A few weeks ago I wrote about the dos and don’ts of Las Vegas. One of the most important lessons I learned was to bring the appropriate footwear.
Now that I made it through eight days of Florida, and the 24 Hours of Daytona, I have realized I need to invest in even better shoes.
At a two-and-a-half mile racetrack, you tend to put a mile or two on your shoes. I brought a pair of very light runners, which gave me some fantastically painful blisters.
After treating the blisters, I decided to try my cowboy boots, which were the cause of my feet woes in Las Vegas.
Turns out they were more comfortable, even with a couple blisters, than the lightweight running shoes I brought.
Now that the race is over, I look back and realize I was not prepared for a 24-hour race. While I was prepared in every sense of doing the job of recording the race in still images, I was certainly not mentally prepared for the task ahead.
The race started at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 26, and ended exactly 24 hours later. A good number of the photographers do their best each year to stay up for the duration of the race, and as someone who has such a passion for the sport, I thought I could do the same.
There are a number of key moments that the 24 Hours of Daytona offers that must be covered. The race start, and the race finish which is key at any track. There are driver changes, where one driver gets out of the car after doing a two or four hour stint and a fresh driver gets in. This is done during the day and at night, so it is important to photograph both.
There is sunset, and sunrise, giving the cars a different look as the golden light of the sunset dashes across the track, or the white, foggy morning light at dawn. Lastly, at 11 p.m. the track gives a firework show to those still at the track.
I got photos from almost all of those events, except one.
After the fireworks, a few of us photographers decided to go get some fast food. (The continuous nachos and Mello Yello served at the track was starting to weigh on us.) This all happened at approximately midnight.
Once we got back to the track, I hit pit lane for about an hour, shooting driver changes and crew members frantically working on the cars. Fatigue was setting in. I got back to the media centre at around 1:30 or 2 a.m. in the morning. The place was a mixture of extremely tired PR people and a few photographers, with chairs and papers thrown across the room-length desks. A few heads lay across folded arms as makeshift pillows, as the evening naps began. I decided to head out to turn four and have a nap to refresh myself. Unfortunately, there were 57 cars in the race passing at about 275 km/h. It was a beautiful, intoxicating and noisy thing.
What was supposed to be a power nap turned into spectator time, as the thousands of horsepower swept through the turn kept me awake for an hour-and-a-half. I headed to the media centre at about 5 a.m. I tried crawling under my desk to catch a few blinks. It worked well. When I awoke, the sun was rising on track, but an incredibly foggy morning forced the organizers to throw a caution as drivers could barely see down the track. That was the shot I missed: sunrise.
I slept for no more than two hours, but felt beyond refreshed. Maybe it was just the sleep, but I think it had something to do with waking up at the world centre of speed that gave me the boost I needed for the rest of the day.
In the end, I got a great shot of the finish to add to the 15,000 images I took over the course of the eight days. With one 24-hour race under my belt, I feel that if the opportunity to go to the 24 Hours of Le Mans ever arose, I will be more than prepared!
If anyone is interested in checking out my work, it can be found in the photo section of www.motorsport.com
