Last time I got to go drag racing it was easter, the sun was out and it was un seasonally warm, unfortunately the great weather didn’t last by the time we got to the Main event, it was cold baltic, this causes me two problems, one I hate the cold and two over cast skies really aren’t the best when your trying to take punchy images.
The big story out of the weekend was Henri Joosten’s nitrous pro mod fire, a rare accident that completely gutted the car
Unlike america Europe doesn’t have big commercial teams, its nearly all private teams doing it out of their own pocket on a sometimes shoe string budget, its never nice seeing some ones hard work go up in smoke, especially when its to the point that they can’t afford to return, after 27 years Henri is having to call it a day and is going to be throughly missed in the pits as a great racer and a generally all round nice guy.
One of the plus sides to over cast skies is that if your really lucky you can get some great header flames from the fuel cars, the down side is that because of how flat the top of the body is you get really bad reflections that make the cars look crap so using a CP filter you can cut through the reflections.
The Strong head winds were causing tire smoke to disperse pretty quickly which did give some unique photo opportunities.
Part of my plan for the weekend was to shoot some driver portraits, unfortunately the clouds somewhat scuppered my plans as they cast really strong reflections on the screens, however I did still manage to get what I wanted from the pro stock racers by using a handheld flash through the front window and shooting through the side window to give a pretty cool look .
Micke Callin holds on as he’s towed down the staging lanes.
Conrad Stanley sits as he has his Hanns device secured by a team member.
Jeff Kline was flown over from america by MPM oil to shoot for them all weekend, a real great guy and a blast to shoot with however it was clear from the outset that the rest of us mear photographers were doomed ! The Man can multi task (gotta be a first for everything) .
Grabbing a lift with the canon reloaded team to the top end I arrived in time to shoot some parachute shots, because of the strong wind every one was slowing down really quickly which made it incredibly easy to shoot however the wind was also causing parachutes to get very close to the wall, the chutes are pretty easy to spot, its the tiny little drobes that are about 5 ft behind the chutes that can cause carnage .
Avid Grodem gets very close to the centre line, nocking the blocks over with his headers
Four times european top fuel champion Andy Carter coasts to a stop after struggling with a under preforming car all weekend
The Top end can get very boring, especially when they hold the racing to let a demonstration occur, to try and entertain my self while we waited I tried to see how good my reactions were with getting the sky divers to look like they were stood on top of the gantry , don’t think I did too bad!
For the final pro session of the sunday, and what turned out to be the final pro session of the weekend I ended up back on the start line with some great light.
Lex Joon burns out in front of a near capacity crowd at the FIA Main event.
Ex top fuel racer Linda Thun is driving a very vibrant Pro Mod this year.
Unfortunately the rain came down at 9 o’clock on monday and didn’t stop all day , letting Tommy Johnson Jr sail away (I make no excuses for the bad pun) with the points lead after the first round !
At the very core of Modernpics is the award winning photographer Dom Romney. To find out more about Dom Please check out his editorial photography. To find out more about what modern pics has to offer follow the link bellow!
Copyright 2010 Dom Romney
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Some beautiful photography here. you certainly know your stuff!