Shooting Talladega Superspeedway

Click to Enlarge

Gallery Preview

Click to view (33 Total)

Few places can envelope your senses like a NASCAR track on race day. The smells of hot oil, gasoline and burning rubber waft through the air and surround you. Everywhere you look you see bright, neon colors, and the sound of 700-plus horsepower engines growling to life seems to physically churn the air.

Among all of this there's an ordered chaos -- crew members running from garage to pits, officials checking the cars, safety personnel checking equipment and getting into position around the track. And then there's the media -- everywhere you look, throngs of photographers stand at the ready, waiting for the decisive moment when a car goes airborne or when the driver who started near the back of the pack takes the checkered flag.

"It's almost the perfect job," says David Griffin, a photo enthusiast and NASCAR fan who has found a way to merge two of his loves into a steady career. A nine-year veteran of the circuit, Griffin works as an Assistant Photo Editor for NASCAR Scene Magazine, and recently spoke about his job from the Talladega Superspeedway near Birmingham, Ala.

For Griffin and the dozens of fellow photographers geared up on this spring day, covering a track like the Talladega Superspeedway is a daunting task. The track itself is 2.66 miles for one lap and has a 30-plus degree banking on the turns. This is so steep that drivers must run pace laps at 90 miles an hour to generate enough down force and centrifugal force to keep the cars from sliding down the track.

Typically, a professional driver can make a lap at the Talladega Superspeedway in less than 45 seconds -- speeds that equate to around 195 miles an hour. These speeds are so fast that if you have to raise your camera up to your eye to focus and shoot, you've already missed the shot. By the time you are ready to shoot, the cars are a full half mile down the track and out of sight.

"If you are covering a certain area particularly watching for wrecks, have your camera up and ready to shoot," advises Bob Crisp, an award winning staff photographer for the Talladega Daily Home. "When cars are going 200 miles per hour there is no time to pull a camera up from your hip."

Unlike some of the bigger organizations that follow NASCAR, Crisp covers his hometown track with a skeleton staff, even using his son Cody, who isn't a professional photographer, to help stake out key positions.

"Jerry Martin, our other staff photographer, comes to the track very early and shoots all the pre-race activities," he says. "Jerry shoots the green flag lap from a position directly across from the flag stand. After the opening lap he makes his way to shoot some from the pit tower and spends most of the race in the pits. With 25 to 30 laps to go he goes for a position in Victory Lane. I, on the other hand, roam. I start the race from a tower position. I shoot there through at least one pit stop before heading inside the track. Once inside I spend several laps in the backstretch tower and shoot from an opening in the fence near turn four. I shoot the last 35 to 40 laps from the pits where most of my better photos will come from."

• Print
• Stumble It