Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Brickyard weekend

You might know, along with my art, i like to talk about a few other of my favorite things here, movies, music, and motorsports.

Last weekend i got the opportunity, thanks to my dad, to go to the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis. I've been to a bunch of races before, but this was my first Nascar race. It was a really fun time and a great race. Here are some of the photos from the race.

We got there early in the morning and i got some photos of the track while the sun was coming up










And before the race started, we went on a tour of the garage and pits








I managed to get a few good shots during the beginning of the race as well.





The coolest part of the weekend was when we got the vip treatment and went down to victory lane to get our photo taken with race winner, Jamie Mcmurray. While we were down there waiting, we got on TV, in the background of Speed channel's Victory lane show. all in all, a very cool ending to the race.

so here's McMurray, doing a burnout on the finish line.


and here's his tire afterwards


and here's a photo i took of speed channel filming us


and a couple of shots i got while McMurray was being interviewed by the press and taking photos with his big sponsors.



And there you have it, another great race weekend. Back to some more art.

5 comments:

Espen said...

Wow, cool Will! I'm a huge motorsports fan myself, but that's mainly Formula 1 (very understandable as I'm a European), but I have nothing against NASCAR or IRL, I used to watch those classes a lot more before.

Was this your first time attending a NASCAR race? I know that first time, it's incredible - especially the noise!

Will Appledorn said...

Yeah, i haven't watched nascar in around 10 years, so i was a little out of it, but these things are fun no matter what.

and yes, it was my first Nascar race, the difference between these cars and the open wheels, just the sound, is really impressive ( not so hard on the ears too)

Espen said...

Really? I attended my first Formula 1 race back in 2004 when they still had V10 engines - and the noise was extreme when they passed me the first time!

I've never attended any stock car/touring car races, so I don't know about the difference in sound, but I get chills when I hear the engines from the NASCAR broadcast on the telly. Incredible!

Will Appledorn said...

oh yeah, i forgot about the engine changes.

i saw f1 the last three years at Indy, and the way that the acoustics work in a stadium setting like that, with such a high pitched whine, it's almost impossible to not wear ear plugs. we had seats one year right where they opened up the throttle to the back straight and it was deafening.

nascar on the other hand, have a much lower pitched roar to the engines, equally impressive, but not so hard to listen to. not to mention, their exhaust is aimed out the right side, so it's less loud in the infield.

Espen said...

Woah, I haven't thought about the different accoustic caused by the stadium-like stands! And I guess it must have been deafening by having seats at the very beginning of the banking on that track.

But very cool that you've been to a F1 race three times - have you seen F1 on other track than Indy?
I was at Spa. Absolutely MAGICAL, let me tell you that!

And yes - I think too that NASCAR must be more bearable, though I haven't been to any races live. But it says a lot when the sound is very comfortable and still raw when watching on the telly!

I must attend a NASCAR race and Indy 500 sometime, that's two life goals of mine!