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

This past weekend I made the trip out to Laughlin for the SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge. This race always has a special meaning for me because it was the first I went to as a “photographer” 6 years ago. However more importantly, 7 years ago, its the place in which I met my wonderful wife Jamie. She’s been my biggest supporter with my photography, and she has no idea how much she means to me.

Here is my favorite shot from the 2004 race, you’ll never see a photograph like this at a SCORE race because they no longer use the road crossing.

If you want a good laugh you can see the full gallery on my site.
Old Skool HighRev

First on the agenda for the weekend was to hit up contingency Friday morning. After spending 10 minutes there and realizing it was a bust we headed over to the pits so that I could snap some pit shots of a few teams I would be covering for the weekend.

Fast forward to 1:30pm and it was time to shoot the qualifying session for the Trophy Truck class. Each racer would get one lap around the 6.25 mile course to set their starting position for Saturday. I decided to shoot at mile .5-1 because I knew during the race I wouldn’t have a chance to shoot there.

Andy McMillin

Robby Gordon

I tried to take advantage of that spot to get as many different angles as I could. I moved up on top of a small hill to get more of a birds eye view of a few Trophy Trucks.

Andy McMillin would get top qualifier for the day, you can check out video from his lap that my friend Scott Smith of Paradigm Productions made. Its all filmed with GoPro HD cameras and the footage turned out sweet.

SCORE made a great decision this year by moving the Laughlin Leap from Thursday night, to Friday. That meant that more spectators would be able to make it, and more importantly that I didn’t have to leave so early for the race. It was scheduled to start at 7pm, so I got there early to set up remote camera and lighting setup.

My friends Matt Kartozian and Art Eugeino both brought some Alien Bees and did a good job of lighting the vehicles up. I still don’t own any strobes so I opted again to just fire my Canon 550ex flash remotely. Its not as strong as a strobe but can still light the car up. I actually like the look it gives the photos, its more harsh of a light and gives a dramatic look to the photo.

For a few shots I walked well past the landing of the jump and put on a 2x Teleconverter on my 70-200mm lens. I wanted to get a shot from far away with the background all black and just the car lit up. I tried a few times but it seems with all the people lined up and blocking the Pocket Wizard, I only got it to fire once. Luckily it was of the winner of the Trophy Truck class.

The winner of the night however was Josh Daniels, who went 111′ feet in his Class 1 car (Note last years winner went 160′, but since SCORE decided to build a smaller flat “jump”, there was no way anyone would be able to beat that). Here is a shot of him after the event.

I also set up a remote camera to get a different angle of the jump. I clamped it on to a light tower via a magic arm and had it angled the opposite way I would be shooting the jump. I didn’t have the right setup so that it was in sync with my camera and flash, so I was just hoping to catch another photographers flash with mine. From about 60 frames there was 3 usable, with this being the best. I like how you can see all the photographers in the shot as well.

The nice thing about this race is that you get to see all the Trophy Trucks and Class 1 cars 8 times each day, but being that the course is only 6.25 miles long you have to hustle to your next spot or you’ll miss them. For Saturdays race we decided to stay near the infield which always has some good spots to shoot from. The hill right off the start line is nice because they start two wide and its always a mad dash to get there first.

Chad Ragland drove BJ Baldwin’s Trophy Truck on Day 1.

Right after the hill there was a nice hole developing that if the racers took the inside lane they’d pop out of it.

The last part of the course before they get into the infield section they go through a small canyon where some big holes always develop. I was in the right place in the right time when Ed “Clyde” Stout came through and his truck bucked on one of the holes.

It wouldn’t be Laughlin without a token Leap shot.

You can see some more photos from Saturday at the end of this post.

For Sunday I went out on the course near the high school section. Its nice out there because there are a few different options as far as shooting spots all within walking distance. I decided to shoot out here on Sunday because I figured the course would be much rougher. I was wrong. The first part of the day they bladed most of the course leaving the majority of it flat. But as always you make due and do the best you can.

There was a corner that I liked shooting at last year and was looking forward to shooting it again this year. It always has nice light, and the way the turn is, you can use the berm in the shot to make it look like you’re shooting at ground level.

If you followed them past the turn you could get them entering another turn.

Another spot from last year that is always good to shoot is yet another corner in the middle part of the course. Whats could about it is that it has one of the few long straight always before it, which means they would carry more speed into the turn. In years past the corner would be very whooped out, but since they bladed it, the corner wasn’t all that exciting. I ended up laying on the ground to try and get a different angle and shoot wide open.

Like the other spot, if you followed them through the corner you could get a nice shot of them leaving.

Something about this shot I like, between the colors, the depth of field, the angle, and the lighting, it works for me.

Earlier in the day I decided to give my remote a try, turns out I should of waited till the Trophy Trucks. Gerardo at work made a sweet trigger button using spare parts at work. Typically you can find them online for about $65, and they wrap around your lens so you can trigger a remote camera while still shooting your hand held camera.

So the camera lasted about 6 vehicles before it got clipped. The only real damage was where the battery makes contact, so it won’t turn on. Camera insurance is a good thing!

Below you can check out some of my favorite shots from the weekend. Up next is the BITD Parker 425!