[rollei_list] Re: Toyota (Tecate) Grand Prix, Long Beach CA

At 05:30 PM 3/27/2006 -0800, Slobodan wrote: 
Yes, Eric. However, in this activity, ortho-praxis of the spectacle
is everything. It's no worse, or better, than any other human
activity. If anything, seeing the level of passion that it can
elicit, it's no surprise that car racing is the number one sport in
the country. Never mind the charged level of pheromones that by the
end of the second day of racing is wafting through the whole atmosphere.

Slobodan Dimitrov
Studio G-8,
Angels Gate Cultural Center
http://sdimitrovphoto.com

I went to what I recall as the second LB Grand Prix and shot both racing pictures and pictures of people. I'm not sure how to say it so I'll just say it:

One of the outstanding things I remember taking pictures of are of the many "ladies" with extradorniarliy large upper parts. Wish I could find those shots. There were just so many! Guess it goes with racing. Never brought them out with my wife around, so I must have tucked them away in a safe place.

Because they had rather poor crowd control, I could go just about anywhere and take pictures there for 10-15 minutes until someone found me and hauled me off. I got to places where I could shoot head-in at turns, in turns, and at the back of the cars at turns. Very interesting, and now I realize, not really good judgement on my part. The barriers they had then (and now I suppose) were not that good if you were leaning against them to shoot through the rails or bars.

I also got some shots of Mario Andretti pulling into a little by-way (the course was not so clean those days) and throwing his helmet to the ground. I think he had killed his car.

I went again several years later when a company I bought from sponsored a car and we had pit passes. About the only memorable shot from then was one I had someone else take of me and

Kirstie Alley in a tight hold.  She was very trim in those days.

I think, therefore, I have both racing pictures and "racing culture" pictures.

Regards, and have fun.






Don Williams
La Jolla, CA

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