Star Road

We left off on Saturday at Laguna Seca with me having successfully and safely finished my first track day there in my BRZ, and my buddy Chris having completely destroyed the front brake pads on his E46 M3. With the new front calipers still undelivered and none of the old pad shape on the shelf, he decided to go home to pick up his other track car, a Hot Lava (orange) Scion FR-S, so he could run Sunday’s event. I wasn’t originally planning to go on Sunday due to rain in the forecast, but with the promise of a free ride and seeing this lovely car in action, how could I resist?

As soon as you hit the paddock, it’s down to work. Although in this case, we drove down on the track wheel/tire setup, so there wasn’t too much to do beyond adhering the racing numbers and doing some final checks.

There was moisture in the air and rain in the forecast, so the paddock was virtually empty when we arrived, despite over 70 cars having registered for the event. Of course, these track days are non-refundable and run rain-or-shine. In the last Laguna Seca post, I mentioned how I don’t understand how people can pay $300 for a track day and only run half of it. But something I really don’t understand is how people can pay $300 and not show up at all. Are people really that terrified of driving in the rain?

Is BMW a victim or a perpetrator of the modern trend of cars getting fatter and uglier?

Some people do have a legitimate excuse for not driving their car in the rain, like this topless Ginetta.

It might have a roll bar, but it’s street-registered and has a fully finished interior with carpet. You may have also noticed that the windshield wiper arms have been removed. I wouldn’t want to drive this thing in the rain.

Pampered garage queens give a bad name to supercars and their owners, so it’s always great to see supercars at the track.

I did see the driver suited up and putting his helmet on, but sadly I didn’t get to see this Senna in action at all.

As always, when the track action started I went out to my go-to spot over at Turn 3.

Eagle-eyed viewers will notice something slightly unique in this capture. Yep, the windshield wipers are on: it had started to rain. Luckily I was wearing a good jacket.

It’s really hard to catch light rain in a photo; that’s why rain in movies is so dramatically thick and directly lit from the side. Well, the sun gave me the latter here: the drizzle here is lit up and looks like a thin layer of noise over the photo.

Don’t like the weather? Just wait five minutes. By the time I got to the other side of Turn 4, the sun was blazing again.

Or was it? The lighting was completely different on the very next lap. Chris a very good friend of mine, so I was always going to shoot whatever he’s driving. However, his orange FR-S is my favorite color of one of my all-time favorite cars–so prepare to see a lot of it in this post. I would be shooting the hell out of this car even if I didn’t know the owner.

I bought a 2013 FR-S back in 2013, then upgraded to the kouki model in 2018 when I bought my new BRZ. But I’m one-upped by Chris who’s also owned a 2015 FR-S and 2017 BRZ in addition to the 2013 FR-S here. It does make me a little sad that he’s moved on to the E46 M3 as his primary track car, because I think the FR-S is one of the coolest and best-looking cars made in the past 30 years or so.

Don’t worry though, this post isn’t an FR-S spotlight. I made sure to shoot everything that caught my attention.

The wing on this S2000 is humongous! Good thing there aren’t any laws about that in California. I always read about the restrictions in Europe and Japan where the wing can’t be wider than any part of the car or stick out in certain ways.

I wonder if I’ll ever come around to the styling of this generation of BMW’s. Maybe they’ll make the next version so hideous that we end up thinking these are subtle.

I’ve heard “Miata at Laguna Seca” as a sort of metaphor to describe how frustrating it is to drive a slow car on a big road or track. Well, as I laid out in my earlier article about driving here in my BRZ, I can’t get behind that at all. I had a great time driving my BRZ here, so I’m sure it’s a hoot in an ND Miata as well.

I was glad that the Ginetta went out there, even in the light rain. Predictably, when it started to rain a bit more after this session, he packed up and headed home.

Not every shot needs to have the car huge in the frame. From the same location at T5, I also like to zoom out and slow the shutter to get images like this.

They used to line the outside of this track with hay bales to protect motorcycle riders; now they keep them on the inside to keep erosion in check.

I was walking towards the next spot when I heard some odd sounds. I turned around to see this E36 had looped it in a very odd place: they were completely backwards before the apex. I wonder what happened; they must have lost it under braking.

Turn 6 is probably the least spectated turn at Laguna, simply due to its location on the far side of the track, compared to the paddock. To watch this turn from the outside of the track you have to take a long path around the outside of the track, through a campsite. To watch from the inside of the track, where this photo was taken, you need to walk up the track’s perimeter road and then cut across a ridge on a trail.

It’s a hike, but this is your reward: a grand vista of one of the most beautiful views at any race track. I’m probably biased since that’s where I grew up, but I absolutely love the multilayered green rolling hills of Northern California.

Rarely seen at track days are actual race cars. There was another Spec Racer Ford out there too; I wonder if they were practicing for a race weekend, or if they did the thing that all gearheads talk about and never do: buy an actual race car to drive on track days.

According to Chris, this guy is always out there at track days. That’s interesting because this GR86 is actually automatic. Not only that, it sounded like he doesn’t use the paddles or even the “Sport” button to change the transmission programming; on the exit of every turn, I could hear the transmission kick down when he got on the throttle. A bit odd.

From Turn 6, you can continue on the trail up the hill towards the Corkscrew. That’s a fun place to walk on race weekends because you can hear the long pull and an upshift or two, plus see race cars going really fast. I didn’t want to go up there just yet though, so I turned around and headed back down the way I came. In the background of this photo, you can see a little white hut: the infamous sound booth.

The Rosso Competizione paint on this 4C is just amazing; it even pops on a rainy day.

Over time I’ve developed little checklists about certain photo characteristics that I like. One thing I really like is trying to get a wide of a frame as possible, but not have any sky in the photo. That’s one of the reasons I like shooting at Turn 3, and that’s one of the things I was aiming for here.

It had been raining a little harder, so now the track started getting shiny. Still not yet at the level where the cars were kicking up spray, though.

I love how these guys are rocking the exact same wheels. Proof that this “TE37” design and gold color works on pretty much anything.

Even the ugliest cars look pretty awesome being pushed to their limits. I love watching cars brake into Turn 5 and lean on the front axle.

No ND filter required! Shooting on a dark day or in the rain lets you go wide open (f/2.8 in this case) and still shoot at a relatively slow shutter speed (1/125 for this one).

Here’s a shot that I rarely think about taking. But the more I focus on one car (like this FR-S), the more creative I end up getting because I don’t want to just take the same photo over and over again.

Here’s another example. Once I nail the “stock” set of photos, it’s always fun to play around and try to create something a little different and hopefully interesting.

By now it was raining harder, and the faster cars were kicking up spray. I was wearing my trusty Columbia jacket, so I was dry. But my camera? Zero protection. Yup, I was just standing out in the rain with my Nikon Z6 II and Nikon 70-200mm. That’s one of the many reasons to shoot with professional gear: it can take this sort of use no problem.

If I had to stand out there all day in monsoon rain, then I would pick up some actual rain protection. But for standard California precipitation? No problem to rock it naked.

I originally thought this Emira was black, but then I realized it was a very dark green. This reminds me of how I always thought the Lotus Omega/Carlton was black, but when I saw one in person I realized that they are all actually Imperial Green.

Sedans aren’t usually considered track cars, but where can you really stretch the legs of a C63 AMG?

Between the new ZN8 GR86…

…and the new ZC8 BRZ, which do you think looks better? I’m strongly in the GR86 camp; I think the front of the new BRZ looks a little bit like a chipmunk with its cheeks full.

The most frustrating thing about driving something very slow like a Miata at a big track like Laguna Seca is that, even in a Novice session like this one, you’re still always checking your mirrors for faster cars coming up on you.

If you go fast enough, the water can’t enter the cabin! It’s just science.

Definitely intentional: this E36 driver chucked it into Turn 3 and sent it sideways. I could only watch from what felt like a million miles away with my 70-200mm lens. Click on the pic for a link to the full resolution photo if you want to zoom in.

He then sent it around the next turn, grip style, at a pretty good pace on the wet line.

I went back to the paddock and the rain eased up so I decided to poke around.

The Acura RSX is a car I’ve always loved but never got around to owning. They were never really that popular, but they now seem to have dropped off the face of the earth.

The extreme minority is represented here: the super-sports car owners who not only track their car, but do so in the rain. The car doesn’t melt, and you’re not going to just fly off the track, even if you’re in a novice class like these drivers.

I’ve always thought the A90 Supra to be a very interesting looking car. With a little bit of aftermarket makeup, I think they can look pretty badass.

According to the timestamp, I snapped this at 11:06. It was raining and time to go grab some lunch.

At 12:29, I pulled the cap off my lens and shot this photo. Alright, some blue sky!

The light was pretty cool at this point so I made my way around the paddock yet again.

Shooting directly into the light source with a very dimly lit subject: this type of photo used to be essentially impossible to take without a tripod and blending of multiple exposures. Now cameras have so much dynamic range that I can just throw a quick mask over the sky to expose each part of the scene different, and it comes out just like how I saw it.

I generally don’t recommend that you park in a puddle, but it does create a cool effect.

The paddock restaurant has gone through a few phases over the years, some of them quite bad even by my low standards. But the current incarnation, called “Bear + Flag”, is definitely the best setup that’s been there yet.

The first generation front end seems so angry, but the second generation cars have these big silly smiles.

When the bright skies on one side lined up just right with the dark clouds on the other, a rainbow emerged!

Sadly, by the time I had run the couple hundred feet over to Chris and Andrie’s cars and framed my shot, the rainbow had already disappeared.

For these after-lunch sessions, I made my way out of the paddock up towards the Corkscrew. The walk up from Turn 10 to 9 is great, as you see cars coming at you the whole way up the hill. I still can’t get over the huge ugly fence they put in the way a few years ago, though.

Thankfully, there’s no fence down at the apex of Turn 9, Rainey Curve. I love shooting cars from up here; you get a great high angle, and I love how the blurry curbs add texture.

I always see way fewer Corvettes at the track than I expect, and especially C8’s. I figured this would be an ideal track car, especially with the Z51 “Performance Package” that adds a variety of coolers and stiffer suspension.

And then, I was at the Corkscrew! This is one of the most interesting places to spectate motorsports in the world, because the vehicles are so dynamic through here. They practically jump over the top.

And at the bottom, there’s the compression and lateral forces pushing the car into the track.

This is the SpeedSF rental car, which the instructors drive when no one was renting it. Patrick was driving it for this session and he was really throwing it around. He might have been going a little too hard in this session: when I returned to the paddock, I saw that he had spun the car and tapped a tire wall. Oops!

I suppose I can understand why people put these “track wraps” onto their car, but it really bums me out as a spectator and photographer. I finally get to see a 992.1 GT3 in action on the track and it’s covered in wrinkly plastic. It does highlight how time-consuming and skill-intensive it is to install clear wrap properly at least.

Even though they added some extra fencing to the Corkscrew area, there is still one spot at the base of the turn where you can look straight into the track at the same level as the drivers.

At this point, a hole opened in the clouds that seemed to illuminate just the top part of the track. The whole area was grey, but the blue skies and sunlight were right on top of me.

What a great view from up here.

You can see it in the reflection of the car: the sun opened up right at the perfect angle to illuminate the Corkscrew directly.

This is another fun free spot that’s open to the public. If you go right to the top of the Corkscrew, you get a slightly obstructed view of the cars braking here. But turning this direction, you can see right onto the track. In a world filled with safety barriers, I cherish these areas where there is absolutely nothing between you and the cars.

And with that, it was a wrap for my day. I had a lot of fun shooting in the rain and various lighting conditions, although I was pretty bummed that so many people flaked on the track day. Come on people, the rain is good for you! I’m not wishing for rain on my next track day but honestly? I wouldn’t mind.