12 Hours of Sebring Photos (56k enter at your own risk)

[robidunno]

So I got to the races today to watch the practices. I had a bag with a few lenses, but because of the amount of access to the cars and such, I didn't really need all that much. A close friend of mine got me the 4 day pass from his Uncle, who is in charge of the Medical Services for the race. So for a little bit of work, I get nearly full access to the race. This includes a scissor lift just past Start/ Finish nest to the track. On to the pictures... I took in the first day over 500 pics, so this isn't going to scratch the surface. I resized several to show you all. I'll try to get many of the pics posted to share, but it might take a little time to go through them all. I hope you like them, and any suggestions will be appreciated. I also realize that the pics aren't all ALMS cars. They have Nostalgia races with Trans Am cars, as well as several other classes.

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/elva1.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/vette2.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/TAMustang1.jpg

Below is the Camaro that was built by Smokey Yunick, and later owned by the Edelbrock family.
http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/smokey1.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/Mazda1.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/porsche1.jpg
http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/viper1.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/VP1.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/mustang1.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/Caddy1.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/GTR.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/ferrari2.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/ferrari1.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/0071.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/0072.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/007.jpg

[flyjum]

sick pictures love the F430 on jacks

[86SupraMKII]

sick pictures love the F430 on jacks

I 2nd that! And that Porshce GT3 looks hot!!! (love the arrow above the tow hook...like you wouldn't be able to find it...? OH! There it is!!!)

[Greg G]

Outstanding.... post up a link to the rest of the pix if you arent going to show them all here. I wanna see everything!

[Username]

Nice pics Ill be there tomorrow and sat Im leaving tonight. Maybe Ill see you there(even though I dont know what you look like lol)

[Tire Shredder]

wicked!!! I sooo regret not getting any pictures from ALMS, so hard to get decent motion shots. thanks for sharing!

[robidunno]

Greg, I've taken a couple thousand already. I'm going to post a link if I can to alot of the others. I'm planning on putting some more when i can.
Got some gorgeous shots last night during night practice. The Speed Touring cars are going to be racing later today.
Don't think that I'm missing anything by being online right now cause I'm actually trackside! The best sounding cars out here are by far the Corvettes and the Panoz. The Ferrari's are nice, but they pop and hiss as they're letting off the gas in the corners. The Peugeot and Audi's are eerily quiet for being Diesel.

Username - I'm spending alot of time just past pit lane on the far side of the Medical building just before turn 1.

[BuddyJ]

I see a MORGAN!!!! Nice photos!

[XsupramanX]

Awesome pics.... Those cars look amazing.... I WANT that CAMARO!!!

[Malloy]

More more more!! Awesome stuff....I went to Sebring a few yrs ago with a similar pass and I didn't have a camera :( I even got to ride in the A6 pace car ;)

Oh, I agree...the Vettes sound so badass its hard to explain. I thought I would like the Ferraris and Astons....but the Vettes really sounded insane.

[Tire Shredder]

More more more!! Awesome stuff....I went to Sebring a few yrs ago with a similar pass and I didn't have a camera :( I even got to ride in the A6 pace car ;)

Oh, I agree...the Vettes sound so badass its hard to explain. I thought I would like the Ferraris and Astons....but the Vettes really sounded insane.

It sounds like they run on melted down ferrari engines.....or babies

[robidunno]

Ok folks, don't think I've forgotten about this. Yesterday was just insane. I was at the track for about 20 hours. Didn't leave till about midnight last night. Right now I'm trying to sort out the pics that I took. All together it's between 2000-2500 total. Yesterday alone was 1600. I've got some time before I get on the plane, so I'll put up some of the REALLY kick ass pics here shortly. As I"m going back through the files I'm still hearing the cars driving by in my head. Ipod!!! We don't need no stinking Ipod!! (sorry if this sounds stupid. It was a really short night.)
As things were still going, I decided to take our Golf cart through the team Paddock to see the cars that had pulled out, ad talk to them for a bit. I ended up talking to Lou Gigliotti (owner of LG Motorsports) for a little while just after they dropped out. After that I went to the 007 GT2 Aston Martin. They said that they were running great up until they ran into a wall. All in all, everyone was in good spirits and quite friendly even if they had a major mechanical and had to drop out.

[robidunno]

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/Vette1.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/RF2.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/RF1.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/lizzard1.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/ferrari1-1.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/Dyson1.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/DHL1.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/008Aston.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/007Aston.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/GTR-1.jpg

[robidunno]

These are some of my favorite motion shots. They took ALOT of practice panning, and even then it didn't always work out. The number 7 DHL Porsche was the Overall as wel as the P2 class winner.

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/DHLWinner.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/Audiglow.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/Berry.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/Audi.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/Dyson2.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/DHL1-1.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/Lizzard.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/Porsche.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/porsche2.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/Vette.jpg

[Solo1Supra]

Great shots Rob....I'd love to see Sebring or Daytona some year.
Those shot are the next best thing to being there. Thank You.

[ABUSEDDOG]

Really enjoyed the last set. Make sure to pass on any tips and/or camera settings. I'm hoping to get to the champ car race in edmonton this year.

[robidunno]

Because of where I was at I didn't use a big lens like the pros surrounding me did. Just practice panning with the cars. (alot if you're using digital where you dont waste film!) Most of the time I was using the kit lens (18-55 Nikon) with a Nikon D40x body. I tried using the tripod, but ended up just free handing most all of it. Some of the time I was taking several pics trying to get different shots as it went by, but in the end just panned with it till I got what I wanted. If it didn't come out, I would just have to wait a couple minutes for it to come back. Because I'm still learning alot about the camera, and can't change things as fast as the action was happening, I used Auto for the ISO. If it was getting real dark, I would focus to the point that I wanted to catch the action, and hope that I catch it. In other words, it was blind luck for a bunch of the pics.
The best advice is what Greg said. Practice your panning.

[Supra GTR]

Rob: Great shots. Don't worry about the what gear the "pros" carry. Unless your day job is photography or you have serious bank, trying to keep up with the pros can be expensive. Their 400mm lens will set you back a decent mk2. When I went to Sebring I only had two lense, 28-200 and a 200-400. I still only carry two lenses with me to every track. Now they're just 24-70 and 100-400.

Panning is critical for motorsports. And it gets even more difficult with less lighting. Your photos definitely convey a sense of speed. :good:

- James R

[Tire Shredder]

wicked pictures! I had the same feeling last year too, when I had a shower and cleaned my ears out...I found some blood!! I blame the corvettes!

http://i25.tinypic.com/mmbw5f.jpg

[robidunno]

With the combination of work and school full time, I haven't gotten a chance to do much with the pictures that I took. I finally sat down and sorted the rest of the pictures out how I wanted them. Today i started to load some to my photobucket account. So... here's a link to what I have so far. I'll keep loading them into the album. As I totaled it all up, I took nearly 4000 pictures, and it's taking up close to 7 gigs of space on my computer.

http://s100.photobucket.com/albums/m28/robidunno/Sebring/

[Malloy]

4000 pics? You are a bad mofo!

I cant wait till we get HD feeds of these races.

[bb6mkII]

great pics man.

I truely miss SIR. before i moved to AR every spring we'd take my lude and my buddies MKIV during the scca meets and just tear around the short track, the final straight was brutal on the drivetrain, I lost my brand new $700 LSD to that track

id still go if it wasnt for the local drunks constantly flooding the in-feild area with only one reason to be there, which is to get wasted