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There are two types of North American race cars that are often lumped together, but are really very different.  When we say short track late models, we often mean either dirt or asphalt cars.  They really do not resemble each other and there is a lot of technical differences beyond the fact that one is built for dirt/clay and the other for paved tracks.  Depending on the circuit/series, dirt cars, usually weigh less than 2,500 lbs.  They often have aluminum block motors and with many clubs, they have no cubic inch limit.  I knew of one team that traveled a lot and had engines ranging from 330 ci, to 511 ci. Cylinder compression ratios can be a high as 13 to 1. The bodies on dirt cars tend to have a wedge type shape and don’t much resemble street cars.

Pavement cars usually weigh around 3,000 pounds and have engines with a max cubic inch of 355-358. The are generally steel block motors with a max compression ratio of 9 to 1. They have a bit more of that smooth aero look to them.

Both can be pretty in their own way and both put on one heck of a show.

Below you will find pictures of each.

We do not salute the b (c,d, etc. ?) divisions at weekly short tracks often enough. Most weekly racing programs would be over quickly and not worth the price of admission if it were not for those unheralded divisions. In previous posts I have shown pictures of IMCA Modifieds, and Sport Trucks. Today we see a paved track sportsman division. The racing in this b division is great and it helped make my night at the races rich and full.

I usually wind up showing some midget action and I finish today’s pictures with more of the same. Most of my photography in my last five years of racing, was midgets and that is why I have such a surplus of images. The top shot is  USAC Midgets on the paved Milwaukee Mile, and the rest are Badger Midgets from the 1/3^rd mile dirt track in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin.

If midget racing were created today I am “very sure” they would find another name for these small, but fats race cars. Everyone that is involved in this sort of racing knows just how politically incorrect that term is. The cars have been around for about 70 years it is kind of late to worry about the name. If it was changed everyone would still use the old term. No offense is meant by anyone involved in this sport. That term was acceptable and logical when this form of racing was created.

I just thought that for those of you who are not familiar with midget car racing that you deserved an explanation.

The Real Season

Back in February when the NASCAR season begins, it is always exciting, but in March when the IRL joins them, the North American racing scene has officially started.

I enjoyed the IRL opener in St. Pete.  Their new cars are without a doubt capable of wheel to wheel racing, and it seems like the whole field is pretty evenly matched.  Having said all of that, I find them UGLY.  If they would just put a little more body work over those wheels, (sarcasm) they would officially be sports cars.  As it is they are not "open wheel" Indy Cars.  I was pleased to find out that their are new engines in the ranks.  Chevrolet got off to a great start, and Lotus will surely get going.  I will admit that in my day, Lotus was a chassis manufacturer, and I had no idea they made engines.  Honda of course is still there too.  I congratulate Helio Castroneves.  Helio won zero races and finished 11th in points last year, and it appears as though he is going to make a statement this year.

It was unfortunate that the NASCAR 400 miler in Fontana, CA was rain shortened,but the chances are very good that Tony Stewart would have won anyway.  When Stewart limped into the chase last year I would not have given him one chance in hell, to win his third championship.  Since then he has done nothing but win.  Whatever woke him up late last year, still holds.  He should bottle it and sell it.

A glance at the World of Outlaw (WoO) Sprint Cars shows that they will be at Merced, CA on 3/30/12 and at Calistoga, CA on 3/31/12.  The current top three in the point standings are..
1st Donny Schatz  2 wins
2nd Joey Saldana
3rd Sammy Swindell
 Tied  Jason Sides

The WoO Late Models will be in Farmer City, Ill (Farmer City Raceway) on March 30 and the 31st for the Illini 100. The top three in the point standings are.............
1st Darrell Langan 2 wins
2nd Josh Richards
3rd Shane Clanton

Have fun,
The Outsider

The Outsider's Wanderings

A lot of people complain that NASCAR has too many tracks that are similar to each other.  There are quite a few clone tracks at every length, but remember, NASCAR runs 36 points races a year.  When they visit California this weekend it will be their fifth race of the season.  They will have raced at .5 mile, 1 mile, 1.5 mile, 2 mile and 2.5 mile tracks.  They will range in design and vary in banking from 12 degrees to 33 degrees.  Some pretty fair variety in the first five races of the year.

The Indy Racing League (IRL) will open their season in St. Pete., Florida this weekend.  The IRL is a good group with some great racing.  It will be interesting to see how they fair without Danica to draw interest.

Last season ended with the tragic death of Dan Wheldon at Las Vegas.  It was a horrific multi, multi car crash.  It was not caused by Indy Cars daring to race at a 1.5 mile oval.  It was not caused by having the "astonishing" total of 32 or so cars in one race.  It was caused by some psychotic driving by many of the drivers in the back of the field. It was caused partially by the "pro wrestling" style promotion of offering Wheldon one million dollars to come from last to first. It was caused by the fluke way that Dan's head hit the catch fence.  I have spent major portions of my life ( I am 60 ) following in person or on television, or photographing car racing.  The "worst" thing they could have done is pack up their bags and gone home after this tragedy.  Yes, I would have paid my respects and had them start their engines and race.  Just like had been done dozens of times before over the past 100 years.  We choose auto racing as a passion for a reason.  There is always golf, or tennis, when we want a timid and gentle competition.  Racing is not about horror and death but it is about men and women who know what they are getting into and realize that the "race must go on".   I know that can be hard to say out loud in this politically correct world we live in.  If any of you ever watched Dan Wheldon race, it is a safe bet that if we are being honest with ourselves, that Dan would have been willing to continue if someone else had lost their life. Just like hundreds of brave "racers" have done before.

I found a few more digital car racing shots from the 2,000s and I share them with you below.

IRL at The Milwaukee Mile

The late/great Dan Wheldon when he was still in the Target Car.

Silvercrown at The Milwaukee Mile

MSA Sprints at Sun Prairie, WI

Badger Midget at Sun Prairie, WI.

I thank you for stopping by,
The Outsider

NASCAR & Her Fans

All of the comments below come from my (The Outsider) observations and are merely my opinions and only my opinions.

I watched and enjoyed the NASCAR Cup 500 lapper at Bristol yesterday and followed that up on Twitter so that I could monitor what the fans had to say.  I follow Mark Martin, Matt Kenseth, Kyle Petty (tv) and others on Twitter.

I have mentioned in previous blogs that I have been a car racing fan since I was three.  I was a photographer (for publications) from 1971 to 2006. 

In my earlier days of being a racing enthusiast there were basically two kinds of fans.  There were open wheel fans and stock car fans.  An open wheel fan was either a F1 fan who tolerated Indy Cars, or a midget, sprint car, Indy car, super modified fan.  A stock car fan always watched NASCAR, but probably (unless they lived in the south) followed a series like USAC, ARCA or even ASA or ARTGO.   The open wheel fan was aware of and followed NASCAR and probably (if in the Midwest) USAC.  The stock car fan new little of open wheel racing beyond the INDY 500. 

Today there are auto racing fans and NASCAR fans.   Auto racing fans follow NASCAR closely, and do the same for the IRL, WoO Sprints, USAC, local racing and maybe F1.
NASCAR fans follow NASCAR and maybe a weekly short track near home.  Many, many NASCAR fans are new to racing and only know what they see on tv.  There might be a short track ten miles from home and they don't even know it is there.  These are the fans that are quite sure they know everything there is to know about car racing. They are the experts.  Just ask one.

NASCAR has spent the past 15 years of its  existence trying to please those short-term NASCAR fans who know everything.  They alter their rules, their cars, their tracks and everything else, and still can't please the experts that have found NASCAR on channel 4 or 12.   Such was the case with yesterday's Bristol race.

I have watched racing at Bristol since the early 1970s and covered (as a photographer) one race in the late 1980s.  The late great Davey Allison won that one over Mark Martin.  Until a couple of years ago Bristol was a steeply (36 degrees) banked half mile.  It was fast and it had one groove. The groove was right at the bottom of the track.  The racing was single file until someone tried the impossible task of passing, which caused an accident.  About 30 times a race with 15-20 caution flags. It was exciting at the very moment that you knew that someone was going to try to pass.  When it was time to re-pave Bristol, owner Bruton Smith
changed Bristol. He created progressive banking that allowed for side by side racing for the first time in Bristol's history.  He reasoned that the fans wanted side by side racing.  I enjoyed the old Bristol and love the new Bristol.  The comments that I see on Twitter, and I am sure the comments that Smith will see on Bristol's website, will make him quite sure that he needs to tear up the track and turn it back into the single file crash fest it used to be.  NASCAR might even encourage that as they continue to pursue the "perfect race" that the new NASCAR fan wants to see. 

Please!! Don't tear up Bristol and start all over again.

Over the past ten years I have been reading what the NASCAR fan wants.  Doing some very unscientific studies, I have found some of the same fans rant will that....yesterday's race was terrible because......of all that single file racing......all of that two by two racing......all of the four abreast racing......not enough passing......too much passing......too many yellows......not enough yellows.......same drivers always winning.......nobody seems to win twice.  I actually read a post from a fan who stated "who cares about also rans like Jimmy Johnson".  He never runs good. "A backmarker"  You guessed it, this same NASCAR fan used to rant about how tiresome it gets watching JJ win all of the time. Some of these fans are not only fickle they are border line crazy.  They are typical of much of today's America. Those that whine the most know the least. They don't like racing, they like the spectacle, and even that want to bitch about.  Their memory usually extends to last week.

NASCAR, please take care of actual "auto racing fans" as they will be here for life.  You
have done a great job of creating "pro wrestling type" rules such as the Lucky Dog, etc., etc., etc., to make sure everyone's favorite driver has a chance.  Just make sure that you do not throw out all of the actual race fans in an effort to please a group of people that you will never please.  I am not saying that racing should go back to 1965.  Some smart rules to keep it exciting combined with a healthy respect for "real race fans" will go a long ways.

The Outsider.

Visiting Yesterday......Today

I’ve mentioned before that much of my car racing negatives, slides and prints from 1971 through 2001, when I switched to digital, do not exist anymore. There are a variety of reasons for this. I recently found a box with some fairly old pictures, but unfortunately they were all faded, scratched and all around bad prints, instead of negs and slides. I thought I would show a few copies of these images even though I have done little to them other than clone a few scratches out.

The black & white pictures below were made during the 1987 Miller Nationals at Slinger, WI Speedway. The top photo shows NASCAR star Ernie Irvan #4, and local star Scott Hansen.  The second shot is of local hotshoe #93 John Ziegler, and the great NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt Sr.  Earnhardt did not run well but a few weeks later took this short track car to victory at LaCrosse Raceway in Wisconsin.

The next two shots were ( I think) also made in the 1980s. These wingless sprint cars are from the California Racing Association, and are on a Midwest tour stop at Hales Corners Speedway in WI. I am not sure of the names of the drivers in the top black & white shot, but I suspect that the white car is that of Jimmy Sills. The car in the second photo belongs to Tony Sheppard.

This is a 1980s shot of Glenn Allen Jr. in an ASA race at the Milwaukee Mile.

Our final picture is a terrible copy of a so, so shot, of a rather ugly car.  The car is driven by someone named Terry.  This was made in 1974 at Englewood (long gone) Speedway in Denver, Colorado.   I was the track photographer there.  This type of car was known as a modified, fully modified or super modified at different times.  I found some prints of much nicer cars driven by Joe Lehman, and Billy Ager respectively.   They were offset roadsters.  Unfortunately those wrinkled and stained prints were not savable.  This particular car looks more like a 1964 model than 1974.

I plan one or two more posts on auto racing and then I will move on to other subjects.  I appreciate your patronage.
The Outsider

Fade to Black

I think most race fans who have been to both day and night races, agree that races held at night and under the lights can be a spectacular experience.  The cars seem to be going faster, and the visual confusion can be both beautiful and scary.

Racing photographers are no different.  That is except that they need to carry much more equipment in the form of electronic flash.   I began with Hershey and Honeywell gun flashes, moved on the the incredible (and expensive) Norman 200B, 400B and others.  In the few years that I was a digital racing photographer, I used a variety of small Nikon flash units and they performed well unless I was dealing with distant cars or very dark backgrounds. 

I especially enjoyed weekly short track programs at night and during the summer months.  Practice, qualifying, heats races, semi mains and features.  You would begin by photographing heat races in bright sunshine, move on to more heats and semi mains at dusk, and finish under the track lights in the dark of night.  The three late model images below were all taken at the same track as the day/evening progressed.

Photographing racing front lit in bright sunshine is without question the easiest photography the racing photographer will do.  Plenty of light means plenty of shutter speed with enough depth of field to cover a couple of cars. 

The most difficult time to be a racing photographer is around dusk.  It is dark enough that you need flash, but there is enough ambient light that there will be some recording of movement due to the slower shutter speeds.  This shot is actually receiving some back light from the setting sun. It is important to execute careful panning in order to prevent ghosting.

I was always relieved when it finally got completely dark.  The image below is a nice one but it would have been perfect if the dark car was on the inside and the white car outside.  The balance and details would be optimum.

I want to thank you for stopping by and I hope you stop back soon.
The Outsider

The Wee Ones

My enjoyment (fan) of open wheel racing predates my photography days by a fair amount. My father took me to a local ¼ mile dirt modified track when I was 3 years old. I first followed (in magazines) Champ Dirt Cars, and was a spectator at, midget and sprint car races long before they added those life saving cages. I saw Bobby Unser win a sprint car race at Terra Haute Indiana.

These three forms of auto racing, with the drivers sitting upright and their heads above the small roll bar, were almost too dangerous to watch. Still I watched. The eye stinging sere of the alcohol fuel and the inherent danger of these cars made them different than other forms of racing. You could smell the danger.

Just before my initiation into the field of racing photography, the three types of cars mentioned above all finally added roll cages to help these guys have longer careers. Even though some of these cages were flimsy bolt on units, they did make this part of auto racing, at least a bit safer. I hated the way they changed to appearance of the cars. Doing this just before I began photography seemed mean. In reality we all got used to the look within a season, and most of us are thankful they took this step towards safety.

It wasn’t long before first top wings, and then nose wings were added to sprint cars, especially on dirt. It was another step away from the look of an open cockpit car. It also however added speed and the ability to make very, very bold moves on the track, so we settled on the fact that sprints would be a bit different from midgets and the big dirt cars.

As time went on they began to seal the driver into the cockpit of the sprinters. The racing still was (and is) great but they slowly lost their place (visually) as a close brother to those other two types of machinery.

Then in the 2000s the Dirt Cars, now Silvercrown Cars, went through a visual metamorphosis, that made these now primarily asphalt cars, look like they belonged on the planet Ork. I ceased to think of them as a part of this trio of cars that I loved so much.

I photographed my final races in 2007, and midgets were on the bill both times. They still had the feel (especially on dirt) of those same cars that I first saw in the early 1960s. No wings or aerodynamic aids. Again this is more true on dirt. Even on asphalt, for some reason, they were still midgets as I remembered them. Those wee little cars that seemed to be made for 10 year olds, but were truly the high speed machines of very brave grown-ups. It did not hurt that the final race of my career was a Badger Midget race at Angell Park in Sun Prairie Wisconsin. This place is midget auto racing.

I photographed many Badger, USAC, UMARA and Rocky Mt. Midget races in my career.

The two pictures of night time dirt racing were made at Sun Prairie and the asphalt shots were made at the Milwaukee Mile as part of an IRL race.

In actuality I loved all forms of oval track competition and covered many, many stock car races. I also enjoyed an occasional road race, and photographed one off road race in Crandon, Wisconsin. I also covered one NHRA drag race in Colorado, and enjoyed the ear splitting sounds and the incredible speeds it provided. One trip to the Pike’s Peak Hill Climb was a blast as Bobby Unser won the stock car division and I saw a young Rick Mears for the first time.

In the end there was never anything as good (photographically speaking) as a great dirt race. Four wheel drifts, wheels off of the ground and dirt coming off the rear wheels. Of course if I was doomed to three or four dust bowls in a row, I would usually make the switch to the black top for a few weeks. After cleaning my equipment that is.

Thanks for stopping and I will talk to you next time.

A New America?

I recently wrote another article for a different blog.  A portion of that article contained some info and pictures from the good old days when I used to make car racing images for publications.  You will of course find more photos and info in the first post on this blog  Below you will find two paragraphs from the post belonging to the other blog.

Car racing is sponsorship driven. One only needs to watch a post race interview to know that. It is definitely a sport that embraces the free market Capitalist model of life, and this does not suit some 21^st Century Americans.

As a photographer (back in the day) it was up to us to tell the true story of the race, but without shame for its Capitalist leanings. The top levels of drivers make (like most athletes, entertainers, etc) millions and millions of dollars, but there is no players union so to speak. They are on their own to receive as sweet or bitter of a contract as they can negotiate. They seem to like to have their lives in their own hands. Racing is however an absolute team sport. I as someone who was once sort of on the inside, can tell you that the person who cleans the restrooms at the shop is never made to feel any less than anyone else on the team.

A comment was made, by someone who chose (on this blog) to remain
anonymous.  Among the many portions of my article they took offense to was my mention of the janitor being considered a part of the team too.  He promoted his point by asking the question of "how much less does the custodian make than the driver?"  He added "how much less does the custodian make than one of the mechanics on the crew?"  He proclaimed that a "phony" (his words) pat on the back won't pay his bills.

My own question is do I still live in the same country I grew up in? 

I am currently dirt poor and many years ago while I was building a business, I worked part time for a janitorial service.  I have absolutely nothing against janitors.  It is an honorable and worthwhile profession.

Where has this new America come from?  Why in the world should the janitor make as much as the person (the mechanic) who has the unique skill and knowledge to help build and maintain a car that wins the prize money that pays the wages of himself and the janitor.  It is amazing to me that anybody would think that the janitor should also be on an equal pay scale as the driver who in addition to driving the car to the finishes that win that same prize money, is able to attract and satisfy the sponsors who pay the bills to make everything possible.  As near as I can tell, you get paid in the real world based on how unique your talents are, and how much money you make for the company you work for. That money makes it possible to hire all of those that work for and provide services to the company. The driver has several special talents or he will soon be sent packing.  To a lesser degree the same is true for the mechanic. Four out of five people walking down the street can fulfill the janitors duties. That driver and the mechanic could probable handle the janitorial job but I am not so sure about the janitor handling the other two jobs.  If he/she can, then he/she should persue one of those professions. That was called pursuing the American Dream.

The commentator went on to say that the same injustice occurs when a plant manager of a factory is paid three times the wages of an assembly line worker.  Yes, you guessed it, I once worked on an assembly line in an outboard motor factory.  A chimpanzee could have done my job.  The plant manager knew every job in the factory, as he worked his way up through the ranks. If the commentator's assembly line worker was as good as the plant manager, he /she should set that as their goal.  The day might just come when they are the plant manager.  I do know that the plant manager will be the first to go if that plant loses money.  That is just as it should be and is one of the reasons that he makes more than the assembly line worker.

The great thing about America or any democracy (representative republic) is that we can disagree and try to see to it, (through democratic means) that what we believe in, will become the way of the nation.  I am just not sure where so many in America turned the corner to believe that everyone or anyone automatically "has a right" to whatever anybody else has, without the expertise or blood sweat and tears, that others have garnered or given, in order to reach their accomplishments. I am guessing that the very same person who asks for monetary equality without neccessarily having the needed talent, or surely without paying the price, will be the first to complain when the product or service that he/she purchases, is sub-standard.  I think I am safe in that assumption.

The Outsider

Now back to race cars.

As with my first post on this blog any pictures you see below were made within the final four years I photographed car racing. I did very few events during that time. I captured only a couple of crashes and they were not the best images.  In earlier times at one point I photographed primarily dirt sprint cars for four Years. A lot of crash (flips, etc.) shots resulted but only a small percentage of those negatives, prints and slides still exist, and frankly I have little desire to search around for them and do scans.

The race cars pictured below is (was?) a group of classic stock cars.  They were all modeled after well known cars from the past and were built to resemble them.  These are real race cars and they were racing at Lake Geneva Raceway in Wisconsin, round about 2006.  I do not have the names of the owners or drivers but below I have listed who would have been driving the car when it was originally raced.

The David Pearson driven, Holman & Moody owned, NASCAR 1969 Ford Torino (#17 inside), and the LeRoy Yarbrough driven, Junior Johnson owned, mid 1960s NASCAR Chevy.

The #27 NASCAR Junior Johnson 1964 Ford and the 1970 USAC Roger Mcluskey/Norm Nelson driven, Norm Nelson owned 1970 Plymouth Superbird.

The same USAC Plymouth with the NASCAR 1968 Plymouth Roadrunner #43 that was driven by Richard Petty.

The 1957 short track Chevrolet driven by local driver Vaughn Gerke

I thank you for stopping by!