Winchester Speedway Sprint Car Races

Uh Ohhhh, Wreck time, originally uploaded by BillyCrafton.

Sunday, I checked out the Sprint Car Races in Winchester, IN with Terry Watson, Bob Coyle and Terry Cavanaugh.

It's the first time I've tried to shoot auto racing and I worked on my panning technique at slower shutter speeds. It's a little tough to get a sharp photo of the cars at a slow shutter speed to show active motion by blurring the background and showing tire rotation.

In this photo, these 2 cars were racing hard for the lead. I think 17 bumped the rear tire of 67, causing it to skid and resulted in 17 crashing into the side. This was on the exit to turn 4. #17's right front wheel was damaged but 67 was able to continue and won the race.

These guys were flying around this 1/2 mile track in 14 sec. and I was shooting at 1/320 sec in shutter priority mode.

Rolex Cross Country Event 4/26/2008

Tipperary Liadhnan, originally uploaded by BillyCrafton.

This past Saturday, I took the family down to the Kentucky Horse Park and watched a little of the Cross Country Jumping event. I only got to see 4 horses before they paused the event because of an accident.

During the day, there were 2 accidents that resulted in the euthanization of the horses. One accident was pretty severe as the rider had the horse going too fast and it's front legs hit the jump, causing it to flip over and land on it's back, fracturing it's skull and causing damage to a lung. The rider was air lifted out but was in stable condition. She had severe rib injuries and punctured both lungs. It is very sad as the horse was Frodo Baggins and starred in The Lord of the Rings before his jumping career. He and his rider were on the short list for the Olympics.