woods airing it out. Typically the best shots are usually the ones you don’t expect. I always talk about having a game plan ahead of time and visualizing your shots, but there are always photos that you didn’t expect that you like.

Speaking of visualizing you photos, I know that at the end of the last race they would ignite a huge gas bomb in the middle of the track. Last time we were at this track I got a decent shot of it, but this time around I wanted to get it from a different angle showing the grandstands in the background, along with the fireworks.

The Las Vegas track is right next to an Air Force base so I tried to work that into a few shots

In the inside of Turn 8, I dropped the shutter speed to about 1/30th to try and get a more dramatic look to the photo.

In the same turn Greg Adler wanted to show everyone what are on his skidplates.

And so did Robert Naughton.

And Vandenhuevel.

Here are some more favorite shots from the weekend.

Here is a link to our full gallery from the weekend.

2010 LOORRS Las Vegas Rounds 13 & 14

All Nascar photographers are spoiled. And any other photographers who get to shoot at facilities where there is a full dedicated media center are spoiled.

And now I am ruined for life.

I’m used to shooting in the desert where our media center is the car ride home after sitting in the desert for 10 hours. Covered in silt, sweat, rocks in our shoes, and a farmers tan only a mother could love.

Recently the Lucas Oil Offroad Racing Series paid a visit to Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, UT. The facility is top notch and everyone was very impressed, from the racers, teams, track officials, and us the media.

I was excited to shoot at this track because covering a new location is always a fun challenge. You can’t just rely on shooting the same old reliable spots. You have to do your homework and scout things out, but even then you don’t always know where you’re going to shoot until the green flag drops. What looks like it may be a good spot the day before could be a complete waste once you see all the trucks on the course, and a spot you never thought of could turn into a great spot come race time.

The track itself wasn’t very exciting compared to other tracks like Las Vegas which had a lot of elevation changes and a huge jump built into the track. Here because they were within the road course they seemed to be pretty limited to where they could go, and would have to bring in a ton of dirt to build any large jumps. The one good thing about this track compared to others were the backgrounds. In Vegas one whole side of the track has shipping containers in the background, and in Surprise you’re surrounded by RV’s, light poles, and scissor lifts. Here in Tooele you had mountains on all sides, and some even had some snow left from a recent storm. On to the photos.

On Friday there were two sets of practices scheduled, so I took the time to get used to the track and set a game plan for the weekend. First up was the drivers meeting, which I like to try and attend on Fridays to hear about the upcoming weekend.

Here Tony Vanillo addresses the drivers in the garage.

They built a large mogul section into the track that looked promising, so most media setup to shoot that for the first few laps. Most people went around it, but one truck decided to give it a try and ended up breaking his front end and almost rolling over.

I’d insert a photo of it here but all the shots I got of it were overexposed and out of focus. Starting off the weekend right!

They spent about 30 minutes cutting down the moguls so I took the time to walk around the track and find some other spots. A lot of the track was surrounded by big orange and white barriers, but once practice started up again I was able to find a few decent spots. Because of the big delay the track really dried out, and the majority of the first practice session was a waste because of the dust.

The second set of practice was better as they were able to keep the dust down. I decided to shoot near turn two as it gave you a few options to shoot.

Option 1 was a side view coming over a little rise, but you had to be very aware of your background.

Option 2 was shooting them from far away going around turn 1.

Option 3 was photographing them from behind as they jumped away from you. It was nice because you had a clean mountain background.

Option 4 was to walk a bit to shoot them coming over the rise in Option 1.

I next headed over to another spot on the track close by that also gave you a few different views of the track.

You could shoot the other side of the jump in Option 1.

Head on shot coming over another jump.

Or shoot in tight when they come around a corner after the jump.

Or steal an idea from Mark and shoot low with the tire wall in the foreground.

For Saturday’s qualifying session I decided to give the moguls another try and to shoot them head on since the sun was behind you, and to try and get the mountains in the background.

Going back to what I said earlier about not knowing of a good spot till you actually see the trucks on the course, in the same spot as the shots above, you could get a nice photo of them jumping away from you.

After working that corner for a while I walked up the track a bit to get some different angles. Its important to give your clients a mixture of shots so that they don’t all look the same. Even shooting the same spot but moving around can give you different looks.

The front.

The side.

The rear.

Working the mountains into the shot again with some spectators watching qualifying from their scissor lift.

For the race on Saturday I was lucky enough to be in the right spot and get a few rollovers. There was a table top jump on the back stretch of the course, and some trucks were landing pretty nose heavy. The day before Mark got a good shot of someone going over in the same spot so unless they chopped down the lip to the jump, we knew there was a chance someone else would go over.

During the Prolite Unlimited race Sean Geiser hit the jump and just touched his front bumper on the ground causing him to go over.

Luckily Steve Naughton was there to make sure I didn’t get the entire rollover. Canon’s superior auto focusing made sure to focus on his ass. I didn’t care because I got the initial impact of the rollover so it was fun to give him crap. Feel free to tease him the next time you see him because even though it looks like in the below photo he’s filming the whole thing, when he turned around he had no idea someone rolled. Good job bud!

In the last race of the day General Tire’s Carl Renezeder did the same thing, but again lucky for me I was panning at 1/200th so out of about 12 shots in the sequence maybe 3 came out. Not a big deal though, Carl is just one of the most decorated short course racers of all time, very rarely rolls, so it’ll happen again soon I’m sure right?

Here are a few more of my favorites from the weekend.

Standing on the outside of turn 1 (don’t worry it was safe Poppy), you could get a nice head on shot off the start.

The facility just recently built a 5 million dollar executive suite building so I made sure to try to get a few shots of it in the background.

A Superlite truck came close to rolling in that same spot, but since I was panning I would of missed it anyways.

Its hard to screw up a good roost shot, and Rick Huseman always supplie you with plenty.

Here Rob Naughton comes into the hotpits for a tire change. This building is where the media center is located, next year I may just shoot from inside it with a really long lens.

Mastercrafts Robbie Pierce’s truck body just barely hangs on after a roll earlier in the race.

Ricky Johnson and Rob MacCachren had some heated words after the last race of the weekend. Check out KMC Wheels Facebook page for a caption contest using the photo.

Pro 2 class before their race.

Kyle Leduc welding on his truck.

Thats it for this addition of Panning Ruins Rollover Shots. You can check out a few more of my favorite shots by clicking on the thumbnails below, and to see our full gallery click the link below.

Enjoy!

2010 LOORRS Utah Photo Gallery

Like most events that I go to, I usually have a few goals in mind regarding a certain shot or angle I want to get. This past weekend I headed out to Las Vegas for Rounds 5 & 6 of the Lucas Oil Offroad Racing Series to cover short course racing. For this weekend my goal was to get some unique shots using a remote camera and a remote flash inside one of the race trucks. A few years ago I mounted a camera in Kyle Leduc’s Prolite truck, and again in Brad Lovell’s and Becca Webster’s Rockcrawler, and while I got a few decent shots I always wanted to try it again. Here are a few shots from a few years ago.

While I got a unique angle from mounting the camera on the vehicles, I didn’t get anything that stood out as being eye catching. So move ahead a few years and Kyle Leduc was more then happy to let me try it again.

The setup is pretty simple as far as how I mounted it. The whole thing is mounted to the cage with a piece of tubing one size larger then the tubing it mounts to. The tube mount was cut in half so that it sits flush. A bolt was then welded to the top of the tubing so that a ball head could attach to it. I decided on this method because the ballhead would let me move around the camera at different angles, and also because it is very sturdy and won’t break off under the vibration and shock from the racing. When the mount is hose clamped down it doesn’t budge at all. Here is a photo of the setup, I put tape over the mount so that the hose clamps can’t come loose.

To fire the camera (which was a Canon 20D) I used a Pocketwizard Multimax, and used the intervalometer feature. Last time I did the remote I just used Pocketwizard Plus II’s and fired the remote everytime the race truck was near me. The benefit is that I could control when it was taking a photo, but the downfall was that I was limited to what was in front of me. I decided on the intervalometer this time so that I could just let the camera take the photos and whatever it captured it captured. I ran the risk of missing something, but because I set the camera to take a photo every second, in the 15 minute race I would walk away with about 600 photos, so the chances of getting a good shot were a lot higher.

As long as Kyle didn’t roll his truck and crush the camera. More on that in a bit.

For the settings of the camera itself I set the ISO to 400, and put it in AV mode shooting at f8. The races are in the middle of the day, so shooting at ISO 400 and f8 would yield me a high enough shutter speed to freeze anything and not get any shutter blur. I also set it at f8 so that I would have a wider depth of field to get as much in focus as I could. I pre-focused the camera, taped up the focus ring and hoped for the best.

The camera itself was completely out in the open with no cage work around it to protect it in case of a rollover. That’s when buying used camera gear for cheap comes into play. Canon 20D’s can be found online for around $300. Before I show the photos that I got, here is a photo of it mounted on the truck during the race, and another of Kyle Leduc early in the race in the turn I was shooting at. I wonder if he did it on purpose knowing I was watching, luckily he saved it.

The end result were some images that I was happy with, and came away with one photo that captured what I was looking for.

Here is the photo with four other race trucks in the shot, one (Monster Energy/Toyota Rick Huseman) landing right behind him, and three others still in the air. I got lucky and all four race trucks are visible and not cutoff, and also happened to have some nice clouds in the sky behind them.

I’d be lying if I didn’t have a smile on my face after going through the shots right after the race. When you set a goal for yourself and everything seems to fall into place it feels pretty good. Here are a few other shots from the remote before the Pocketwizard became a magnet for a rock.

Kyle’s crew chief Brent.

Thanks to Kyle Leduc for letting me put the camera on his truck, and more importantly for not crushing it. Also thanks to his crew chief Brent for getting everything turned on in staging so I could be on the track.

This past weekend marked Rounds 3 & 4 for the 2010 Lucas Oil Offroad Racing series in Surprise, Arizona.  Coming into the races I had a few goals in mind.  One goal was to get some driver profiles when they are in their trucks using off camera flash with a little homemade snoot I made. 

I took a Stofen Omni-Bounce you can get for $10 at any camera store, cut a hole in the front, and wrapped the whole thing in black gaffers tape. The purpose of that was to control the amount of light coming out of my Canon 550ex flash. Instead of a wide blast of light, it only lets out a small direct amount. Here are a few shots showing the effect. Instead of the whole cockpit being lit up by the flash and outside light, I underexposed the shot and powered up the flash to get this.

Monster Energy’s Jonny Greaves

Rockstar / Makita Tools Kyle Leduc

I was pretty happy with the results, and plan to mess around with it more in future races. The other goal I had was to not get any spectacular rollovers, so that my friend and fellow photographer Mark Rebilas could get all of them. I am happy to announce that I far surpassed my goal and didn’t get crap for rollovers while Mark decided to have his camera pointed in the right direction for them all. [ /sarcasm ]

Photographing short course racing is a lot of fun because you get a lot of opportunities to see all the vehicles each day. Between practice, qualifying, and racing you can easily see a truck 60+ times. This gives you the chance to get different angles throughout the weekend and try some new things. I try not to shoot in the same spot more then once between all three days unless its a really good spot so that I can get a variety of photos for my clients. The benefit is that for the races, you can position yourself closer to the podium area so that you don’t miss the celebration and trophy photos after each race.

For Friday the schedule was a short practice session followed by qualifying for start position the next day. For practice I setup in probably my favorite spot which is the backside of the course looking towards the grandstands. I like this spot because there is a nice sweeper turn right in front of you, and you can get a lot of different angles from where you’re at. Another plus is that they built a new big jump right in front of you.

Mastercraft’s Robbie Pierce

General Tire’s Carl Renezender

Monster Energy’s Rick Huseman

Rockstar / Makita’s Kyle Leduc

After all classes went through their practice laps we had a short break, then went right back into it with qualifying rounds. For this I went to the inside of turn 2 since I didn’t plan on shooting there for the race because of how far it is to the podium. Since I got plenty of clean shots in the turns, and jumps from practice I decided to just get some panning shots.

Monster Energy’s Rick Huseman

Menzies Motorsports Bryce Menzies

General Tire’s Robby Woods

Saturday would be a full schedule of racing for Round 3. For this day of action I decided to hang around turn 1, hoping to get some good action off the start. There is a nice sized jump followed by a 90 degree left hand turn where you can get some good shots of all the cars bunched up off the start line. Because everyone is battling trying to pass people off the start you can usually get some good rubbing action off the first jump.

Rob Naughton came in nose heavy off the start of the Pro 2 Unlimited race.

Kyle Leduc had the lead in Pro 4 Unlimted before a rollover would put him back in the pack. I like this shot because you can see the crowds in the background, and the truck has a nice lean to it.

And here is a shot off the start of the Pro 4 Unlimted race.

The other shot from the Turn 1 location is the actual turn. It was a little different from last year as it looked like they made the turn a little wider and not as sharp as before. I was still able to get some decent shots of the drivers drifting into the turn.

Rick Huseman would end up winning the Pro 4 race and I was able to get a celebration shot. Being in Turn 1 puts you close enough to catch all the winners celebrations.

During the yellow flag caution they would let you move spots so I headed to the middle section between Turn 1 and Turn 2. There wasn’t anything real exciting to shoot there but it gave me some different angles to mix things up a bit.

Shooting in front of you had a decent jump to shoot.

Metal Mulisha’s Brian Deegan

If you turned around you could get a photograph of the racers hitting the jump after Turn 3 with the crowd in the background.

General Tire’s Robby Woods.

You could also get a shot of them exiting Turn 2. Here are two shots that show how just moving around a bit and using a different lens can make the same spot look a little different.

Here is a shot standing up with the Canon 300mm f2.8L lens.

Rob MacCachren and Rodrigo Ampudia

And here is a shot using the Canon 70-200mm f2.8L lens while getting real low to the ground. By doing that it let me use the dirt in front of me as an interesting foreground.

Monster Energy’s Casey Currie

For the Pro 2 race Carl Renezeder would end up taking the win.

During the podium I turned around and saw this little fan wanting to catch a glimpse of the celebration.

On Sunday’s practice I decided to shoot again on the back stretch to get some more shots from that area. Because LOORRS was tight on time they didn’t water the track between some of the sessions so I didn’t get too much from that area. Here are a few that I did like. I tend to shoot pretty tight but for this race found myself stepping back a bit and framing the car more in the photograph.

Menzie Motorsports Cameron Steele

Monster Energy’s Rick Huseman (Yes I have a lot of Rick on this blog, its because he always drives at 110% and puts on a good show!)

For the day’s racing I decided to shoot outside the track, moving around the front stretch to get a few different angles per race. Luckily I saw Poppy Perfect the Media Coordinator for LOORRS before opening ceremonies and she mentioned that there was an extra scissor lift if we wanted to use it. Of course!

Mark had been shooting from a lift all day yesterday and got some good rollovers, so any chance to be just like him I jumped at the opportunity. All that was left was to strap 5 cameras around my neck, get some designer jeans, and a man crush for Kartman , and drive a Corvette and I’d be his twin!

I had them place the lift so that it was shooting directly head on with the front straight away. I figured it would be a good place to shoot since it would be an angle no one else had yet. Then Matt saw me up there during the race and joined us for the other races. Who knew someone 6’3″ and 250 pounds was scared of heights.

Here is the start of the Pro 2 Unlimited race.

Because there were so many flags, banners, and other lifts around the course it was hard to get a clean shot besides the front straight away. If you timed it right you could get a shot without anything in the way.

Brian Deegan launches his truck off a jump.

The grandstands were packed full all weekend.

I only stayed up in the lift for a few laps so that I could walk around the front stretch, and also be down at the podium to catch the finish line celebrations.

One spot was at the base of a jump that put you literally next to the track. Was a nice rush when a few trucks would come flying off the jump at the same time. Not so nice when they landed in mud and sprayed the side of your face.

Another spot was right next to the flagman tower, there was a hold cutout in the fence for us to shoot. It gave you a pretty good view of the track and could work a few angles.

Supercross Champ Ricky Johnson goes for a ride.

For this shot I was able to get up in the flagman stand for the finish.

Rick Huseman would once again win in the Pro 4 Unlimited race, with Rob MacCachren taking the checkered flag for the Pro 2 Unlimited race. For the Limited Buggy class I was happy to see friend Justin “Bean” Smith get his first short course win, and was glad to be there for his celebration.

That about wraps it up for Rounds 3 & 4 of the Lucas Oil Offroad Racing Series. Here are a few more photos from the race below. Next LOORRS race takes us back to Las Vegas in May. See you then!