The Greatest Show on Wheels (The Sydney 500)

Once again when the V8's rolled into Sydney for the season finale, Sydney put on four seasons in a weekend! With Saturday's racing being drenched and causing utter chaos in the late parts of the race- all of the race and championship contenders crashing into the walls within moments of each other!  Meanwhile, I turned bright and very early for Sunday's race prepared for a wet day, only to cop a muggy morning and a searing hot sunny afternoon!  

Anyhow, the racing was exciting and the whole weekend is a great experience for anyone into cars and the street circuit format is very different to the closed race track situation most Sydneysiders would be used to, see my photos from Superlap  here for a look at closed circuit racing at Eastern Creek and how different the sights and sounds are.

The street circuit format also gave me a unique set of opportunities (and challenges) as a photographer.  While I took shots of just about everything that took to the track, these aren't all that exciting photographically due to the fact that there are huge fences and walls between myself and the cars in all the shots, while this doesn't bother me, I won't bore all my readers with a thousand shots of different cars driving past.

Instead I also set out to capture the experience of being at the event, look at some of the faces behind the scenes and as well as some creative shots.  I was very lucky to get hold of some excellent access-all-areas tickets, which got me into places I wouldn't normally be allowed into, so please enjoy this slightly left-of-centre look into a V8 Supercar street race!

 Jimmy

I uploaded this shot in high-res so you can zoom right in and enjoy all the details right into the distance of this panorama.  I'm quite proud of this, as I captured all the images without a tripod.  The view is almost 180 degrees across- the road leading into the left side of frame, is dead straight and leaves the frame on the right, at what appears to be a sharp angle due to the distortion!

Sydney welcomes the V8's!

 Not revealing my secret on this one, but I didn't originally intend to have myself in the shot!

A little collection of people shots across the day:

It's just another day at the office for some!

I still feel really strange taking photos of the ground, or puddles, or wheel nuts, or whatever other obscure detail has caught my eye!

A collection of shots on the theme of wheels...?

The last one is my favourite because the wheel nut is the focus point and both the image and the wheel design draw your eye into it.

The man in the foreground is definitely doing what the sign says!

 

Yes I know this one isn't level, I did try leveling it but I found that it lost too much of the detail at the sides when it was cropped.  I was trying to show how busy it was out on the grid and if you look around the shot you will get an idea of how many different things were going on! I wish I had time to do a panorama here too (or at least a wider lens!).

 

Deliciously abstract and out there photo? Tick.  

A Marshall walking through the back of the pit area in case you were wondering...

 And last but not least- photos of the racing!

 I snapped one at this angle for nearly every car in the field (of nearly every category too!)- if you have a favourite car from the day and want a pic- drop me an email!  These will print at A4-A3 size nicely.  This Porsche is my favourite shot and was giving the much bigger, more powerful muscle cars a run for the money too!

 

James Courtney's battered and bruised car at the end of a very long weekend.  He didn't win the race, but he did secure the championship.  Here he is, straightening out his car  after a long burnout down the back straight.

 
My favourite shot of the day shows just how close the racing was, both between the cars and to the heavy concrete walls.  I have applied a new effect that I feel really works well on this shot.