Last Saturday July 6 I went up to Lime Rock Park in northwest Connecticut to view and shoot the 2013 ALMS (American Le Mans Series) Northeast Grand Prix. Lime Rock is a road race track set in a beautiful park setting. ALMS is an US version of Le Mans racing. The original Le Mans is a 34-hour endurance race in which teams of drivers compete to see who can cover the most distance over a grueling 24-hour period. Other Le Mans races vary this formula, but all feature mixed classes of cars competing together. This is the last year of the American Le Mans Series, as it has been bought by the Grand Am Sports Car Series, and I’m not quite sure what that means for the sport.

I admit I had no idea who was competing or even what the different classes of cars are. I believe this is the #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 458 Italia GTs, from the GT class. It was driven by Olivier Beretta and Matteo Malucelli, and finished 10th in its class and 23rd overall. It looks pretty good, though. I had never tried shooting a race before, and tried a variety of techniques, but had the most fun panning with the cars like this. I think my success rate for getting the car sharp and in focus with this method was between 10 and 20%, but the good news is the cars just keep going around so there were plenty of chances to try.