At the Drag Races - The Run

Over the drag run the cars cover a quarter of a mile. There are different classes of fuel and designs.

In the first frame we see the "Top Fuel Pro Dragsters". The cars are coming toward the camera at about 200 mls an hour at this point. Look carefully and you can see the flames from unspent fuel venting from the exhaust pipes!

When you are panning with your camera the best place to catch a moving object is when it is about 45 degrees to the perpendicular to you. At that point it is coming toward you and your panning speed is low. You are moving the camera a short distance while they are traveling a long distance in the same time. The top frame was taken at this angle.

The shot gets more difficult to take as the cars get close to perpendicular to you. Thier relative speed is also the actual speed. So to take a shot you need to be panning the camera at the same speed as the moving car. In the middle frame the cars are approaching the perpendicular to me. At this point, this class of car is traveling at about 190 mph as I am near the finish. So I am panning my camera at almost the same speed to get this sharpness.

In the third frame you can see the little boxes in the middle of the track that time the cars. Each box times the car at a different segment of the run so the race statistics reflect the acceleration at different stages of the race. Each run takes between 4.7 and 10 seconds depending on the class of vehicle and the track conditions. A slight headwind on the day of this race meant that the cars in the top frame were getting runs of around 5.4 seconds with a potential terminal velocity of about 310mph.

All three shots were cropped and mounted but otherwise SOOC.

Each of these shots can be seen separately in a sequence starting here...
http://365project.org/netkonnexion/number03/2011-05-01

Next article... http://365project.org/netkonnexion/anotherone/2011-06-01
Previous article... http://365project.org/netkonnexion/anotherone/2011-05-31
The first drag racing article... http://365project.org/netkonnexion/365/2011-05-30

My other albums:
http://www.365project.org/netkonnexion/anotherone/
http://www.365project.org/netkonnexion/number03/

1st June 2011 1st Jun 11