This past weekend marked my first attendance to the 56th Rolex 24 at Daytona. When describing this race, the term blood sweat and tears definitely comes to mind and that's no exaggeration. I made it a challenge to myself to shoot the entire race from start to finish with only a few breaks in between. The beauty about Daytona is the way it's able to immerse you into an experience that's like nowhere else.
Daytona International Speedway, known better as "The World Center of Racing" is the Inaugeral race in the IMSA Weathertech Sports Car Championship, and what better way to start a season than beat the hell out of the car with a 24 hour long endurance race.
This year's race showed many changes with the largest one being the removal of the Prototype Challenge "PC" class. I personally am a big fan of this change as I always saw them slowing the crowd down, and ultimately no longer relevant in this era. Perhaps my most favorable change is how similar the prototype class now resembles LMP cars (keep in mind I haven't been to an IMSA race since 2016 Petit Lemans).
Now that we've gotten through that, let's get down to the question you're probably still wondering. Can you still get incredible photos without possessing credentials? The answer is yes!! Never limit yourself because you're limited to public areas behind the fence. In fact, if you have a long enough lense (this is going off of my experience with my Sigma 100-400mm) just put the lense hood up until it is touching the fence and viola! The fence completely disappears!
What's great about this technique that not enough people utilize is prevents you from being limited to shooting above the fence on a stepstool. Now shooting with a stepstool is great and all, but with how low these cars are it really just doesn't look good in my opinion. I prefer to shoot low even or slightly below the cars profile to really exaggerate the "stance" it has.
Later in the night and early morning, you really want to get over for the famous ferris wheel shot. If you go late enough when everyone has cleared off, some of the accredited photographers will sometimes open the gate for you to allow you to shoot through the gap like you would a photo hole. These guys are not your enemy, some (not all) will even help give you the upper hand sometimes knowing what it's like to be in your shoes.
Towards early morning, the Konica Minolta Cadillac DPI had an unfortunate withdraw from the race after experiencing several tire failures throughout the night.
By early morning, shooting the cars in the sunrise really is one of the highlights to attending a race like this, and is definitely one of those things that makes 24hr races so popular.
By sunday 2:45pm, you're really feeling the effects of staying up all night running around the track, and just in time to see the cars cross the line one last time before taking the hike back to Lot 6. Action Express racing took the 1-2 finish with the cadillac dpi's, while Chip Gnassi racing one yet another rolex 24 with the Ford GT's. Perhaps the most suprising victory was Grasser motorsports taking home the GTD win in the Lamborghini Huracan GT3's.
This past weekend marked my first attendance to the 56th Rolex 24 at Daytona. When describing this race, the term blood sweat and tears definitely comes to mind and that's no exaggeration. I made it a challenge to myself to shoot the entire race from start to finish with only a few breaks in between. The beauty about Daytona is the way it's able to immerse you into an experience that's like nowhere else.
Daytona International Speedway, known better as "The World Center of Racing" is the Inaugeral race in the IMSA Weathertech Sports Car Championship, and what better way to start a season than beat the hell out of the car with a 24 hour long endurance race.
This year's race showed many changes with the largest one being the removal of the Prototype Challenge "PC" class. I personally am a big fan of this change as I always saw them slowing the crowd down, and ultimately no longer relevant in this era. Perhaps my most favorable change is how similar the prototype class now resembles LMP cars (keep in mind I haven't been to an IMSA race since 2016 Petit Lemans).
Now that we've gotten through that, let's get down to the question you're probably still wondering. Can you still get incredible photos without possessing credentials? The answer is yes!! Never limit yourself because you're limited to public areas behind the fence. In fact, if you have a long enough lense (this is going off of my experience with my Sigma 100-400mm) just put the lense hood up until it is touching the fence and viola! The fence completely disappears!
What's great about this technique that not enough people utilize is prevents you from being limited to shooting above the fence on a stepstool. Now shooting with a stepstool is great and all, but with how low these cars are it really just doesn't look good in my opinion. I prefer to shoot low even or slightly below the cars profile to really exaggerate the "stance" it has.
Later in the night and early morning, you really want to get over for the famous ferris wheel shot. If you go late enough when everyone has cleared off, some of the accredited photographers will sometimes open the gate for you to allow you to shoot through the gap like you would a photo hole. These guys are not your enemy, some (not all) will even help give you the upper hand sometimes knowing what it's like to be in your shoes.
Towards early morning, the Konica Minolta Cadillac DPI had an unfortunate withdraw from the race after experiencing several tire failures throughout the night.
By early morning, shooting the cars in the sunrise really is one of the highlights to attending a race like this, and is definitely one of those things that makes 24hr races so popular.
By sunday 2:45pm, you're really feeling the effects of staying up all night running around the track, and just in time to see the cars cross the line one last time before taking the hike back to Lot 6. Action Express racing took the 1-2 finish with the cadillac dpi's, while Chip Gnassi racing one yet another rolex 24 with the Ford GT's. Perhaps the most suprising victory was Grasser motorsports taking home the GTD win in the Lamborghini Huracan GT3's.
