Spotlight: O’Reilly Raceway Park at Night

View this photo at Flickr

O’Reilly Raceway Park is a great facility, and the NHRA’s US Nationals is a fantastic event. One of my favorite parts of the event is the night qualifying. The cars of the high-powered nitromethane classes turn into fire-breathing dragons that assault your senses (in a good way!) as they rocket down the strip. I like how this photo captures the packed grandstands, the very well-lit track, a little of the midway and the smoke that hangs in the air near the starting line. And I love how it’s all surrounded by the blackness of the night and the sparsely populated area around the track.

This photo was taken from the top of the oval track grandstands which are located directly behind the drag strip and face the opposite direction. It’s about the highest and furthest away you can get without being in a helicopter. To get the shot and capture the power of the lights I mounted my camera on a tripod and used a four second exposure. If you look closely you can see motion in many of the flags that line the top of the grandstand.

Photo by Paul Woods, September 1, 2007.