And more, and more, and more.

It's been a while since my last "post featuring silly numbers of car photos", so here you go. Those bored stiff by this sort of thing, feel free to look away.

I've taken some shots at a couple of recent events - first, the Canadian Motorsports Expo, back on an unseasonably warm day in late January, and then at the annual Canadian International AutoShow in February.

The Motorsports Expo was rather modest in size, and was held at the somewhat grandly named International Centre, out near Toronto airport. The stars of the show were found at a booth celebrating the 50th anniversary of Mosport International Raceway, another of my favourite photographic haunts. First off, a stunning, but never terribly successful, Panoz LMP-1 Roadster S. Unusually for this kind of car, it had a front-mounted engine.



The other real stunner at this show was a Frissbee KR4 Can-Am car. From the last gasp of Can-Am in 1986, long after its glory days were over, this is basically a Lola T400 Formula 1 chassis with full bodywork and a Chevy engine in the back. Up-and-coming driver Paul Tracy would win the last ever SCCA Can-Am race in this car, at Mosport.



At the AutoShow, the usual bombardment of generic-looking new models was in evidence, along with a disappointing lack of exotics. But there were a few, including the astonishing presence of a Ferrari 599XX, the biggest, baddest, craziest front-engined sports racer the Scuderia has ever built. Unfortunately, it was hidden in a back corner behind a concrete post, but here it is anyway.



There was plenty more to look at, but the highlight had to be a tribute to motorsports legend Carroll Shelby, including some cars that are real legends, such as this rather pretty Shelby Cobra Daytona coupe, one of only six ever built.



And, of course, among the selection of stunning Cobras, Mustangs and the like, a few Ford GT40 race cars, including this absolute beauty, memorably crashed by one Mario Andretti at the 1967 24 Hours of Le Mans. Its sister car won the race, prompting driver Dan Gurney to spray the assembled multitude with champagne, thus starting a new racing tradition.



So there you go... more cars, more photos, more hours on Photoshop. And more Motorsports and AutoShow photos over at Flickr, as usual.

Photow00t!

Time to brag a little.

Despite taking hundreds and hundreds of photographs of cars, some of which I'm very proud of, it turns out that the very first photograph I've licensed for commercial use is of a downtown building.

This building, in fact:


Dominion Securities Building, with blurry person.

That photo will appear, in due course, in a fine publication about Canadian Business and the Law - at least, I presume it will, since today they sent me the cheque. Quite by coincidence, as yesterday I emailed the person who solicited it in the first place, finding that her website and email address have since disappeared off the face of the internet.

Now, that's not the first photo I've licensed - in a sense, I've granted various people "licenses" of one sort or another to use my photos in various places, such as NowPublic, Schmap, or in school or university projects. And the first written license was between myself and a company that employs a fairly regular reader of this blog, to use a couple of photos on some promotional literature. Those, I exchanged for a very spiffy iPod.


Some artistic DNA sequences.


Some DNA sequencers, last year.

But today's cheque - well, that seems like some kind of milestone. A sale! A palpable sale!

Now, I just need to shove the guilt aside, and put the fee towards the "get Richard a new DSLR camera" fund, instead of doing something useful with it, like buying retirement savings, or putting it in the kids' education fund, or something.

Sigh.

Automobilis Repari!

Following on from the last post, the Ricardipus-mobile is now fixed. It's like magic: throw a wad of cash at it, and hey presto! it becomes repaired even while you're not there to see it happen.

And there I was, thinking I might have to buy a replacement:



Despite what I said about it before, this would have done nicely.

Memento mori

The Ricardipus-mobile, prophetically parked in a cemetary.

Friday morning, an enforced day off to deal with the sadly-stricken vehicle. Having been suffering from a mild case of throttle-lag over the last half-year or so, it decided yesterday that enough was enough.

About ten minutes from home, the CD player decided to cut in and out. At first I wasn't too surprised, since it skips from time to time, but fairly quickly it became obvious that this was an electrical, not mechanical, problem. Next, the car did something really weird - it refused to change gear. I'm pretty sure I was stuck in third, and nothing I did with the shifter (ok, you standard drivers, I know it's not really a shifter per se) would make it change - off with the overdrive button, which should have moved it from fourth to third, or into either second or first with the stick. Neutral, it could do fine, but that's hardly helpful for forward momentum.


Not so useful.

Nursing it around the last set of streets on the way home, all kinds of electrical gremlins started creeping in - the windshield wipers stopped working, the indicators started flashing at double-speed, which is usually indicative of a failed bulb, and the car was distinctly lacking in "get-up-and-go" (or, at this point, "keep-going-please"). Flipping off the headlights helped a little, but by the time I actually wheeled into the driveway, it was done. Just for fun, I shut it all down and then tried to re-start it... you could hear the crickets chirping.


That would be about right. Zero kph.

Maddeningly, it started just fine this morning and I was able to drive it down to the local dealership, a nice bunch of people who just opened, and are only taking delivery of their diagnostic service equipment today.


Maybe they'll lend me this one instead?

They are optimistic, but I rather suspect that the poor old Protege is not going to be ready to go for the annual cottage weekend, which is approaching fast. And, for added fun and games, with a train strike likely to start today, finding a rental car next week will likely be nigh impossible.

Cars. Stupid things. Too bad I love them so much.


This is where I need to get to.

Photos, and things

Gosh, it's been a long time.

Things have been happening. Not, as Mr. Ollivander says in the first Harry Potter book, "Terrible things, but great", but rather "uninteresting things, but time-consuming".

Ah well.

I break my silence to let you know of a couple of mildly interesting developments on the photographic front... first, I've discovered the self-publishing site Blurb, an add-on service of Flickr (although I guess it stands on its own as well). Although a little pricey, for vanity items or gifts I think it's just about right. I downloaded their rather spiffy BookSmart software, which comes with all kinds of pre-designed but tweakable layouts, and after a bit of faffling around, managed to put some photos from last year's Mosport ALMS race into a rather nice (if I say so myself) little paperback. Which you can see here, should you be so inclined. I never did get its "slurp" feature, which directly ports photos from Flickr into your book, working, but never mind - upload from my own computer worked fine.

Now, don't go all crazy buying the thing, thinking you'll make me rich - you won't. Blurb doesn't allow its authors a profit unless they pay a monthly maintenance fee, as far as I can tell - which is only five bucks, but I honestly can't imagine there's any point. The price per book is steep, too, given that it's only about twenty pages long, but the finished product once ordered was rather nice and glossy, and as a souvenir, well worth it I think. I may do some more, although I can see that putting a large number of photos into printed albums would be an expensive proposition.

In other news, I have been approached, for the first time ever, to provide a photograph for a book. A real, honest-to-goodness book, published by a real, honest-to-goodness publisher. So far, the release has been signed, the fee set, and I'm awaiting a decision by the editorial team as to whether they're actually going to use it or not. In other words, I imagine they're weighing all of the competing photos and making decisions based on style, content, and cost. We'll see, but it's a bit exciting, anyway.

Generally speaking, when people have asked to use my photos for educational projects (for example, the C. elegans photo below), I say yes, and I haven't objected to some of my other photos being used on various websites. Heck, I've even dropped a few into Wikipedia pages that I've authored, like this one about the mighty Akai AX80 synthesizer, or this one about the equally-mighty Sequential Circuits Split-8.


A nematode, circa 1999 I suppose.

The photo below of College Street appeared, with my permission, in Schmap Canada, some kind of interactive guidebook thing that, truth be told, seems kind of lacking in content and confusing to use. It's on this page, somewhere, but I'll be darned if I could have found it without that link having been emailed to me.


College Street, out the office window (more or less)

Even strange Wiki-type news site NowPublic has occasionally asked for, and been granted, permission to use photos in their news stories, at least those stories that didn't offend me at the time.

None of these activities pays, mind you, so the textbook development is a little bit exciting. But I'm just vain enough to enjoy the ego gratification of seeing my photos get used and credited here and there, anyway. Of course, a certain website catering to expensive toys has stolen my car photos before now, as has a somewhat dodgy Toronto news website, and probably many other places I don't know about, but that's the danger of posting the things on Flickr sans watermarks, I suppose.

Back to it, I guess... I spend so much time fiddling around on Flickr these days that this blog might as well become a photoblog of some kind, I think. We'll see. In the meantime, because I know you've all been missing me posting tales of cars and racing, I give you this:


A big smiley Maserati, a few weekends ago

And, as a teaser of a blog post to come, here's a shot from the 2009 Honda Indy Toronto race, an event I last went to nineteen years ago, in 1990.


Scott Dixon, slightly tilted

In the words, then, of Cornelius Fudge, in the fifth Harry Potter book:

"He's back."

Summer's here, and the time is right...

...for racing in the streets.

Or so the song goes, anyway... the Bruce Springsteen song, that is.



Street racing may not be legal, but there’s nothing wrong with a road course. It’s been a long winter, and as well as being the traditional time to open up the cottage, Victoria Day heralds another long-standing event: Speedfest Weekend at Mosport International Raceway.

Mosport, about an hour east of Toronto and north a bit, is a legendary track in racing history. Some of the greatest have competed here: Jim Clark, Mario Andretti, Richard Petty, Jackie Stewart. Stirling Moss, the story goes, even made suggestions to improve turn 5, the "Moss Corner" that now bears his name. Canadian icon Gilles Villeneuve contested the 1977 Grand Prix, his last appearance here before his death at Zolder in 1982, and even “The Maestro” Juan Manuel Fangio is said to have driven the track. Nestled in rolling hills, surrounded by woodland, with a view on a clear day of Lake Ontario to the south, it’s a beautiful place to hike, take photos, and enjoy the scenery. As long as you remember to take some earplugs.

Up at the crack of dawn and eastbound on Highway 407, narrowly missing a goose that decided it would be an excellent place to stand, and onto the country roads that lead to the track. The day started bright, but bitterly cold – three degrees Celsius, and very windy. Just before nine in the morning, after nearly being blown off the bridge over the pit straight and unintentionally taking a few photos because my numb fingers fumbled the shutter button, I headed for the relative shelter of the paddock.


Damn, it was cold up there.

Here, the cars wait to compete, while mechanics, spectators and drivers buzz around. I met Flickr acquaintance f1design, avid motorsports fan and photographer par excellence. He and his friends were likeable, enthusiastic, and tooled up with some serious photographic equipment that put my (ok, Mrs. Ricardipus's, actually) camera to shame, much though I like it.

The day consisted of hiking the track, which at 3.9 km in length and surrounded by hills and at-times dense woods, was a workout. We made the entire circuit during the course of the day, stopping at different vantage points during a full slate of races. After some qualifying sessions, the first was the Speed World Challenge Touring Car event, with race-modified Acuras, Mazdas and BMWs dueling for the lead.


Acura vs. Mazda... the Acura won, this time.

That was followed by the GT race – this time, high-powered sports cars: Corvettes, Dodge Vipers, Porsches, a Mustang Cobra and a pair of surprisingly fast Volvos, in the hands of pro- and semi-pro drivers.


Not exactly your parents' Volvo.

Next up was the Canadian Touring Car championship, a very competitive race featuring a huge field of lightly-modified road cars: Subarus, Hondas, Hyundais, Fords, Toyotas, BMWs... even a Mini:


It came second in its class; not a bad result, really.

The final event of the day was the Trans-Am race (not featuring any Pontiac Trans Ams, though – the car took its name from the racing series, not the other way around). Here, heavily modified Jaguar XKRs and Corvettes battled with a lone Mustang and a hopelessly outclassed Mazda RX-7. A spectacular run by German driver Klaus Graf, starting dead last and demolishing the field to take the win, was the day’s highlight.


Klaus Graf, taking everyone to school.

At the end, after a tiring walk back up the hill to the car parked in the infield, I said goodbye to 'f1design', and headed home, nursing a nascent case of sunburn on both ears. I’ll be back in August for the repeat of last year's American Le Mans race, if not before.


Two photographers, heading home. I'm neither of them, obviously.
--

I took over 240 photos on the day. Some of them are shown here; if you’d like to see the rest of the ones that turned out well (far less than the number taken, believe me), they’re found in this set. More information about Mosport’s history can be found here, for anyone who might be interested.

Racing, in the rain.

There are always times when I feel like this - having to step lightly on the gas, tap the brakes carefully, react quickly at every turn and try, no matter what, not to skid off the road. Fortunately, these times are infrequent, and are interspersed with periods of calm, times to relax, to breathe, to ease the grip of the hands on the wheel, unclench the muscles in the back of the neck, let the laser-focus lapse a little. This, I'm glad to say, is one of those times.

Time to read a good book, for a change from all the scientific papers I've been plowing through recently - and the book in question this time is, perhaps not surprisingly, The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein. From which I've borrowed the title, obviously, but which also provided the inspiration.

It's been a while since I've encountered a book that grabbed my attention like this one, and also since I've had the time to read one. And let me tell you this: it's excellent. The premise is simple enough - a man, Denny, has a dog (predictably named "Enzo"), a wife, a daughter, and a dream to be a professional race-car driver. The twist? The narrator is the dog.

Now, this might sound ridiculous, but I'll tell you something else for free: Stein is a genius, and his adoption of Enzo's point of view is a tour de force of voice appropriation, and entirely convincing. Enzo tells us Denny's story from ground level, filling in detail from his imagination where necessary, giving us flashes of humour and insight into the lives of both dogs and people. The story, though gently framed, is gripping - not about racing so much, although the metaphors are beautifully executed, but the drama of Denny's daily activities. At about 90% of the way through, I am, in an appropriately clichéd way, having trouble putting it down. The best books, I think, are the ones where I can't wait to find out the outcome, or the next event; this is one of those.

Unfortunately, the best books are also those where, once at the end, I am disappointed that there isn't any more. But that's a premise of good entertainment: always leave the audience wanting. I know this one will be like that, and even so I can't wait to finish it, to find out how and when and where Denny and Enzo will end up. Even on a weekend when I will want to watch the Chinese Grand Prix and another American Le Mans race (from the storied Long Beach circuit - how Enzo would comment!), I'll be curled up on the closest couch, turning pages, imagining myself twitching around the hairpins of Denny's life. And keeping a close, close eye on the sky.

12 hours on Saturday

Question: Is it possible, being a member of a family of four, each with busy schedules, as well as being piled under a variety of different work assignments, to watch or otherwise pay attention to almost all of a 12-hour car race on television on a weekend?

A: Apparently yes, but it requires the use of multiple technologies.

And so the 57th running of the American Le Mans Series Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring is over, having occupied most of Saturday's daylight hours and a good chunk of the night as well. And yes, by employing a complicated dance involving running up and down the stairs, laptop in hand for the live scoring and timing updates, and switching to internet radio feed when necessary (like, for example, when Speed TV inexplicably saw fit to go away from coverage for a couple of hours of NASCAR qualifying in the middle), I actually managed to stay in touch with almost all of the race.

Which, as it turned out, was epic. The new LMP1 class Acura prototypes were fast, but had a number of reliability issues resulting in them falling out of contention, whereas one class down in LMP2, last year's Lowe's Fernandez Acura ARX-01b was reliable, steady and fast, finishing first in its class and beating the pants off a couple of also-unreliable Mazda/Lola coupes fielded by Dyson Racing, who have switched from the Porsches they ran last year.

But the real drama was up in LMP1, a battle royal between the new Audi R15 and updated Peugeot 908 turbo-diesel monsters, with the veteran Audi crew of Dindo Capello, Allan McNish and "Mr. Le Mans" Tom Kristensen eventually prevailing.

And, as in previous years, down in the GT2 class there was another battle shaping up, with the slightly updated red Ferrari F430 eventually walking away from the Porsche teams, and the five-year-old Panoz Esperante fending off a late Porsche challenge to grab third in class.

It's the first time I've watched this race around what is essentially part of an airport in Florida, and it was hugely entertaining - very high cornering speeds, horrendously bumpy track, and most importantly, a good, solidly-contested event with no dirty business at all (although one of the Flying Lizard Porsches might disagree, having been slightly punted by the Panoz with an hour or so left to race). Congratulations also to the Robertson Racing Ford GT in its attractive new red-and-gray livery, which qualified a very respectable fifth in GT2, finally finishing in seventh after being collected in a collision partway through the race. A much better result than last year at Mosport, where the car unfortunately spent most of the time relaxing with its feet up.

And so, where does this leave me? Well, I did manage to get some work done on the laptop during all of this, and didn't totally abandon my family. Now Sunday's here, I've still got lots to do, the weather's a bit chilly for yard work, and because I wasn't in Florida yesterday I don't have a raftload of photos from the race to edit, like I did from the race in late August last year.

Next up: St. Petersburg, on April the fourth. I'm already planning my viewing strategy.

We now return you to your regularly-scheduled, non-automobile-related, programming.

I've been a bit absent recently... busy, among other things, editing around a hundred or so shots from the Canadian International Autoshow, which I attended for the first time ever (believe it or not) about a week ago. I'll avoid deluging you with all of them, but in my usual style I'll hand out a few arbitrary and tongue-in-cheek awards.

Nicest presentation
The Lamborghini display. They had their cars up on a low podium, eliminating the need for silly barriers and ropes that get in the way of photography. Here's an LP 640 roadster, staring you down. The white LP 560 roadster at the top of the post was right next to it.


Biggest surprise
A Ferrari 288 GTO, lurking in the exhibitor booths. Ridiculously fast and very rare. My photos of it aren't terribly good, unfortunately. Twin-turbo V8 goodness, from 1984.


Friendliest owner
The guy at the paintball emporium's booth, who let me under the ropes to photograph his Ferrari 360 Spider. Maybe he was feeling relaxed since a Playboy Bunny was doing all the heavy lifting, talking to prospective clients. There she is in the background, at the strange intersection of exotic sportscars, fantasy warfare, and adult entertainment.


Most photogenic
Not the aforementioned bunny, but this Mercedes-McLaren SLR Roadster 722 S. It might also win for "most unwieldy name", although the Ferrari F430 16M Scuderia Spider gives it a run for its money there. Unreasonably pointy and very expensive, with silly doors.


Nicest rims
The Maybach. Just love that logo and the overall shiny goodness of these.


Prettiest Corvette in the historic Corvette display
Hard to choose, but I have to go with this 1953 C1 convertible. Just love those red rims and whitewall tires.


Best use of a hexagonal design element
The Honda FC ("fuel cell") Sport concept car. Extra points for environmental friendliness, but a penalty for not actually having the powerplant installed.


And finally (for now, anyway):

Nicest car that I actually sat in
Mercedes-Benz SL63 AMG Roadster. I'm not usually a big fan of Merc roadsters, but I think I could just about deal with owning this one.


There you go. Lots more to see in this Flickr set, if, as Mr. Bennett says in Pride and Prejudice, you can bear to.

In Camera

As some of you know, I'm fond of taking photographs and clogging up the internet with them posting them to Flickr. My weapon of choice for this, in recent years, has been Mrs. Ricardipus' rather nice, Zeiss-lensed Sony Cybershot DSC-R1. Which is a lovely chunk of a camera, with a big, fat (if fixed) lens, 10+ Megapixel resolution, and rather more features than I really know how to use.

However, it is too large to conveniently pop in a pocket (unless I really want to look like I'm smuggling a bomb under my coat), and is also a bit expensive to haul around while traveling. So more recently, I've taken to purchasing disposable 35mm film cameras on my trips here and there, which are a) expensive per photo, b) use film, which gets me into the whole scanning nightmare, and c) typically equipped with tiny little lenses that I swear are made of dubiously high-quality plastic. Which can sometimes give you some interesting optical distortion effects, to be sure:


Rainbows in the corners.

but are generally, in a word, crap.

Things changed a bit recently, with the appearance of a rather nice little Nikon Coolpix L16 at work. Which, conveniently, lives in my office. And also conveniently fits in a pocket, has a lens that isn't made of plastic, and takes rather nice photographs. In exchange for occasional use of this beastie, I replace the batteries on my own ticket. Seems fair, I think, and it spends its days available for taking photos of people and things in the lab when needed, like this rather fabulous microscope:


A different kind of digital camera.

Of course, it sometimes gets used for things outside the lab, too:


Parked across the street.

All of which means, of course, that I've been after a nice little point-n-shoot of my own, that I can happily take traveling, leaving the work camera where it belongs.

Which brings me to this... joy of joys, I have finally accumulated enough reward points for contributing my knowledge, wisdom and tongue-flappery (in the cyber sense) to this discussion forum, that I just ordered myself a slightly out-of-date, but still (allegedly) fabulous Sony Cybershot DSC W55. While it won't arrive before my trip to Montreal on Tuesday, and probably not before my next trip to Washington in the middle of the month, it should be well and truly in hand before the following trip to Montreal again, in January. And well available for shooting from the hip while traveling hither and thither throughout the Greater Toronto Area, like this:


This amused me slightly.

I'm very happy - it's been a long time coming. Let the flood of photos of questionable quality begin.

On the road again

No, not another trip down Highway 401, solo in the car, nor to the sunny southern states. This isn't an epic road trip in the manner of Dawn, either - it's just the morning commute. I'm on the road again because we're into the school year, and Mrs. Ricardipus is back in classes.

So, with drop-off duties for the Junior Ricardipi messing up my morning train schedule, I've elected to drive all the way downtown to work, a couple of days each week. Which, although environmentally unfriendly, is actually kind of a pleasure. Good music on the stereo, and the opportunity to explore the city as I negotiate its twists and turns, looking for the best saw-off between speed, scenery and calm traffic. It's even almost cost-effective, since staff parking where I work is only marginally more expensive than the train ticket, and less expensive than the trip should I decide to use the subway in even one direction to or from the train station to the office. What about the cost of gas, you say? Let's just ignore that for now.

Naturally, such a drive affords opportunities for on-the-fly photography of local buildings:


Don't try this at full speed, folks.

The downside, of course, is that I am afforded every opportunity of being distracted by things parked at the side of the road, like this:


You know, I've never seen a 328 GTS before.

and this:


A bit less high-performance, but very pretty.

Not to mention the local Lotus and Aston Martin dealerships. It's surprising how easy it is to modify my route to pass by them.

Ah well, dangers abound everywhere. If I wasn't driving, I'd be walking to the station most days, and I'll confess I was late for a train because I had to stop and take photos of this pretty little Datsun:


A 260Z. Pretty in blue.

And the Ford GT, well that was a different story entirely - I made the train, but did have to run a bit.


Photoshoppery has occurred.

Sad case, me. But there you go. Driving to and from work, a couple of times a week, keeping my eyes peeled, shooting digital from the hip.

And the award goes to...

Well, the 2008 Mobil 1 Grand Prix of Mosport has been over for almost a week now, and I think it's high time somebody handed out some awards. Not for the race-winning Audi R10 TDI, which has enough hardware already, nor for David Brabham and his best-in-class Patron Highcroft Acura. Not for the Corvettes that keep dominating the GT1 class, nor even for the Risi Competizione Ferrari that finally had a GT2 win this season. If you want those results, have a look at the news article, or for real fans, the race results.

No, I'm talking about some awards I've dreamed up, having spent the entire day at the races with my brother, fully tooled up with cameras. I've come up with some new classes, and these are my picks of the winners:

Loudest Vehicle: #3 and #4 Corvette C6.R (tie)

When these two went past in tandem, the ground shook.

Honourable mention: Panoz Esperante GTLM, seen here with its bits hanging out.

Loud as hell, slow as molasses.

Car that looks most like it's smiling at you: Aston-Martin V8 Vantage

Too bad it was so slow.

Most egregious use of day-glo paint highlights: Tafel Racing #73 Ferrari

Sorry, I was a long way away. Their other car had orange ones.

Worst attempt at hiding behind a post: Risi Competizione #62 Ferrari F430GT

I can seeeeee you.

Most attractive car without wheels: Robertson Racing Doran Ford GT-R

I was looking forward to seeing this one race, but apparently they blew it up in testing.

And finally, a special award for Best attempt at turning corner 2 while missing a wheel goes to Marc Basseng and the VICI Racing Porsche 911 GT3 RSR.

He was fine. The wheel in question is sitting off in the distance.

More of this silliness, including a picture of the fastest ambulance in the world, a Corvette showing its naughty bits, and a guy who just looks like he should be driving an Aston Martin, are in this Flickr set. There may be even more - I haven't developed the film yet.

Can't wait 'til next year...

--

EDIT: THIS JUST IN! A special award suggested by Dawn:

Car most likely to crash: #22 Porsche 911 GT3, from the IMSA Challenge GT3 Cup support race.

Please, head on over to the Flickr page and leave your own Vista pun there, if you will.