After lots of football and basketball during the NHRA off season, I was more than happy to be heading to Pomona to kick off the 2012 season. Lots of new drivers, teams, paint jobs and for me clients had me super stoked for the season to begin.
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Nearly all my life I have been covering drag racing but never have I covered near as many events as I did in 2011. With that said lets jump right into the second to last “Best of 2011″ blog with my best drag racing photos of 2011.
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With the NHRA down to its final two races, the stop at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway would be a pivotal race for those with 2011 championship aspirations. With the largest nitro fields of the year it was sure to be a can’t miss race!
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After the previous weekend where 100 degree temps ruled the weekend in Dallas it was off to the green hills of Pennsylvania for the tours annual stop near Reading for what would be a record setting weekend at Maple Grove Raceway… Oh did I mention the weather was over 50 degrees cooler?!
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With the “regular season” of the 2011 NHRA tour in the books it was time for everyone to turn up the heat as the six race “playoffs” began at zMax Dragway near Charlotte, NC. The track referred to as the “Bellagio of drag strips” would treat us to a historically quick weekend!
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For the third weekend in a row I would find myself at yet another drag race, this time up in the Pacific Northwest as we wrapped up the “Western Swing” which took us to Denver, Sonoma and finally Seattle. I last shot at this track back in 2005, my last year in the Navy when I was stationed in the Seattle area. I have done pretty well at this track with getting some cool photos and this year would be no different.
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The last time I shot a drag race at Bristol was in 1991 when I was an 11 year old punk kid with an old Nikon FM2 film camera. My father Gil would put me on top of a motorhome near the finish line and only instruct me to push the button if I saw a crash or a fire. Well the last time I was here it was for an IHRA drag race and funny car driver Richard Hartman would have a big fire in front of me. I shot a sequence of the whole thing only to find out when I handed my dad the camera to take the film out that he had forgotten to load the film for me. I was devastated and am pretty sure I cried when I found out. Well fast forward 20 years and check out my return to Thunder Valley!
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