Petit Le Mans – The ALMS Finals with Falken Tire

What an awesome year spent with Falken Tire.
The 2012 American Le Mans season was a blast! I was very lucky to be able to cover half of it for Falken Tire – in addition to many other projects that they brought me in for throughout the year. By far my favorite was ALMS, though. There is an incredible team of people out at Walker Racing that I was lucky to be welcomed in to. Through many events and long days/nights of work I also had the chance to work closely and get to know much more of the Falken Tire team, too.

The season wrapped up in Atlanta, at Petit Le Mans. Another endurance race but this time only ten hours instead of twelve like in Sebring. Haha! Even one of the managers at Falken, when he asked me the next race I’d be at and I told him “Petit”, laughed and just said “We send you to all the long ones, don’t we?”

Since it was my last race of the season I brought a bunch of gear out Road Atlanta with me. Instead of a 300mm like I had at Sebring, I brought a 400mm since this was a large track. And since there was a lot less access than at Sebring it’s a good thing that I did. I also carried a brand new Canon 1D-X with me – I was definitely excited to see how the sensor and tracking system performs over my 1D-3 that I’ve been using for years for sports.

I’m not going to go on and on about my weekend. I’ll keep it short and say that it has been a blast being part of Falken’s season and part of their team. With a bit of luck I’ll be doing some more work with them next year, but I won’t know that for sure for quite some time.
Until next race season starts up it’s going to be back to model photography and smaller projects for me! So keep checking back for updates on those – one of my next shoots is for April O’Neil and my ongoing Ninja Turtles project.

And to comment briefly on my opening image up top… I felt this was definitely a great closing image to contrast my opening image at Sebring for the season…
Here’s a comparison:

Nice, right?

Anyway.. click past the break for over 150 images of Team Falken, and several other teams/cars at Road Atlanta this past weekend.

Getting started on Friday we were making our way around the track with our golf cart. Qazi yelled “Quick John! Get that DX going, they’re starting!!” Haha, this was the best I could do while riding in the back seat while we were driving. LOL

We checked out several spots trying to find something interesting..

We settled on just starting at Turn 1… seeing how that looked

..time to check out the new focusing system on this camera combined with the 400 f/2.8

Images from the DX were incredibly sharp. I was immediately impressed with the detail. This is a 50% crop from an image I shot with the 400mm.

At this point I was picking a random car in a group, locking on, and seeing how Servo mode reacted

There she is! Number 17!

Qazi, getting various B-roll video clips

At the top of Turn 2 I started messing with panning. Lighting was harsh that afternoon

I love a good motion shot. But I did a LOT of that at Road America in Wisconsin, so I tried to limit myself this trip

I noticed a lot of cars were catching air entering the chicane… I kept watching to see how agressive Martin Ragginger was taking the turn hoping I’d catch him on two wheels

That’s a good four inches off the ground!

Agh! So close! I was doing pans right before this and had too slow a shutter as Raggi hit his last lap in practice at a much higher speed!

Brittney came in a day early to meet fans and hang out! She was our stunning Georgia native that was part of the Falken Girls team this year

Vendor Village was quiet during practice

But there were still a few fans that were coming out to get posters and say hello

Meanwhile at the tire rig the guys were hard at work preparing wheels with fresh rubber for tomorrow

Rain tires were prepped just in case the weather decided to change last minute

Team manger Derek Walker gets interviewed on this thoughts and plan for the upcoming race the next day.

After the practice sessions the guys clean up the car before taking it apart and checking everything

Raggi and Wolf chat as they wait for the meet-n-greet session to start up

Brittney and PR manager Kelly… Brittney towers over Kelly with her boots on!

Autograph session is getting started!

Had to get a photo with Brittney!

And of course my twitter-homie Kelly!

This is exactly why the team thinks we don’t do anything… the only times they see us we’re on our break. The rest of the time we’re hiking the track doing our job. Next time I’m taking photos of us doing that to prove it. Ha!

This incredible artwork was up for auction over the weekend. For charity of course

Raggi

Wolf was still all smiles despite being on strict medical restriction that weekend. He was recovering from strep and kept from practice that day to not stress his body before the race the next day.

Bryan Sellers, about to be interviewed by Team Falken

Robert, getting some video at Turn 10

Practice is now complete for the day… Time to check EVERYTHING

I’m always scared when there’s a white shirt meeting going on in the rig… it’s almost always important and I almost always feel in the way. haha

Meanwhile, the crew laughs and talks as they go through their checks

I’m pretty sure that Brad and the rest of the guys could do all this with their eyes closed

This was something new though…

The guys were taking off the fenders. Uncommon from the normal routine that I remember

Then a different guy showed up with this machine

Turns out they were re-aligning the lights! I would have never guessed. I actually asked to be sure

The drivers were having a bit of trouble seeing during the evening practice the night before and wanted the lights lowered a bit before tomorrow’s race day.

Martin Ragginger’s name has been added alongside Bryan and Wolf – haven’t seen that since the 12 Hours of Sebring

And that wrapped up Day 1 for me..

The next day was race day… and it was going to be loooong. I headed out to the track where everyone was starting to make their way out to see the cars close up in person

Melanie spotted me shooting from and yelled and waved! See, I’m lucky enough to gets waves personally from our girls when they see me! haha

It took maybe five minutes before the place was PACKED with fans

But I still had to push my way to the front to get photos our team

Brittney Glaze

Melanie Tillbrook

Look at all those cameras! and that crowd! haha

Spotted Bryan on the wall watching the crowd. Jumped up and took a photo with him

Bakari chatting with Wolf and Joyce

Nick and Derek were busy talking as the crowds were admiring the car and meeting the girls

Bryan blended in with his Falken North Face jacket. Easy to miss if you didn’t have a sharp eye while walking by

Wolf explaining to friends of his how he’s just recovering from strep

Me and the stunning Joyce Lex!

Bakari and I towering above all the short people! LOL

The girls!

Qazi and Robert

Raggi chatting with friends on the other teams

Had to get a photo with the girls! We took like 8 trying to get a good one. The girls kept wanting to redo it! Haha. Love them, I’m going to miss races with these ladies

One last snap with Melanie before we’re all kicked off the grid

Thumbs up! Everything is good!

All the cars lined up as the race starts!

That Porsche is too quick sometimes… or maybe I’m too slow? Nah. Definitely the first…

Don’t listen to what they tell you… size DOES matter

Got to love red flags mostly because it means everyone regroups

Several laps later Falken pits for new tires and fuel

Being chased by the Deltawing

Our fans are amazing!

If you ever wondered how many tires Falken brings… the answer is – a lot.

After snagging this shot I was determined to not move until I got a shot of our Porsche doing the same thing

Airrrrr!!!
It actually only took me about four laps or so before our team caught some air while cornering into the chicane. This is the same corner I got the rear shot the night before that was blurred.

“I’LL TAKE A SHORTCUT!”
The photographer next to me at this moment started laughing and yelled “Hey! This isn’t Forza! (the video game) NO SHORTCUTS!!”

Qazi and I switched out with the 400 so he could get some tighter video shots

Shooting at Turn 7.
Our golf cart had actually died at this part of the afternoon and we had 45-60 minutes to kill. That’s MUCH longer than we would spend at any corner and seriously ate into our shooting time that afternoon while we made phone calls and eventually had to wait for Robert to get picked up and then return with a new cart