NASCAR at Pocono - August 2015

moose135

I made my twice-a-year visit to Pocono Raceway last weekend for the NASCAR weekend. As always, it's an interesting time, and we had perfect weather and some good racing.

1 - I started out with some time on pit road during practice on Friday and Saturday. Here, Brad Keselowski speeds past.



2 - And his teammate, Joey Logano



3 - And you can't miss Danica Patrick's car.



4 - Never turn your back on a race car! Twenty five years of going to Pocono, I'd never seen this. During Saturday's practice, Jeb Burton spun coming out of Turn 3 (Pocono is a triangle, there's no Turn 4) and spun into pit road. He slid by me and hit the inner pit wall about 20 feet past where I was. Sadly, I had been talking to the safety worker next to me, and while I saw the whole thing happen, I didn't have the camera up to catch him go by. Here he is on pit road where it finally stopped.



5 - You know I have to include something aviation-related! Two USAF CV-22 Ospreys did the pre-race fly over.



6 - He's coming right at us!



7 - So what was I saying, twenty five years and I'd never seen a car spin into pit road? So how about two days in a row? Early in Sunday's Sprint Cup race, Kasey Kahne did the same thing - his skid marks on the track and into pit road were just about exactly on top of those left by Burton the day before, but Kahne hit about 3 pit stalls farther into the pits.




8 - Trevor Bayne stops for tires and gas in 13 seconds.



9 - Kurt Busch makes a quick stop.

Cavalier

O-o-o-o-o.......I am so jealous! But then if I had attended the Pocono race rather than watching it on TV, I would have been too busy trying to get THE picture and would have missed most of the race! These are great shots. I love the pans - perfectly focused. And I take it McMurray didn't run you over!

Thelensspot

Moose, great job. You had to do a lot of work to put these shots in front of your lens. The first three are my favorites, especially Danica Patrick's car. Love the Osprey shot as well. Very nice job!thumb

moose135

Cavalier wrote: »

O-o-o-o-o.......I am so jealous! But then if I had attended the Pocono race rather than watching it on TV, I would have been too busy trying to get THE picture and would have missed most of the race! These are great shots. I love the pans - perfectly focused. And I take it McMurray didn't run you over!

Thank you very much! It certainly is a juggling act trying to watch the race and get the shot. That's why I'll hang out on pit road during practice for some of the up-close panning shots. And no, McMurray didn't run me over - that's looking down the row in the garage area, and the cars make a right hand turn down at the end - there's also a fence between us there. Burton's car did come close, but again, there was the pit wall between us - watching the replay that night, I realized just how hard he hit the wall, it was impressive.

Thelensspot wrote: »

Moose, great job. You had to do a lot of work to put these shots in front of your lens. The first three are my favorites, especially Danica Patrick's car. Love the Osprey shot as well. Very nice job!thumb

Thank you, Wayne, I really appreciate it!

JBHotShots

Good stuff! Just wondering, what did you shoot with?

moose135

Thanks, Jamie! I shot these with a Canon 5D3 and other than the head on shot in the garage area, they were all taken with the Canon 100-400L (Original Recipe).

JBHotShots

Thanks!

I have to agree, two in the pits in two day was crazy! Thankfully no one was injured because that could have been real bad.

Gary752

Awesome shots Moose!!!! I especially love the panning shots (nicely blurred backgrounds and perfectly sharp focus on the cars) and being a former mechanic, I also like the pit action shots as well. I know these are not all of the shots you got, so please, please share some more, or post a link to where I (we) can see the rest!

GaryB

Brett1000

nice panning shots

bobcool

LOVE the panning shots, especially #2 where the entire word "Ponono" landed right in front of the car - talk about great timing! Excellent shots all around and great colors too!