It’s the spring of 2020, and I’m at the old Hi-Fi bar in downtown Tucson with my friends, having a good old-fashioned brunch day with the crew. Being 20-something college kids, you already know that “brunch” entailed next to no food, instead opting to use what little money we have to our name on ~$30 on bottomless mimosas that I’m sure I could find the bottom of. It was either that or they’d drag me away in cuffs, no in-between.
I was sitting there pounding my 13th glass of the fizzy fruity silly sipper, feeling good in my preppy neon green collared shirt with some fly Air Force 1s that had a matching color way when the most important thing of my adult life happened to me: I saw the Daytona 500 on TV blaring behind the collective of drunken, boisterous students, and I locked the hell in.
Watching the 500 that day scratched a long-dormant itch for me that I forgot existed, and I’m so happy that it did. I grew up going to races in Arizona with my dad and the other men in my family, but fell off those trips as I got older. Seeing the race in that bar started an obsessive downward spiral that reminded me who I am and culminated in me binging this new show called Drive to Survive. Much like the bottomless mimosas, I was trying to get to the bottom of that rabbit hole, and that dive into the abyss brought me to this last weekend, where I was photographing the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.
I thought moving to Los Angeles would be the nail in the coffin for motorsports, both because of the shuttering of venues like Fontana Motor Speedway and what I assumed would be cultural clashes between the state and the environmental impact of something like racing, but I’m so glad I was wrong. Fifty-one years in, this race has proven to be the closest thing the United States has to the Monaco Grand Prix, and honestly, I think it’s just as photogenic when talented photographers are given access to show it off to the world.
While I think I’m closer to the “talentless” side of the spectrum than I am the “talented,” I’m still choosing to spend my time showing y’all my images from the weekend with some occasional thoughts about them along the way.
Lighting
This is easily the hardest shot for me and probably several others to get. It’s a long straight that drivers get close to their top speed of ~180 mph, and you’re playing super heavily with extreme contrast from the bright midday sun and blackness underneath the pedestrian bridges. It takes a lot of attempts to land a shot here, but I always find it extremely rewarding when it hits. Here’s another from the same spot:
Another picture that plays with lighting a bit is this one of a Mustang GT3 coming out of turn six, which is a hilly section that quickly drops to the back straight, pictured in the two above. By exposing for the background environment, you get light that accentuates the curves and aerodynamics of the Mustang as it passes under the spectator crossover bridge.
Stadium Super Trucks
Stadium Super Trucks is easily the best spectator sport available to mankind. Racing is already a sensory overload that brings mass joy when you see, hear, and feel a car go buy at nearly 200 miles per, but when you have suped up trucks approaching 150 and hitting jumps placed in the middle of the track and balancing on three wheels as they navigate a 90 degree left hander, you realize just how crazy some of these racers are. Thank you for creating such a fun series, Robby Gordon.
Pits and People
Just Some More IndyCars in Action
Other Stuff I Can’t Think of a Title For!
I took plenty of other photos, but I also walked 30 miles in three days with a bunch of photo gear on me, so I think I’m gonna leave y’all with just this and catch some Zs in the meantime. Until next time, with love,
– Your Estranged Nephew, Griffin.
Top graphic image: Griffin Riley
Your Super Truck pictures are wild, and your people pictures are **chef’s kiss**. You’re very talented!!
Much appreciated friend! Tryna give people a bit of everything, yanno?
Great shots! The photo with the SSTs apexing with the front inside wheel off the ground cracks me up! I am so used to seeing hot hatches lifting the inside rear wheel.
never would’ve thought of an HH basically being inverted in terms of what’s in the air but it makes perfect sense!
Indy, Super Trucks, and Formula D? I really need to make it to the LBGP one of these days.
My son had a great time at the Utah stop of the FD series last year and I’ve been wanting to go to an Indy race for a while. I have a feeling we’d both love the Super Trucks.
Don’t forget IMSA! Multi-class racing makes for insane passes through the whole 100 minute race and required driver swaps really makes pit stops an interesting gamble.
Yeah, I wish I’d have made it when ALMS raced in Utah also. It was always a “maybe next year” until they dropped it from the calendar…
The Stadium Truck series is by far one of the best racing series in the world, full stop.
There’s an argument it ain’t the best, but most unique? Without a doubt. So many series race ovals, so many do street and road courses, there’s plenty of off-roading and rally series. But hauling ass in a truck and hitting jumps mid-course? Nah. Nothing like it.
Fantastic job(s), Griffin! Very well done!
Uncle A. Barth
Thank you Unc Barth!!!
Bravo. More.
Ask and you shall receive. Actually gonna post my film shots on my Instagram in a bit here.
Man, this year was my sixth straight at GPLB, and I always say it’s the best way to totally immerse yourself in racing. Since it’s a street circuit with pretty wide access, there’s always a new place to watch from, and there’s always something going on on-track, plus food and the expo and the beach and people-watching.
Couldn’t have said it better myself! Four years in and still loving it.
The top shot of the stadium trucks is UNBELIEVABLE. I cannot believe that is not the biggest racing series in the world! It looks like utter mechanized insanity.
My thoughts exactly! It’s GENUINELY great racing in a spec series; they’re constantly lifting at least one wheel in the turns, and the jumps are just the cherry on top. I love it.
Your photos are top notch. Don’t envy the sleeping guy on the boat. He’ll be peeling skin for a month.
Two things: 1) I’m hoping he was sufficiently sunscreened up to protect himself from the burn, and 2) I’m a lil bit more melanated than him, so I think I’d fare okay.
The best thing about indycar is how approachable it is, same goes for imsa. Coming from f1 races, i was shocked at how close i can get to the cars and access to the pits.
It’s also substantially cheaper. For indycars and imsa, general admission is the way to go because you aren’t tied to an expensive seat and can roam. Complete opposite for f1 where ga, you fight the crowd for a spot on the fence.
This is one of IndyCar’s most restricted events, as they have VIP paddock passes that aren’t included with GA, but it’s so cheap compared to anything F1 and you still get access to every other paddock like IMSA anyways so who cares!
Long Beach is probably top of my list for future racing trip, maybe next year!
HIGHLY recommend it! And it’s worth going on Saturday too, so you can see IMSA as well, as it’s also a premier series
I want to go after seeing these shots!
DOOOOOOOO ITTTTTTTT
You are so talented! Impressive that your people shots are as great as the action shots
Thank you so much! Honestly, the people were the big focus for me this time. The photo holes that media gets access to are the same every year (and this year they removed a bunch of them for some reason, leaving us with fewer options), so it can get stale. This time around, I was really focusing on different photo ops, going to different areas, hanging in pits, around crowds, etc. I think it paid off
OMG Ivan ‘Ironman’ Stewart’s Super Off Road type racing IS REAL??????
IT’S A BEAUTIFUL THING AIN’T IT
THIS TOTALLY MADE MY YEAR.
OFF TO YOUTUBE TO GO DOWN DEEP DOWN THIS RABBIT HOLE
Awesome stuff! Now I want to go…
Then my job here is finished 🙂 See you next year!
Stadium Supertrucks are like 1:1 Scale RC Trucks! They’re what I wanted driving to be when I was in middle school.
Seriously! And they actually had a little RC area right next to the SST paddock for kids to play around with scale models.
Stadium Supertrucks are amazing, absurd, and fantastic.
There’s seriously nothing like it. So much fun, so nonsensical
Great shots! Thanks for sharing! I’m curious what gear you used?
Sony bodies! Every wide shot was taken on my Sony A1 (first gen, not cool enough to have an A1II) and either with the Sigma ART 24-70 2.8 V1 or the Sigma Contemp 16-28 2.8 for the ultra wides, with the really blurry photos having a Tiffen ND filter on the front of them that cuts up to 8 stops of light. Long lens photos were taken with an A7IV and a Sony GM 70-200 2.8 V2 🙂
I also used my old 1930s film camera to shoot black and white shots but I don’t have my negs or scans back on that so I can’t speak to it yet.
Fabulous photos. 🙂
What ’30s camera are you using?
Mini Speed Graflex! It has a 120 film back, and I was shooting Ilford 100 and 200 out of it, trying my hand at some black and white. The lens is roughly equivalent to a full-frame 45mm lens in terms of its field of view. Aperture only goes to 4.5, leaf shutter tops at 200. The thing is bulky and SLOW
Nice, that’s definitely different experience.
jealous of how fun that looked and you got some fantastic shots.
Thank you! Always a blast being trackside, but this is definitely the most exhausted I’ve been in my life post race weekend, and I’ve shot Hammers and Pikes Peak.
Great shots Griffin! Is that Mercury Capri one of the drift cars I’m guessing? So cool that such an oddball rebadge from the 80s is still (at least visually) represented.
Nope! Every year, they do a historic motorsports race, sometimes having old Le Mans Group 1 cars, last year was Formula cars (really just anything open wheel), and this year was sports cars. Cougars, Mustangs, Camaros, and this insane flame-spitting Capri, amongst a bunch of others. Super fun!
Amazing photos as always, thanks for sharing! That look on Ericsson’s face totally captures the day he had.
For a 500 winner, buddy seems to have a lot of bad luck…