Honda Indy Toronto 2011 Diary - part III

Part I, in which we arrive on Friday and attempt to shoot IndyCars in front of every available sponsor billboard, is here.

Part II, in which Saturday rolls around and I end up covering the NASCAR supporting event as well as lurking around pit lane, is here.

This is Part III - the main event, the IZOD IndyCar series race - and a bunch of other things.


Even during a packed race day schedule, there's inevitably some waiting around.

The day started off as usual in the Media Centre, located upstairs in the Allstream Centre (née "Automotive Building") on the Exhibition Place grounds. The morning update and safety briefing was augmented by some words from the event's chief of security, Charles Burns, a genial gentleman who nevertheless falls squarely in the "do not make this man angry with you" category. Pre-race briefing over, we had our daily pow-wow with team lead John. Race day is what we're here for, and we needed to make sure we had all aspects covered. Two photographers with "race mode" pit lane access, a couple in the grandstands for crowd shots, careful discussion of who would shoot driver introductions, the grand marshal, the anthems, flyby and other pre-race events, and a scattering of the remaining team members at key points around the track. My assignment: turn 1, for the start, and all the re-starts after the inevitable accidents during the race. In 2011, IndyCar introduced "double wide" re-starts instead of single-file, line-astern ones - promising some fireworks as the cars gallop into turn 1 when the green flag flies.

But first - morning practice, and a couple of supporting races. I shot a bit of the Canadian Touring Car Championship from turn 5, and scuttled over to Winner's Circle for the post-race festivities. I see a lot of this series throughout the year, but seldom have the opportunity to shoot the podium.


Always good to get the eventual race winner on-track.


Touring Car class winner Tom Kwok takes a pasting.

Next up was IndyCar practice, an opportunity to shoot some pit lane action, something I've never done. I took advantage of a handy TV camera hole, still empty this early in the day.


Graham Rahal and the Service Central Chip Ganassi Racing team.

Next up was more serious business - Firestone Indy Lights, a fiercely competitive series full of up-and-coming drivers. I spent a good chunk of this race doing other things, but made sure I was at the finish line to practice again for the chequered flag shot. It worked, and I even managed the sprint back to the podium ceremony. That went fine, but the obvious photo-op would be to catch race winner Stefan Wilson with his big brother, IndyCar driver Justin. Did I get the shot? No, I did not.


A happy, but very sweaty, Stefan Wilson. Shortly after this, he came after the photo corps with his champagne bottle.

And now - off to turn 1 for the main event. It turned out to be not a bad vantage point for pre-race fireworks, although the military fly-by was completely obscured by a large tree, which I was more or less directly under.


The starting fireworks - fun, but never spectacular in broad daylight.

And then, after a couple of pace laps - the start!


Lots of cars, and a full grandstand - this is what we're here for.

I waited out most of the race in turn 1, working my way around transiently to a couple of other photo holes towards turn 2. And I have to report that despite half a dozen crashes and re-starts, the drivers behaved themselves beautifully, with not so much as a minor fender-bender. The most excitement was when rookie James Jakes ran a little wide, and passed within touching distance on the wide line around the corner.


He's going slowly, and sensibly keeping out of Danica Patrick's way.

And so it went, until, with 45 minutes or so left, I skedaddled back to the finish line - just in time for a massive crash at, you guessed it, turn 1.

Not to worry though. Joined by my comrade Patrick, I was there for that all-important chequered flag photo - one chance, and one only, to nail the race winner at full speed, on the painted line, hand triumphantly in the air, with the chequers flying from the flag stand and a grandstand of cheering fans behind. At full speed, even a fast burst of continuous shots is going to miss - this is a single photo that needs to be squeezed off at just the perfect time, just as the car flickers into your peripheral vision. And we nailed it. Both of us.


That, my friends, checks all of the boxes.

All that was left was a murderously hot and breathless sprint to Winner's Circle - for the fourth time that weekend - through throngs of fans with the same idea. Into the crush of press, elbows up and peeking through heads, arms and assorted photographic paraphernalia. My photo of race winner Dario Franchitti hopping out of his car wasn't as good as last year's effort, but the podium was well covered since our whole team was there, so it didn't matter much. And by hanging around for a bit, I wound up with a couple of fun shots, including this one of 1-2 team-mates Franchitti and Scott Dixon, clinking champagne bottles after hosing down their crew (and a few innocent bystanders).


Yes, Dario's looking right at me.

And that, as they say, was a wrap. With a day's worth of racing plus a whole lot of fan, vendor area and other "event" photos in the can, it was back to the Media Centre to sift through, pull out the A-list shots to hand in, say some goodbyes, and wearily wend my way home for the last time.

Next year? If I get the call, you'd better believe I'll be there.

(All of Sunday's photos are in this Flickr set.)

Honda Indy Toronto 2011 Diary - part II

(This may make a little more sense if you read part I first.)


NASCAR Canadian Tire Series podium, late Saturday afternoon.

Saturday
Once again, it was all about crowds, fans interacting with vendors, and generally any photos to tell the story of the event. And I took a lot of those photos, believe me - swinging through the Thunder Alley vendor area, past the team hospitality tents, and generally lurking around in the paddock and pit lane whenever I wasn't doing something else.

But first: some minor clean-up of the "cars in front of sponsor billboards" assignment, since it seems the entire team collectively failed to hand in anything in front of one key sponsor's signage. So - off to turn nine.

On the way, I snagged a through-the-fence shot of popular Canadian driver Alex Tagliani in morning practice, ripping down the back straight (known in civilian times as Lakeshore Boulevard). Here I'm shooting through the brand-new safety fencing - much stronger now, and generating some interesting horizontal stripes. The previous diagonal chain-link was much easier to "disappear".


The Dr. Pepper car would have been better here. Next year, maybe.

Unfortunately, the fence is obscuring the Future Shop logo on the car's sidepod, but what can you do?

Having hit Thunder Alley, still quiet this early in the morning, I took a quick swing through pit lane to grab some driver shots. Here's Graham Rahal, hailing some acquaintances. You can tell it's early - look how empty the grandstands are. Not a bad driver shot, but a total fail as far as capturing the excitement of the event.


He's got perfect teeth.

I also came across Helio Castroneves. This is the last of a series, from bare head through full helmet, as he suits up to go out on track.


Love that yellow/blue/white Penske livery.

And here's last year's winner Will Power. I like how he's staring back across his shoulder down pit lane, looking as though he's greatly concerned about something.


You'd never guess he's actually in line for the porta-potty, would you?

And on the way - finally, a chance for an IndyCar with a crowd in the background. This is a keeper, a nice addition to the "hand-in" shots, banked before race day comes on Sunday. Vitor Meira, racing for A.J. Foyt Enterprises.


That's what we need - car, sponsor signage, crowded grandstand.

And so, to turn nine and the Pizza Pizza billboard, sorely neglected yesterday. I spent the rest of the qualifying session getting shot after dull and boring shot of almost-in-focus cars, until I finally nailed a nice head-on one of Mike Conway. And then, right at the end of the session, what happens? J.R. Hildebrand stalls his car, right in front of the billboard I need! Are you kidding me? Easiest photo in history.


If he looks like he's parked - he is.

I'll admit to shooting some fun stuff along the way, including a nice photo of eventual race winner Dario Franchitti, and one of Justin Wilson laying down some rubber, and playing with slow shutter speeds a bit - good fun for me, but not really useful for the event.


Ryan Hunter-Reay, at 1/25th of a second.

The last race of the day was the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series Streets of Toronto 100. Not at all a priority, but we needed on-track shots of a key sponsor's car (the #84 Schick Hydro Chevy of J.R. Fitzpatrick), and last year's winner, popular Canadian driver Andrew Ranger. I threw in pole-winner Jason Bowles as well for good measure. So, off to the "false grid" where the cars line up before the race.


This is Dexter Stacey, not any of the "key" drivers - but I like the shot.

Next I went trackside, and ultimately to the podium ceremony. On that little jaunt I didn't just nail all three drivers before the race, but each of their cars rolling out, and each on track to boot. And since Ranger won, after tagging him crossing the finish line I high-tailed it to the podium ceremony for good measure, picking up a text message from team leader John asking me if I could get to it. "Already there!" - it felt good to send that reply.


Winner Andrew Ranger with Kim Green of Green/Savoree - one of the big bosses of the weekend.

And that was pretty much a wrap. I collected podium shots of all the NASCAR finishers, although my photos of them spraying champagne weren't good. And the ones of Ranger's car taking the chequered flag, from the grandstand, were useless, but a helpful education for Sunday's IndyCar race. You'll see the finish line photo from the marquee event in the next post.

And so, back to the media centre for the usual hour or two of editing and handing shots in, and off home to bed. Saturday's photos are in this set.

Next: Sunday - Race Day. IndyCars, Canadian Touring Cars, and a bunch of podium ceremonies.

The Part I post, including Thursday and Friday, is here.

It's almost here...

The 2011 Honda Indy Toronto.



And like last year, I will be there all three days, media credentialed and shooting like mad.

Hockey Pool, week, um, er, 17 I think.

And so, I have the unmitigated pleasure of bringing you the VWXYnot Hockey Pool update for week 17, the Lamest Week Of The Year™. For those of us (me included) who faffled around with their picks, bewildered by the apparent lack of games, it's because the NHL All-Star game intervened with the real schedule. And, in case you missed the connection, it's the All-Star game that makes it the Lamest Week. Trust me on this.

Of course, there were other things going on as well, not least of which was the Rolex 24 Hours At Daytona (won again, somewhat predictably, by the Ganassi Racing team), and of course the NASCAR Toyota All-Star Showdown, which was actually quite fun to watch, even though the many caution flags resulted in it running overtime. Which meant, of course, that my PVR missed the end of it. Nevertheless, let me take a moment more and throw out some congratulations to Canadian series champ D.J. Kennington, who outlasted dozens of other drivers, and finished second overall.


Mr. Kennington, last July.

But enough of that! On to the results...

Thin week or not, nothing really startling happened with the overall standings. Lavaland's still on top, I'm still running roughly parallel in second, and so on and so forth. The only notable change is that Gerty-Z and ScientistMother have switched spots, following a very strong performance by one, and a rather flabby one by the other.

Weekly totals... look at that blue bar for ScientistMother!
And here are the standings for the last three weeks or so:

So there you go. I am, in fact, creeping up on Lavaland - but very, very slowly, and with the newly-adjusted points values for the players, I really have no idea how my picks for this week will pan out. Stay tuned...

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.

Second Annual Ricardipus Racing Awards

One advantage of being settled in a state of more-or-less Status Quo is that it becomes very easy to recycle blog posts from one year ago. In the spirit of which, I give you the Second Annual Ricardipus Awards, for participants in the 2009 Mobil 1 Grand Prix of Mosport. Once again I refer you, if you're actually interested in the race results that is, to the official document. For the record, the Patron Highcroft Racing Acura ARX-02a, piloted by drivers Scott Sharp and David Brabham, won outright, and in the next class down, the rather pretty Acura ARX-01b of Luis Diaz and Adrian Fernandez clinched the season championship.

But these awards aren't about the race winners. They're about other silly categories that I dreamed up last year, and maybe a few new ones to boot.

So, with no further ado, here they are:

Loudest Vehicle: #3 and #4 Chevrolet Corvette C6.R (tie). In a repeat of last year's performance, these two shook the ground when they went by, despite having significantly less horsepower than last year.

There was lots of local interest, with a GM plant nearby.

Honourable Mention: de Ferran Motorsports Acura ARX-02a. Although various other cars were nice and loud, this one gets the nod for a divine combination of engine noise and ridiculous backfires into turn three, all day long.

Simon Pagenaud, going really really fast.

Most Cheerful-Looking Drivers: Gil de Ferran and Simon Pagenaud. An honourable mention goes to Gunnar van der Steur and Adam Pecorari, whose rather pretty car was eventually excluded (disqualified) for a technical infraction. They looked happy before the race, though.

They weren't smiling like this when they signed autographs for me...

Nicest Paint Highlights: Melanie Snow's #56 Porsche 911 GT3 from the GT3 Challenge support race. There really just isn't enough pink in car racing.

Melanie Snow is very fast, but Simona de Silvestro is even faster.

Friendliest Driver: Barrie, Ontario native Kyle Marcelli, who tore up the track in the IMSA Lites support races. I suspect it was the nice chat he had with my brother and I that inspired his performance.

He came second in this race, and first in the previous one.

Silliest Doors: Dyson Racing's Mazda-Powered Lola Coupes. These cars probably also win my awards for "Best Looking" and "Hardest to Photograph at Speed".

This car would have a bit of a crunch in the race.

Best Save: Gil de Ferran. Gil fell off turn two while leading the race, put his foot down, and drove around the corner through the grass. Most people would have spun and crashed. Olivier Beretta gets an honourable mention for doing exactly the same thing later in the race.

He's probably still doing well over 100 kph.

Special Award: best-looking car that spent last year in the shed: Robertson Racing's Mark VII Doran Ford GT-R. Last year, they blew up the engine in testing.

What a looker.

And, finally:

Best Performance Rebuilding a Car to Race on Sunday After the Driver Smashes it up on Saturday Afternoon: Risi Competizione. The team stayed up all night, rebuilding the left side of the car, which ultimately finished second in its class after starting from the very back of the grid.

Sleep? Who needs sleep?

So there you go. As before, lots more of this kind of thing over in the relevant Flickr set.

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.

Just ticking over...

Been a bit quiet around here recently, hasn't it? Sorry about that.

The usual onslaught of busy-ness, which I've complained about frequently enough not to bother you with it again, coupled with rather a lack of creativity, and rather a lot of things to photograph, edit and post to Flickr, has been undermining blog posting rather.

Ah well. Perhaps I'll update you on a few things that have happened recently in some future posts. In the meantime, it's shaping up to be an interesting week and Victoria Day long weekend to come. And the most notable occurrence, one that I know that many of you will be intensely jealous of, is:

Ye Seconde Visite of Huge Alex.

Yes indeed, Aled is coming to sunny Toronto again, and like last time, will stop off at the ridiculously-named place where I work for a coffee, a natter, and maybe, just maybe, if we're both feeling sufficiently secure in publicizing the event, a photo-op. He's already reminded me that it's my turn to buy, in case you were wondering.

Slightly less exciting, but still fun, will be another visit to the twisty goodness that is the racetrack at Mosport, this time for the Victoria Day Speedfest. Rather an over-the-top name, but it should be good fun, with GT Sports Cars, Touring Cars, and the SCCA Trans-Am series all rolled into one weekend. I've already got my ticket, and I'm even planning to meet up with yet another internet-only connection, Flickrite f1design, coming down from Ottawa or thereabouts for this event. Should be an enjoyable time, as long as it doesn't pour with rain like it's doing this weekend.



That's about it for now, I'm afraid... as mentioned, I'll update a few other things soon. Unless I'm too lazy, or forget.