After a long season coming for the NHRA tour it came down to the final race at the most historic track on the NHRA circuit in Pomona, CA. On top of the high number of professional cars it is always a great event to cover for the fact that the champions will be crowned in all classes. This is a long blog but I assure you its a good one!
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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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Race two of the three races on the Western Swing brought us to one of my favorite tracks on the NHRA circuit, Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, CA. I usually have pretty good luck at this track so I was hoping to continue the streak this weekend.
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Following the wild and exciting weekend I had in Bristol at my last NHRA race I pretty much knew this weekend would not be near as good for photos but I was still excited to check out Route 66 raceway in Joliet, IL. This track along with Denver, CO and Brainerd, MN are the three remaining tracks on the NHRA tour I have not yet been to.
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When I came to Topeka, KS for the NHRA Summer Nationals I was expecting an easy weekend of shooting the races during the day and relaxing at night. Little did I know I would spend an evening listening to Tornado sirens and then actually seeing my first tornado form before my very eyes!
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Another weekend, another NHRA race, this time at Atlanta Dragway, one of the few remaining NHRA tracks I had not yet been to. Luckily for me the track was like all the other ones where it was a straight line with a starting line and a finish line so I was pretty confident I would be able to figure it out…
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After missing the race in Charlotte due to another shoot I was happy to get back on the circuit at Royal Purple Raceway near Houston, TX for my fourth NHRA race of the 2011 season. It would end up being an interesting race with two predictable pro winners and two surprises.
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A week earlier I was on the east coast covering NASCAR in Daytona, a few days later it was over to the west coast to shoot the season opening NHRA Winternationals. As everyone knows, drag racing is one of my favorite sports to shoot. With that in mind it was off to Pomona, CA motivated as hell to start off my 2011 NHRA season with some good shots!
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Indy Car has the Indianapolis 500, NASCAR has the Daytona 500, but when it comes to NHRA the grand daddy of them all is the U.S. Nationals. With all the different sports I shoot it has gotten harder and harder for me to be able to fit NHRA in my schedule but when the race fell on an open weekend in my schedule I just had to shoot this race. Strap in, here we go!
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It has been a while since I last shot the 300mph cars of the NHRA so I decided that I had to hit up their annual visit to the wine country of Sonoma, CA. Flights and rental cars were rather expensive for the weekend so I decided to make it a road trip and drive up to the San Francisco area. Lets get on to the racing.
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