It wasn’t terribly long ago that I became away of a motor racing circuit not too far from home. The Pacific Raceway is down near Kent and is about 40 minutes from home if the traffic is moving normally (by which I mean moving and not bogged down with traffic which might seem normal sometimes). With one of the early events of the year coming up, I decided to pay it a visit. I was planning on shooting for a friend’s website but they limited media credentials to those that had shot there before due to a shortage of staff.
No matter. I figured I would go down anyway and shoot from the public viewing areas. As it happened, this suited the friend as he needed some material for an article on anyone shooting motor racing for the first time. The event was the SOVREN Spring Sprints. I got down there at lunchtime on the Saturday after visiting the opening event of Exotics@RTC. There was nothing happening when I got there and it turned out that there had been a fatal accident during one of the sessions. After a little waiting around, it was announced that there would be nothing further that day and they would start the following day.
I headed home and came back the following morning. A few of the competitors had gone home after the Saturday so the field was a bit reduced but there was still plenty to see. There were very few spectators so it was easy to go wherever I wanted in the public areas. The best shooting locations are on the south side of the course but that is only accessible with credentials.
The variety of vehicles was great. Plenty of single seaters but also lots of road cars modified for track racing. I am not familiar with all of the classes of car racing but I just get to enjoy watching them blasting around the course. I wandered from place to place to try different shots. The light was not ideal with backlighting for a large part of the day. I was messing around with low shutter speeds which, with the speeds they are at and how close you can be to the track, resulted in a lot of blurry images. You get parallax issues that close as well so deciding which bit of the car is sharp to be an acceptable shot is a bit of a taste issue.
The entry to the track from the paddock area is by a stand so I would often sit on the ground but the entry point as the cars drove in. It made for a slightly different view of the cars but the backgrounds can get pretty busy. I also went up in to the stands to get some shots looking down. The barriers could sometimes be a hindrance but they do have some platforms at ground level to get you close to the track which is handy.
I probably was being too aggressive on the shutter speeds which meant lots of useless shots but, to be fair, it was a day for playing around and, as long as you get some shots out of it, does it matter? I was getting a little tired in the afternoon and then realized, I wasn’t shooting for anyone else so I was free to leave if I wanted. Therefore, I decided to head off home. I took one more pass through the paddock area shooting people working on their cars or just hanging out and then I called it a day. I will aim to be back for some of the upcoming events, though.
I’ve posted a few times about my experience with the drag racing at Pacific Raceway. One of the things that I particularly was fascinated by was the surface of the strip itself. I mentioned before the machines that they used for conditioning this surface to ensure that there was maximum traction between the tires and ground. Periodically, the staff would come on to the track to take samples and measurements to understand exactly how it was performing. What photos don’t show you, but video can, is just how anything on the surface would stick. Only when you heard people walking along the track could you get the sound of their shoes sticking to the ground. Here is a video to explain what I mean.
