BEHIND THE SCENES>> ULTIMATE GRAND TOURING PT2
Isn't the modern world an amazing place? I'm sitting here in Nelson, New Zealand typing away on my laptop while streaming the Formula D Top 16 battles at Road Atlanta while working on photos I shot at Silverstone in the UK. A live broadcast from WRC NZ is also on the tele, so I'm having some serious motorsports bliss going on here from the comfort of my holiday apartment.
I hope that you guys took the time to stream the GT1 and GT3 races last weekend too. There's no reason at all not to be up on the latest happenings at the top of the GT Racing and Drift food chains is there!
Exactly one week ago this is what I was faced with… the GT1 World Championship grid.
Lucky for me, my media credentials allowed me to access to the cars as they got ready for the race start.
The Sumo Power GT-R of Michael Krumm and Peter Dumbreck carries the traditional "Nissan" number 23. I'm sure you all know why this number is normally reserved for Nissans yes?
I keep telling the management at SRO that the GT-R race cars are the key to bringing a new audience to the GT1 World Championship… and of course Speedhunters needs to be in the mix too!
You'll note that number 23 is running BBS rims unlike it's team mate which I believe is on Rays.The team wouldn't tell me WHY they chose to do this, but there's apparently a reason.
Peter and Michael with an important looking Japanese man wearing a Nismo cap… Anyone know who he is?
The 10 minute warning started to sound off and the drivers began to get ready to set off.
Here's fellow Speedhunter Jonathan Moore. You'll notice that he's wearing an official FIA Photography vest. You only get one of these vests if you are going to all rounds of the GT1 World Championship so Jonathan is now officially part of motorsports' shooting elite hahaha…
As the ten minute warning buzzer went off, I realized I still had to get to Turn One for the race start, and promptly made my way to the front of the grid. Along the way I bumped into Andrea Bertolini, the driver of one of the Vitaphone Maserati MC12s. I was pleasantly surprised that Andrea remembered me from the film project we shot last year with him.. Hmmm that reminds me that I need to send him a copy of the film!
Here's another sighting: David Richards of Prodrive fame.
David must have been well pleased that his cars were at the front of the grid.
I do wonder if their performance will be pegged back slightly for round
three though.
Thunderbirds are go!
It seems like there is a walking circuit that most professional photographers take… they snap the race start and make their way down to Maggots and Becketts to catch the cars at speed though these high velocity esses. I did the same I have to say.
Shooting at Becketts is also the perfect opportunity to capture the huge flames which belch forth from the Lambos.
The Lambo emitt an unholy wail from their exhausts, but the GT-Rs roar like overpowered muscle machines.
They are running the same Titan V8s found in the Super GT cars but sound much closer to Chris Forsberg's V8 drift 350Z… check out the Corvette getting out of shape in the BG.
This resulted in….
… a trip through the grass.
Some more slow shutter shooting.. it takes a lot of practice to be able to track a car perfectly when running uber slow camera shutters… I think I went down to 1/10 in some instances.
On Sunday we woke up to a downpour.
This was a great opportunity to get some moody shots.
Dark, dark as doom…. The last race before the end of the world… burp
Shooting in the wet also meant that Will and I had to trudge through some deep mud with our trainers… it was the type of sticky stuff that will pull your shoes off. The Pumas on the right are my "shooting" shoes so no problem there, but Will was perhaps less impressed with messing up his pretty DCs.
I was told there were something like 30 international broadcasts coming from the event. This is the main camera control area which I shot during the F3 race. Note how each of the TV monitors shows the names of the camera operators.
And on to the GT3 race… this shot was taken a few laps after the race start.
One of the Alpinas thunders into Copse closely followed by a Corvette Z06R.
There is a Will Roegge inside that parka somewhere! Yes it was cold!
The second Team NFS/Schubert car had a great run and made it up to 4th at one stage of the race. Unfortunately the car started to run out of fuel on the last lap and dropped a place to fifth. Still not a bad result for a brand new car.
One of the Vettes gets all loose on the wet curbing on the exit of Copse.
After shooting for a while at Turn 1, Will and I returned to the pitlane with the aim of shooting Patrick Soderlund's driver change. We just managed to catch this moment, although I'm saving the photo for Patrick's blog post. I also snapped the Ferrari 430 in the pits too.
Patrick had some good battles too and together with his driving partner Edward Sandstrom managed to drag the car up from last on the grid to a 9th place finish. Notice the all black rear bumper, evidence of repairs following the car's qualifying session accident.
Will and I decided to shoot the main GT1 race from the new Arena complex. This is a fantastic place to shoot the cars as it affords all sorts of different angles.
I had my eye on the Sumo Power car, willing it up the order. As there are no PA speakers near where we were shooting so I had no idea what was going on… but it did seem like number 22 was on a real charge at the end of the race.
We ended up back with our pals at the Sumo Power garage just after the announcement came in they had won the race.
Number 23 was showing a lot of wear and tear from a tough race.
You could see evidence the car's race ended in the gravel trap; hence the layer of dust caked to it…
Ok well that's if for my Silverstone reports. We still have driver blogs coming from Vaughn Gittin JR, Patrick Soderlund and JCW from the winning GT-R.
Talk soon,
:Rod
Silverstone GT1-GT3 Coverage on Speedhunters
