One Day
It was a warm Friday afternoon (yesterday, in fact) and I was circling around a Sapphire Black McLaren 650S with a camera in my hands when my phone rang. It was my buddy Andrejs, who recently decided he wanted to start riding motorcycles, so he got his license and picked up the perfect beginner’s bike (yeah right): a Ducati Monster 696.
I wanted to answer the phone with, “So did you crash or what?” But in the interest of good taste, I refrained. Maybe I should have said that, because his first words were, “I just had my first motorcycle crash.” He had low-sided it at about 15mph attempting to negotiate a very tight hairpin on my favorite twisty road. That’s like tackling a black diamond ski slope after you’ve managed a couple successful passes down the bunny slope. Oh well, I think he learned his lesson.
Then I went back to shooting McLarens. This color is called “Blue” and it’s a standard color; if you want a color with a fancy name (Aurora Blue, Burton Blue, Fistral Blue, Mauvine Blue, etc) it’ll cost you several thousand dollars extra.
My beloved FR-S is gone and in its place I’ve been daily-driving an EV. That means the Boxster is my only salvation, and I only really get to drive it on the weekend. Last night I was just itching to get out, so I cruised toward downtown San Jose.
On my way back I stopped at Falafel’s Drive-In to test the D750’s high ISO performance in a quiet, relatively safe area. I was surprised to see that the staff was still inside hanging out, even though the store had been closed for hours. Other than them, I didn’t see a single person walking by, even though we were right on a main street.
Just minutes before, I had been cruising downtown San Jose where it had the usual Friday night vibe (hard to describe but if you live here, you know). On two occasions I found a spot to put my foot down; once between two towering edifices, and once under a huge overpass. As if the glorious Porsche flat-six sound wasn’t enough to put a smile on my face, I heard people on the street cheering both times! I can definitely appreciate electric vehicles (as I shall definitively reveal in a future post), but there will always be something magical about a proper machine that rolls and explodes.
Best parking spot ever. The perfect lunch for me involves sitting outside in the shade with a good friend, looking at my car. Isn’t she beautiful?
Warm Saturday
Well, that looks like California.
And that looks like California too!
I was just cruising around some backroads after washing my car, stopping occasionally to grab some snaps. I use these little excursions to relax, but also to scout for areas I might want to bring my “real” shoots.
The truth is, interesting locations do just pop up out of nowhere. But if you can’t stop, drop, and shoot with your own car, how are you going to get it going when the shots count?
It’s hard to mistake this location for anywhere else but Northern California.
The golden grass and green hills are a scene that always reminds me of home. And hey, is it a selfie if you catch your own reflection in the side of the car?
We Drive Harder
My favorite thing about shooting ChampTruck races, besides the obvious allure of seeing 12,000lb trucks going sideways, is seeing the support series that share the track for the weekend.
At the 2016 New Jersey Motorsports Park race, the support series on Saturday was a variety of NASA groups.
I’ve seen some pretty awesome support series in the past year, like US Drift Circuit in Palm Beach. But seeing these NASA groups really got my heart pumping due to their immediate relevance to my own tastes. As followers of this site know, I own two cars: a 2013 Scion FR-S and a 2000 Porsche Boxster. And there were many 86 and 986 race cars to drool over!
Track cars are infinitely more interesting to me than any show car, because you don’t do things to a track car for no reason. Sure, you can put your life savings into buying racing parts, but if all you do with the car is take it to WekFest and gently wipe the dust off it, those parts don’t mean anything. When you go a track, you see why these parts exist.
It’s always interesting to see things done not necessarily in the name of aesthetics, but performance. Like the bumper grilles, single wiper, and deleted-and-taped-over reflectors in the bumper.
I also like that the Spec Boxsters have their little spoilers permanently erect. It’s an all-business look that’s probably a bit too much for the street, but just right at the track.
One of the most important things I’ve learned in my career as a photographer is not to care what anyone thinks about you. Look at the drivers in these cars–probably thinking to themselves, “What the hell is that dude taking photos of?”
Unfortunately I didn’t have time to talk to many people, so most of these were quick stealth shots. I don’t think they would be so perplexed if they knew I had an FR-S and a Boxster back home and I’m a huge fan of grassroots motorsports.
It wasn’t all Spec 86 and Spec Boxsters, though–some of my other favorites were there too! There was a nice showing for the Honda Challenge series, including this S2000, which is a real CR (Club Racer) model.
“Driven to Conform”–love it. I probably spent more time talking to the owner of this DC4 Integra than everyone else combined. He was running a B16B, the engine from an EK9–the Japan-only 96-00 Civic Type R. With a tiny 1.6L making a massive 180hp, it’s a pretty impressive little lump.
Another badass Honda. I always thought the “bug-eye” Acura Integra front end was pretty cool, but the Honda Integra is one of the best looking Hondas ever. Even if it does look like an Accord.
Of course, there were a lot of BMW’s as well–starting with E36 M3’s (in both coupe and sedan varieties)…
…and moving up to E46’s of various descriptions.
Tire boogers…what great looking patina.
Now here’s something you rarely see anywhere, let alone as a full race car—an FD RX7!
What a beautiful car.
I probably wouldn’t have noticed this WRX in the paddock if it weren’t for this collection of stickers.
Out on track she was hauling ass though!
Ah yes, the on-track action. I did manage to stay out and grab some shots of this particular run group.
I love pretty much anything that goes around a track, but it’s just a bit cooler seeing “your” car out there.
I’ve owned several fifth gen Civics as well. I had a ’93 Si, ’95 EX coupe, ’92 VX with a D15B, and a ’92 Si with a B16A2. Great cars.
Admittedly it’s not the fairest comparison, but I drove an early V6 Genesis and it was a total piece of crap. I do like this capture of a Genesis about to dip its toes in the dirt, though.
Check out this GTS 2 E46 chasing a Spec E46. Interesting that the GTS car has a “Laguna Pipe”–a left-curving exhaust tip commonly seen on the west coast by track-day cars trying to sneak an extra few decibels past the strict noise regulations at Laguna Seca. I wonder what track(s) are that strict in the North Atlantic region?
There are a few angles on the track that are just special. I love watching cars dive into the apex from this particular view, which lets you see them rotate into and through the turn.
I made this quick clip using the D750. Even with a monopod I can’t hold the damn camera steady!
Ouch! I didn’t see any super-close racing, but I did see some scars afterward.
Those are the Tom’s tail lights, which I’ve always wanted to put on my car. They look exactly like what should have always been on the car since it went into production.
On Sunday, the support group was the Ultimate Street Car Association, which sanctions the Optima Batteries Search for the Ultimate Street Car, which used to be called the Ultimate Street Car Challenge. Whatever they call it, it’s a place for high-end builds to prove they have as much ‘go’ as ‘show’. The events consist of five segments: a road rally (public road driving from A to B), autocross, road course, a “speed-stop time trial”, and a non-driving judged stage called “Design & Engineering”.
Unfortunately, the day went from overcast to pouring rain, so these are the only shots I was able to capture. There were some incredible machines though, from 60s muscle all the way to brand new cars with badges reading GT-R, Z/28, and GT350. Not all of them were off-the-shelf modern builds, and I wish it wasn’t pouring rain all day so I could have gotten a look around all the amazing cars I saw. They did everything on schedule, but I wasn’t interested in hanging around and getting soaked.
It’s hard to showcase just how rainy it was, but I assure you, it was pouring and the track was soaked. Thankfully, the track has good drainage and I didn’t hear any complaints about the driving conditions.
Certain cars generate more enthusiasm than others, so maybe it’s not surprising that the owner of this SSR gave me a stereotypical experience when he saw me taking photos of his truck.
He came up and asked me if I wanted to know anything about it, and I said that no, I just like these and wanted to grab a few snaps. But he just started rattling off facts and figures anyway! This is not the first time I’ve been in this situation–I think some people just get really excited when someone takes notice of their pride and joy–so I let him run out of steam and then quietly snuck away.
Of course, the rain had to let up right when all the racing was done. But there was no time to hang around, for me or any of the teams. They packed up their race cars and I helped pack up the ChampTruck gear. In closing, here’s a quick snap of one of my failed assignments for Scorpion Jacks, makers of high-quality super heavy duty pneumatic jacks.
Total Recall
Nobody wants a face full of shrapnel. That’s why the Takata airbag recall is so scary–many cars are literally rolling deathtraps, and the parts to solve the issue can’t be made fast enough.
Luckily, with my Scion and an “old” Porsche, I’m completely unaffected. However, another big recall just hit me square in the jaw, and you can see it right above this paragraph. In 2015, Nikon recalled some D750’s–shortly after I bought one!–for a shutter issue. In their words, “the shutter in some Nikon D750 digital SLR cameras may not function normally, sometimes resulting in shading of a portion of images.” Unfortunately, here’s an example of that.
Well, I was using my camera for a lot of work (shooting McLarens at home and ChampTruck on the road) and my shutter was working fine, so I decided to roll the dice and keep shooting. Unfortunately, on this glorious Sunday in Alameda, it finally crapped out. It started to go on the fritz, and then finally gave up the ghost completely.
Which is a pity, because I was having a great time before that. Right when I arrived, I saw my friends Greg and Linda and their Porsche 356. They’ve definitely conquered the fear of having fun in that car–they drive it everywhere. And it showed up at a “Concours”–codeword for an event catering to obsessive polishing–wearing all its patina, dirt, and poop proudly.
So what was I doing there? Well, showing off some McLarens.
My coworker and I drove up there in a Blade Silver 570S and a Volcano Red 650S. Unlike the last concours we did, there was a pretty big crowd around us all day.
It was pretty cool to see how enthusiastic people were about seeing the car and taking pictures. People thanked us for bringing the cars out–a few people mentioned they had never even seen a McLaren in person before. I think the fact that Top Gear aired a film on the 675LT the previous weekend helped us a lot. Although, some guy did stare at the back end of the car for a while and then asked me if McLaren was a type of Corvette.
Smile! Not the most picturesque location, but you gotta admit it’s nice to be 25 feet from the toilet.
It’s not all work–we got to walk around and enjoy the show too. Jessica seemed pretty interested in this Amphicar, and I don’t blame her. What a funky little vehicle.
It’s a car AND a boat! When was the last time you saw one of these?
It’s actually from the mid 60’s but I love how it has some late 50’s fins.
I love Japanese classics, and the 2000 GT is no exception. I always imagine it in white, but it almost has a Ferrari flavor in this red.
There were a lot of red cars there, now that I think about it.
Although in the place where you would most expect to find bright red, there were some other refreshing hues.
I didn’t actually take many photos on that first quick walk-through, figuring I had the rest of the day to grab some snaps. After one lap of the show, we retreated back to our spot and dove into some Japanese snacks.
People make a big deal out of Pocky, which is a biscuit dipped in chocolate. If you like that, check out its lesser known sibling Pejoy, which is also made by Glico but is the reverse formula—it’s like a biscuit straw filled with chocolate.
And then it happened. The shutter made some weird noises and when I checked the photos, even more of the shutter was in frame. At this point the top display of the camera read ERR instead of the aperture, and the shutter refused to properly function. I read about a few quick fixes online, but it seemed I was sunk because nothing changed.
So that’s it for now–I sent the D750 in. I still have my D90 so it’s not the end of the world, and I actually have not one, but two more event posts coming up: the long overdue Palm Beach wrap-up, plus some shots from the Sonoma Historics! So check back soon.
Star Road 