Once again we grabbed the cooler, some beers, a couple sandwiches, the camera, and headed up to Barona Speedway for the last race of the season. A few more friends and my dad accompanied us, a great odd bunch we were. It was a bit cooler but man was the track tacky. All that grip lead to lots of exciting side-by-side, and often three-wide, door-to-door battles!
This time around, we went straight to the top of the main bleachers and found some seats with a great view for the night. I brought along with me my new Tamron 70-300 USD VC lens and figured it would be a good night to just get used to handling it. Physically larger and much heavier, I was not sure how my pictures would come out. Turns out I made a good purchase with this lens. The vibration control (Tamron's version of image stabilization) worked great hand held at 300mm while detecting, and graciously smoothing out, my spotty at best panning motion. The images are sharp with good contrast and in my not at all expert opinion, the focus is pretty damn fast, really an awesome lens for the price.
Gotta love this photo above of the #9 breast cancer research supporting team - I caught a second after the car's tire went flat..
Once again, it was really enjoyable watching the dwarf cars battle it out on this track. Man they look like fun! My pops even started talking to me about dropping out of LeMons and picking one of these up. The tracks are closer (this one only 35 mins away) we could run more races, and the cost is quite similar. I really love LeMons racing.. but I am giving it some serious thought.... maybe just maybe...
My new lens is nothing professional though.. so once it got dark.. things got difficult again. Still, I did manage to get a few good shots..
Was a great night, and I am bummed the season is over. There was one pretty bad wreck, thankfully again the driver was fine. Dirt track racing (verse other forms of auto racing) is really pretty safe.
In a few weeks we are heading up to Buttonwillow Raceway not to race but, to go see our friend Paul and many others race all sorts of road race cars. From classics to modern machines, it should be spectacular. I just hope we don't run into much traffic on the way up...
Here is a link to all the photos I uploaded from the night.. Enjoy!
Barona Speedway Photos 10-12-2013
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