It’s back to #wheelswednesday on my Blog and today’s post includes some of my thoughts about the SEMA show and my own humble attempts at drag racing. It’s also National Jelly Bean Day.
Today’s Post by Joe Farace
“Don’t lift until the fear of death overcomes the fear of speed.”–Popularized by Street Outlaws personalities Farmtruck and AZN.
There was a time when, as part of Tortuga Racing, I was involved in import drag racing on a very amateur level. I was never really good at it, much as I wasn’t in any of my other motorsports endeavors, with the possible exception of TSD rallying, but I did have lots of fun. The car I raced was a bone stock, limited edition Volkswagen GTI 337. At the 2002 New York International Auto Show, VW announced the GTI 337 would be sold in the US Market and would only be available in Reflex Silver; It was essentially the same car as the European 25th Anniversary GTI. While my car had a 185hp turbo-powered engine, it was a far cry from the dedicated drag racing MOPAR Pro Stock racer that’s featured today.
It’s All about Speed
Mopar (a combination of “motor” and “parts” and is an car parts, service, and customer care division of the former Chrysler Corporation that is now owned by Stellantis. The term was created by an internal activities council and Chrysler first used it in 1937 for a product name to put on cans of antifreeze. This new product became known as “MoPar antifreeze.” Mopar parts are original equipment manufactured parts but among car enthusiasts the term passed into broader usage as an unambiguous reference to vehicles produced by the former Chrysler Corporation.
How I Made this photograph: When I had magazine credentials, I was able to get a press pass for the Specialty Equipment Manufacturers Association (SEMA) car show that’s held annually in Las Vegas. This show is members-only and the public is not invited making getting any kind of a ticket a challenge. For a car enthusiast, attending the show is dream and for a car photographer it is an intensely immersive experience.
I photographed this Pro Stock drag race car using a Canon EOS 7D and EF-S18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS lens (at 20mm) with a Program mode exposure of 1/80 sec at f/5 and ISO 1250 with a plus one-third stop of exposure compensation. I typically use Program mode when shooting car shows whether they are indoors or outside because I often have to act spontaneously and just grab a shot in these kinds of crowded situations. The expected noise at ISO 1250 was so well controlled that I didn’t use any kind of noise software for this image. What you see is what you get. In fact, there was no image manipulation at all except for slight cropping and the simulated flare via Photoshop. The EF-S18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 lens is far from flarey and I did use a lens hood but to balance the image I digitally added lens flare in the upper left-hand corner using Photoshop’s Render>Lens Flare command.
Along with photographer Barry Staver, I’m co-author of Better Available Light Digital Photography that’s available from Amazon for $24.50 prices with used copies starting at sixteen bucks. The Kindle version, for some reason, is expensive.