When I was a young boy, I used to sit out on the patio on Memorial Day and listen to the Indy 500 on the radio. It was a tradition with me…and still is. Now, of course, I watch it on TV. I am not a big racing fan, but I never miss the Indy 500. It is just something special.
Last weekend, after a wait of over 60 years, I attended my very first live Indy Car race…at the Sonoma Raceway here in Northern California. It is not an oval track like Indy, but rather a 2.3 mile road course.
Unlike football, basketball, baseball, hockey, or any other sport you might name, one gets to get up close and personal with drivers and their cars, not to mention pit crews, car owners, and some of the great legends of Indy car racing. I got to see legends like Johnny Rutherford and Mario Andretti and several more as they wandered around the garage area. I met a couple of current drivers and look inside their racing machines. It was all very interesting, and yes, exciting.
It was a two day event with some racing and qualifying on Saturday and the big race on Sunday. I will save some of the details for later blogs.
I was with my friend Dave from Wenatchee and his good friend Pete who flew in from Wisconsin for this race. They stayed with me in Walnut Creek and, in exchange for room and board, paid my way into the race track. Both are avid Indy car fans and they brought me up to speed on the fine points of Indy car racing. Thank God I had them as my guides.
A friend of Pete’s advised us to sit at turn 2 as we would be able to see a lot of action there and still be able to see about 2/3 of the road course…and he was right. We also found one of the few viewing spots on the track that had a couple of shade trees so we were able to escape the wrath of the August sun.
We sat there for both days except for the qualifying trials on Sat where we sat in the main grandstand just above Pit Row. I won’t go into details, but the qualifying rounds were as exciting as the race on Sunday. It is all about strategy, not to mention speed.
On Sunday, after surviving the earthquake and the inevitable road closures, the race track, which is only a few miles from the quake’s epicenter, was deemed safe for racing. We were able to get our seat in the shade so all was good.
If you ever watch auto racing of any kind, you know that the most dangerous and exciting time of the race is when the race officially starts after a couple of warm-up laps. The cars get up to full speed and try to jockey for better position. That was especially true this day. I had my camera ready aimed at turns one and two and just kept continuously shooting away. And true to form, there was a huge melee of cars touching each other, going off the track into the dirt and spinning out. That is what you see in this photo as the cars come out of turn 2.
Fortunately, all the cars were able to get back on the track and continue the race. And an exciting race it was, especially the last 10 laps. Three of the lead cars figured their gas wrong and had to pit, putting them out of contention. One car who was leading the race, ran out of gas in site of the finish line and finished 14th. Three other cars ran out of gas after crossing the finish line…two stopped right in front of me.
Bottom line was I enjoyed myself thoroughly and hope I can do it again next year. I will have a few more pictures of this race event for you in the near future.
PS: I am going on an extended road trip and will not be able to do another blog until I get back to Tucson in a couple of weeks. So, don’t give up on me.
(To see a larger version of this image, just click on it)
To see more of my work, both in photography and digital painting, please visit my website, www.corkrum.com…or visit my Flickr Page.
No comments:
Post a Comment