Because of scheduling and the locations of the TORC series I wasn’t able to make it out to any of the previous races this year, but I always make it a goal to shoot the Fall Crandon race. The course is much different then all the LOORRS venues in that its spread out over a large area where all the Lucas tracks are crammed in on themselves. Photography wise the track is a photographers dream with nice dark dirt, green trees in the background, and much more freedom to explore the track for photo spots.

Here are my top 15 shots from the weekend, already can’t wait for next year!

1.

This is a shot of Kyle Leduc throwing his Pro 4 into the final turn during racing on Friday. I slowed down my shutter speed to help get a sense of motion, and luckily some of the truck is in focus so I can officially label this photo as “artsy”.

2.

What I like about this shot is the lighting, on Friday because there was the parade and they were making up a previous round, the Pro 2 race was held later in the day. While shooting the big table top jump head on I turned around and noticed the trucks passing by and the light painting the trucks and their dust trail.

3.

This is a shot of Johnny Greaves standing next to his son CJ who is about to race his prolite. It tells the story of one of the best short course racers of all time teaching his son who is a rising star of the sport.

4.

The crowds in Crandon are what help make it such an awesome track. This shot was taken during the first race of the day, and the stands are already packed with diehard race fans.

5.

For the Pro Buggy race I wanted to shoot from atop a platform where I could shoot turn one from behind, so I headed over there before the start of the Super Truck race to get into position. Well I didn’t get there in time before they came around so I hung out in a little valley in the middle of the course to wait it out. While standing there I saw a nice potential photo with a bunch of greenery taking up most of the composition of the shot. Sometimes your favorite photos aren’t the ones you planned for, I think being a good photographer is being able to adapt to your surroundings.

6.

Speaking of planned shots, this is one that I had planned out. There is another tall platform on the course used by a track official to see an overview of the track. If you hate heights its not the place for you, its about 60 feet high and held up by four steel poles that were probably welded together 50 years ago, and almost completely rusted. I wanted to get a shot with the full field in the photo and the Prolite class was the only field with enough entries to fill out the photo. The composition, the clouds, the dark dirt, green trees all make the photo.

7.

Shooting from the same platform but with a longer lens during the Pro 4 race, I was able to get this shot of four trucks all in a four wheel drift around a turn which you couldn’t get from standing track level.

8.

The story of the weekend was the weather, and during the Pro 4 race on Sunday the track became muddy as rain hit the track. Here Steve Barlow hits a puddle after he slid off the landing zone off the big table top.

9.

I think that is a Nissan, I think that’s Chad Hord, and I think its a Pro 2.

10.

No this isn’t a robot, its Rob MacCachren after the Pro 2 race on Sunday.

11.

I still argue that offroad photographers have some of the worst conditions to shoot in sports. Most sports stop with rain, dust, silt, and mud. Not us!

12.

One of my favorite spots on the course to shoot from is on the inside of turn 2. They have all their speed from the land rush start and go into a full speed drift around this corner. Its a challenging shot when you try to pan with it because they are coming by you so fast, but also because they aren’t parallel with your pan, they are coming at you at about a 45 degree angle so its harder to get that perfect pan, here is the best one from this year.

13.

Love him or hate him Brian Deegan can drive, and when he wins he always lets out his full emotions which make for good photographs.

14.

This is a shot from the last turn before the big table top, its another shot that shows the deep rich dirt of Crandon that I love.

15.

For only the second time in the history of the cup race, Chad Hord put a Pro 2 across the finish line before any of the Pro 4 trucks could catch them. If you ask anyone Chad is one of the nicest racers around so it was great to see him and his family celebrate the win, which he said was the biggest of his career.

So those are some of my favorite shots from Crandon this year, below you can view some other photos from the weekend. Till next time!

2011 TORC Fall Crandon

Since this year is coming to a close, I thought I’d share with you what I think are some of the better photos from 2010. This year I shot the usual desert and short course races, along with King of the Hammers, some mountain biking, and the NHRA finals thrown in towards the end of the year. In total I went to about 28 events, and took around 40,000 photos. So be patient! Its a pretty long blog but hopefully worth the wait!

Before I begin I’d just like to thank my wife Jamie for putting up with another busy year of photography. I’m usually gone a few times a month which leaves all the responsibility of running a household on her while I’m gone. She is incredibly supportive and unselfish to let me do what I love and enjoy, and she is the backbone of our family.

First off I’d thought I’d show some of my favorite photos from mountain bike races I went to. I shot one endurance race called The Vision Quest / Counting Coup, and also covered a local series out in Irvine called Over The Hump Series. I started riding bikes myself the past few years and I’ve grown to really love the sport. Its man versus nature at the basic level, and the time you spend on the bike can be very relaxing.

The Counting Coup runs through the Santa Ana Mountains, and gives some great backgrounds and also some really good light in the morning.

The Over The Hump Race is held at Irvine Lake and also gives you some great backgrounds to chose from. OTH is a local series with great support from the community, and is a lot of fun to shoot. Its held every Tuesday for about 2 months so you get a lot of opportunities to play around with different angles.

The races are held during the end of the day so you get some nice lighting to work with.

Among short course racing, Crandon Offroad Raceway is the grandfather of all tracks. Its where the traditions and backbone of the sport started. Crandon is a great track with its wide open speeds, great scenery, and even better people. Here are a few from this years Labor Day race that I liked.

Here are a few of my favorites from this years LOORRS season. At the Surprise, AZ course one turn I like to shoot at is this photo below. Its a wide sweeping turn and during the race the sun is behind the corner so it gives the light a cool look to it.

Robby Woods flies through the air and into the sunset.

A course worker flags down the field silhouetted by the sun.

Ricky Johnson has the Santa Ana Mountains in the background has he hits a jump at Glen Helen Raceway.

Sean Geiser goes for a ride in his Prolite Truck.

Here is one shot from the King of the Hammers, this was taken at one of the more popular spectator spots called Sledgehammer.

At a few races this year I was able to mess around with remote flashes and cameras during the race, and was able to get a few interesting shots. At the SCORE Laughlin Leap I set up my Canon 550ex flash to the right of the trucks and walked farther down the landing area to get a nice head on shot.

At a LOORRS race this year Kyle Leduc let me put my flash inside his truck, so that I could fire it from the track. My goal was to get some interesting shots with the background and truck dark with the cab and him all lit up. You can see my blog about it here.

Here are two shots that I liked the best from the series.

That same weekend I also mounted a Canon 20D on the back of Kyle Leducs truck. Here is a blog about that as well.

I also had the opportunity in 2010 to help out a friend who runs the company Dirtbagz with some product photography. It was my first time doing product shots and I enjoyed it a lot and hope to do more in 2011.

Shooting desert racing is my first love. Its not just going to a track and shooting photos, its the adventure of racing from spot to spot to beat your client. Its prerunning before hand to find the best spots along the course, and the logistics of putting it all together with a game plan for race day. The course is constantly changing as more vehicles carve into the dirt. At a Nascar race you can go to the media center for lunch, in Baja you live off the local taco stand and Doritos.

I’d say overall one of the best desert races of 2010 for photos was the SNORE Mint 400. The course is rough with a lot of great spots, but the qualifying session the day before the race was a photographers candy jar. One spot along the qualifying loop was a jump at the bottom of a long downhill and the racers put on a great show, both intentionally and unintentionally. Here are three photos, one of Cameron Steele crashing his Trophy Truck after landing in a deep hole after the jump, and Roger Norman launching his truck in the air, and a Class 1 car who surprisingly saved it and just ended up breaking his front a-arm.

Here are some more of my favorite shots from the 2010 desert racing season.

Another photo from the Mint 400 where Zorba Racing blows their front bumper into the silt.

Overlooking contingency at the SCORE San Felipe 250 race.

Wilson Motorsports races down the town of Ensenada at the Baja 500.

Mastercraft’s Robbie Pierce and COPS Racing blast through a silt bed in San Felipe.

KING Shock using a Macro Lens.

BJ Baldwin launches off a jump at the BITD Vegas 2 Reno race.

Andy McMillin during qualifying for the BITD Parker 425.

Well thats it for the best of 2010, thank you for taking the time to look over my blog and photos for the past year. I enjoy showing my work to all of you and hope you enjoy checking them out. 2011 looks to be an even busier year then the last so make sure to keep checking back for updates! Thanks again and see you at the track/desert/mountains/dragstrip/rocks and more!

Jason Zindroski
HighRev Photography

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

The last time I was in Crandon was 4 years and I’d always wanted to come back. The race is always a lot of fun and the track is what short course is supposed to be, fast and on the edge at every turn. Watching turn one at the start of the Cup race is something everyone needs to see and feel in person. I also mounted a remote camera on Kyle Leduc’s truck hoping to get some good photos from the turn, more on that later.

The weekend started with the traditional Labor Day Parade in downtown Crandon. Everyone comes out to see all the racers with their trucks on display, and then at high noon the parade runs down the main street.

The famous wood car of Crandon always comes out and makes an appearance.

100 Ounce Big Gulp cup, ice cream cone, and a smile. Only thing he was missing was his sleeves.

This is the first year the cup race will be run under the name “Amsoil Cup”, so they revealed the new trophy for the winner.

A funny moment from the parade was when Robby Gordon was checking out a Classix car (think of a 79′ Buick with a cage, shocks through the roof, and rust) and the owner of the car yelled to him, “If you like it its for sale!”

Normally right after the parade the racing kicks off with practice and qualifying, but because it had been raining since Thursday TORC decided rather then tear the course up, cancel everything until Saturday. I was bummed because it would mean less shooting on the track, but it was the right move so that the weekend could go on as scheduled.

Skate shoes and mud don’t mix

It felt good to be out on the track again in Crandon. There is just something about being out there that you can’t really describe without actually being there. You can sense the tradition 41 years of racing there walking around the pits, the race course, and see people of all ages at the track.

Before I go into all the photos of the racing from the weekend, first I’ll show a few photos from the remote camera.

A few months ago I mounted my trusty Canon 20D body on Kyle Leducs truck at the Las Vegas LOORRS race. Its been a while since I’ve done it, and since Crandon has the most famous turn in offroad racing I thought it would be a perfect time to bring the remote cam out of retirement.

I used the same mount as before, a simple piece of tubing cut in half long way with a ball head mounted to it. Last time I used a Pocketwizard Multimax to fire the camera, but after damaging it and a $175 repair bill later I decided to use a cheap intervalometer I got off Amazon.com for about $30. Here is the link to the one I got, if you get one make sure to get the right one for your camera.

Canon Intervalometer

As far as settings go I again used the same from last time. AV mode set at f5.6, 400ISO to keep the shutter over 1/1000, and pre-focused the camera before hand.

My goal was to get a good shot in turn one with a bunch of trucks behind Kyle and lots of roost. While that situation never happened, I was able to get a few decent shots from the weekend that I liked. Here are a few of them. Note that I kept about 15 shots from the whole weekend, out of around 1300 shots the camera took. Remote cameras are always hit or miss, you just hope to get a few good shots.

Adrian Cenni and Steve Barlow say hi to the camera.

A little vibration during the shot caused it to be a little blurry.

Since I didn’t get to shoot on the track on Friday I was anxious to get out there on Saturday. As luck would have it when we woke up Saturday morning there was still a little rain in the air, so I was worried the races may get pushed back again. Anyone who’s been to Wisconsin knows the weather up there is very unpredictable, and a little before the first race the rain would stop and the track would get a chance to dry out.

Rather then talk about each day I thought for this blog I would just show some of my favorite photos at random and talk a little about each one. Here we go!

Turn 2 of the course is always fun for me to shoot because its a very high speed turn and you can get some great panning shots there. If you’ve seen the cover of Dezert People 4, the shot of Jonny Greaves is from this spot. Here Todd Leduc got bumped by another racer and caused him to go over.

Dezert People 4 Cover

Here you can see the huge crowd that always shows up for Crandon races. Whether its the Cup race or the first race of the day there are always people cheering.

Most famous turn in offroad racing.

Monster Energy’s Casey Currie

This is the largest jump on the track, in previous years the jump has been steeper so they weren’t going quite as big as years past.

Steve Barlow catches a rut in the last turn during Saturday’s Pro4 race.

Another unique thing about Crandon is the water truck. Typically all water trucks are one man operations where the driver controls the water, but in Crandon they have someone on top of the truck spraying the track. Another thing that gives Crandon a personal touch.

One spot on the track I’ve never shot before is the last straight away and 180 degree turn before they start heading towards turn 1 again. It has some great backgrounds with all the trees and offers a different perspective to the course.

The heart and soul of racing at Crandon.

After eating dinner in town Saturday night, driving back into the pits we passed the large Crandon Raceway sign. I knew that there was going to be a fireworks show later that night, so I thought it would be a good chance to try and get a nice shot of the sign all lit up with some fireworks in the background. After about 100 shots or so here is one that came out during the grand finale.

Todd Leduc repairs some damage to his Pro 2 working late into the night.

Ricky Johnson won the points championship in Pro2, so his team helped him celebrate on Sunday.

On the back side of the course there is a platform about 40′ high that overlooks most of the course. Its a great place to get a different angle, the only down side is the only thing holding the platform up is 3 long rusty tubes and a couple shoty welds .

Another angle of the back straight away.

One of my favorites from the weekend, I like how the lighting is, the position of the truck, and all the dirt flying. Just works for me.

This is a shot of Monster Energy’s Casey Currie celebrating after winning the points championship in Prolite. I wanted to get a different angle then everyone else who would be right at the podium, so I got back a few hundred feet away and shot it with the 300mm lens.

The weekend always ends with the big cup race where the Pro2′s and Pro4′s all race at the same time, with the Pro2′s getting a head start. Amsoil’s Scott Douglas would take the win in his Pro 4 after a hard fought battle with Redbull’s Steve Barlow.

All in all I had a great time in Crandon and can’t wait to get back there again. Here is a link to the rest of my photos from the weekend, enjoy!

2010 TORC Crandon Photo Gallery

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

Back in 2008 I read an article on the Strobist Blog about how David Hobby mounted a few remote flashes inside the cockpit of a helicopter to light up the interior at sunset. Here is a link to the original article.

Strobist.com

I loved the shots that David got and it really inspired me. Ever since I read the article I always wanted to try it inside an offroad vehicle. I thought it would be a cool, unique shot that hasn’t been done before in that sport. I originally wanted to try it in desert racing, but it just wouldn’t be too practical because of the distances the vehicles are from you most of the time, making battery life an issue. Also I was worried that the flash would be too distracting during racing conditions for the driver and co-driver.

A few years went by and I never really gave it a try, but it was always in the back of my mind. The thought came back recently before a LOORRS race, trying to think of something different to do while shooting at a track I’ve shot at before. I already planned on mounting a remote camera on Kyle Leduc’s truck during the race, so I figured why not add a remote flash into the mix.

You can read up on the remote camera here.

David Hobby used three Nikon flashes inside the helicopter to light it up entirely. I would go a little different route and decided to use one Canon 550ex flash for two reasons. First reason was that I had less space to light up. The inside of the helicopter has a lot more square footage then the inside Kyle Leduc’s Pro 4 Unlimited truck. The second reason is that I only own one flash . To fire the remote flash I would use my Pocketwizard Plus II’s.

The one photo I imagined using the remote flash for was a shot far away of Kyle launching off a jump, with the background and vehicle dark, and the cab nice and lit up.. The track in Vegas has a jump perfect for this so I was excited to give it a try. There was one main problem in that all the practice and racing is done in the middle of the day. This meant that to get a dark background I would have to underexpose by either shooting at a very fast shutter speed, or with a very small aperture. Fast shutter speed was out of the question because I was limited to 1/250th shooting with the flash. I could use a small aperture but then would the flash be powerful enough to overpower the daylight?

Thats where a ND -0.9 Filter comes into play. Basically what this does is blocks some of the light going into the lens, making your camera think its 3 stops darker outside. By adding one to the lens I could shoot at 1/250th, and still underexpose the shot to have the flash overpower the daylight. Flash was set to full power manually.

I mounted the flash and pocketwizard in a very sturdy, professional, and strong way. Zipties.

The only place I could mount the flash was along the A-Pillar of the cage on the opposite side of the driver. Anywhere else and it would be to direct in his face, or be blocked by something. Here is a photo showing how the flash lit up the compartment.

I had Kyle get in the truck and fired a few test shots, and he said that the flash didn’t seem to bother him, so we were all set. I decided to only use the remote flash during practice/qualifying for the chance that it did start to bother him, I’d hate to have him look directly into the flash and go blind during the race. And just to be 100% sure it didn’t bother him, I fired a test shot the first lap in practice, and told him to give me a hand sign when he passed me (I was in the corner right after the jump), and I could turn off the pocketwizard on my camera, which in turn would stop firing the flash.

As he came by on the first lap, he didn’t run into the k-rail from being blinded, and didn’t give me the middle finger so we were ready to rock.

On all the shots I shot at 1/250th so that I could get the background as dark as I could, while the flash still lit Kyle up. I could of just used the flash as a fill light, and I think I may do that in the future, but for this time I wanted that dramatic look. With practice and qualifying only being a few laps, that meant I would only get a handful of tries to get the shots I wanted. Here are the three that I liked the best.

This first photograph is the one I envisioned getting while thinking about the shot. Its Kyle Leduc launching his truck in the air with only him lit up while the rest of the scene is dark.

This next shot is the turn immediately after the jump in the last shot. I like it because the truck is in a full drift around the corner and Kyle is looking right at you. The background is a bit lighter then the last photo becasue the sun was to my back, versus shooting more into the sun. Ignore that I cut off part of his front tire, just keep your eyes on him. Ignore the tire…

This last shot is at another location on the track. With this shot I didn’t use the ND filter, but still underexposed so the background wasn’t as dark, but gives a nice contrasted look. Here you can see how the shot looked with the remote flash fired, and one without on the next lap.

Thanks to David Hobby for getting me inspired, and for Kyle Leduc for letting me blind him!

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.

Carl Renezeder

This past weekend was Rounds 5 & 6 of the Lucas Oil Offroad Racing Series, out in Lake Elsinore, CA. Short course racing is always fun to shoot because unlike desert racing, you get a lot of chances to photograph each vehicle. It gives you more opportunities to try out different angles, techniques, and try out different spots on the course. In a desert race you may only see a trophy truck one or two times, but in a short course race you get to see all vehicles 30-40 times throughout a 3 day weekend.

Unlimited Lite Rollover

All weekend it was really hot out, and coupled with the fact that you have to wear pants while on the track, it led to a pretty miserable and sweaty weekend. The good thing about the LOORRS races is that they treat media with respect and make sure you are taken care of. We had the luxury of having a media skybox up in the grandstands, which was air conditioned, stocked with water, and even had catered food each day. Speaking of grandstands, to save money, rather then bring in huge seating that costs a lot of money to rent and setup, LOORRS just built the grandstands out of dirt and laid down thousands of fold up chairs. Not the prettiest thing to look at, but shows that they are being responsible with their money and trying to avoid the route CORR went last year. Still hoping to get paid by CORR, it’ll happen right?

Overall the weekend was a good time. The new track out in Lake Elsinore, while I think it lacks in technical areas was nice and fast, and the jumps they built really suited the vehicles. Even the UTV’s and Limited Buggies were catching air (sorry guys). The large table top is a nice addition to the track, but I think the two jumps after it are much better photo wise. They are both close to a 180 degree turn, so if you stand on the outside of the turn (within safety of course ) you can get some great shots. Also because of where you are, you get some nice clean backgrounds with the mountains. The jump after the large table top also produced some big crashes that weekend (ie. second photo of the blog) which naturally I only got one. Me and rollovers are like Kartman and the Mulisha, they just don’t get along.

Cameron Steele

Front view of first jump

Rear view of second jump

Kyle Leduc - 3/4 view of second jump

Another thing I don’t get along with is mud. Have you ever been walking and you saw something in the road and you just knew you were going to trip over it? Not only did I trip, I went ass first into mud. It went down like this…

Jason walks onto track near flagman station.
Jason stops at incline.
Jason looks down at incline.
Jason sees the incline is muddy, flat, and has no steps.
Jason thinks to himself, I’m going to fall on my ass.
Jason takes two steps.
Jason falls on his ass.
Jason sits in his own glory as all the course workers, media, and Unlimited 2 drivers stare at him.
Jason is still sitting on his ass.
Jason is glad that he fell during opening ceremonies, and not during practice when god forbid no one would see him fall on his ass.
Jason stands up.
Jason looks like he had diarrhea.
Jason doesn’t think Samys Camera will be too happy that he dropped their $5000 rental lens in the mud.
Jason laughs it off with his friends but is really crying inside.
Jason would like the thank Greg Adler for giving him a towel to wipe all the mud off his ass.
Jason would also like to thank all his media friends for taking photos of his ass. He would do the same to you.

This race marked the last for me until 2 months past. My wife and I are due to have our baby August 4th, so I’m taking some time off to make sure I’m in town when she goes into labor and spend some much needed time to relax with one another. Since the beginning of the year I think I’ve been home only about 25% of the weekends, and while I love photography, I love my family more.

Make sure to check out the blog every so often, while I won’t be away traveling I plan on doing some stuff around here I haven’t been able to do since I’m away, like some mountain bike photos, product stuff, etc. So stay tuned!

Here are some more photos from the weekend, and you can check out the rest on my main site!

www.highrevphoto.com