A couple of weekends ago went to Lime Rock Park for the Trans Am Memorial Day Classic. It was great to see and hear the roar of muscle cars including Camaro’s and Mustang’s. Hope you like the photos.

The top two classes of the Trans Am series are TA and TA2 which were on the track over three days

Friday – TA2 practice and qualifying.

Saturday – TA testing and practice, and the TA2 race.

Monday – TA qualifying and race.

This blog will be focused on the TA2 class since I was only able to be at this race event for Friday and Saturday.

Friday

After arriving at Lime Rock, left the car at the infield parking area near the camping grounds, then walked down the hill to The Esses. This part of the track offers many vantage points and angles to photograph the cars. Also, the tree- and grass-lined track adds great contrast to the cars racing past you. At 500mm you can get front shots of the cars “appearing” to be heading straight for you. Here’s Tom Sheehan in the #97 LTK Insulation Technologies Ford Mustang entering The Esses.

Frank Dalene in the #82 Telemark Inc Chevrolet Camaro.

What I like about the Trans Am series is the close racing. Steven Lustig in the #05 The Autosport Group Chevrolet Camaro taking the outside line from AJ Henriksen in the #44 EngineeredCompntsCo/AnchorBolt Chevrolet Camaro.

In the middle part of The Esses you can get an angle where it looks like the cars are speeding through the grass lined track.

Tony Ave in the #25 BC Race Cars Chevrolet Camaro flying out of The Esses.

After the session finished was lucky to find a location were you can get shots of the cars as they enter the paddock.

For the afternoon session headed to the top of the track to watch the cars speed down Back Straight into West Bend. Steven Lustig in the #05 The Autosport Group Chevrolet Camaro.

Saturday

For the TA2 race start at 1.15 pm, headed back to my favorite location, The Esses. Pole sitter Thomas Merrill in the #26 Mike Cope Race Cars Ford Mustang leading the field through The Esses at the start of the race. To fill the frame and to compress the shot used a 500mm lens with a 1.4x extender to give an effective focal length of 700mm.

During the race the #12 Berryman Products Chevrolet Camaro had to pull off the track which gave me an opportunity to get a photograph of the cool monster livery on the side of the car.

As I was watching the cars go through The Esses, I noticed flames would be emitted from their side exhaust pipes as they hit a braking point. So moved along this part of the track for some side panning shots, with the goal of getting a shot of the car with a flame exiting their exhaust pipe. Steven Lustig in the #05 The Autosport Group Chevrolet Camaro.

As the race progressed continued looking for new vantage points, so walked to Big Bend for shots of the cars speeding past the signage at the apex of this corner. The signage would add some color to the photo. For this shot to work, a slow shutter speed of around 1/5 of a second and focal length of about 70mm are needed.

Then used a focal length of 200mm to get panning shots of the cars which filled more of the frame. AJ Henriksen in the #44 EngineeredCompntsCo/AnchorBolt Chevrolet Camaro.

Moving a little to the right enables a different composition, this time with just the trees blurred in the background. Rafa Matos in the #88 3Dimensional Services Group Chevrolet Camaro.

Winners podium with race winner Thomas Merrill who led the race from start to finish in the #26 Mike Cope Race Cars Ford Mustang. Congratulations to all the podium winners and everyone in the TA2 race field.

Was great to get back to the race track after being away for a while. Thanks for spending your time reading this blog.