Race Car Drivers

I’ve been struggling to find a visual story to tell at the sprint car races. I’ve never been the least bit interested in automobile races, but got some cheap tickets to the last event of the season two years ago and it’s turned into something of a challenge.

At first I was cynical and thought I could show some of the hypocrisies and fissures in Trump country. The races really are over-the-top patriotic and the gimme, gimme type Christian bullshit. But my cynicism was overwhelmed by the shear wholesomeness of it all. It’s very much a family thing. A guy I was talking with last night was proud to tell me how rare it was for a parent to know what his teenage son was doing on a Saturday night, but when your kid’s a racer, you always know, and you’re right there with them. Of course my first thought was yea, but your kid’s hauling ass around a dirt track with a bunch of other crazy drivers and spectacular crashes happen every night, but I realized it’s a lot better than my childhood when we were doing similar crazy driving, only fucked up out of our minds without all the safety measures and no fire and medical personnel to attend to us when we crashed. Well, maybe not better from the kid’s perspective, though probably, but definitely not from the parent’s. I sure as hell didn’t want my kids to be like me in that respect. These parents very much do. And the kids mostly love it, as far as I can tell.

Last summer was mostly a loss. I got a couple okay pictures, maybe one genuinely good one. I was floundering with no idea to guide me, visual or otherwise. And last night I wasn’t seeing anything either. I decided I’d just quit taking photos and talk to people instead. So I spent most of the time just chatting people up, asking about how the season was going, and how they were doing in the standings.

At some point it occurred to me that just doing it as straight documentary was probably the best option, and that if nothing else, I could just take portraits of the racers and get something with some kind of depth, so I spent some time doing that, first during golden hour, then with flash.

Nashville was the first time I’d used the little off-camera flash and I think you can see, if you scroll back up to the top, that experience helped.

The time between races when the teams work on the cars is interesting as well. I should be able to work on that and get something good.

And as mentioned above, the family aspect is perhaps the most interesting thing about the races.

You can see from those photos that the trailers are an important visual element, so I have a lot of room to capture that aspect of the proceedings. The trailers haul the vehicles, but also serve as mobile repair shops, and places where family and friends hang out.

There are a couple other scenes to round out the visuals. The crowd and of course the race itself. I have yet to get any of those shots worth showing, but the season lasts until September, so my odds are fair.