Bowman-Gray Modifieds

Thanx 4 the pix, Joe. Modifieds are just plain:hyper: exciting.
 
CB Most of these were taken during practice. I move around to different locations. We sit in turn one Sec 21 for the race. I'm still trying to learn how to get good night pic's with the cars at speed.
 
Those look about the same as the Featherlite Tour cars and the SK mods that run here in New England.
I can't speak for that group at Bowman-Gray, but the mod guys here in New England sure put on a great show no matter where they run.
Thanks for the great pictures.
 
Originally posted by Joe
CB Most of these were taken during practice. I move around to different locations. We sit in turn one Sec 21 for the race. I'm still trying to learn how to get good night pic's with the cars at speed.
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Try using very fast film (ISO 400 or greater), large aperture F-stop, and fast shutter speed. Experiment with aperture and shutter speeds........you should be able to get decent pics with a relatively good camera. Large apeture means focus is more critical, though.
 
boB, some of these guys have raced against the Featherlite bunch when they came down to Martinsville. Jr Miller, who has the 69 car always races with those guys. Of course, these guys aren't quite as fast as those boys from up north, but they're close. :)

Joe, we sit pretty close to where you do. We are just four or five rows up just north of the wall that runs up and down the stands. Now and then we get rubber thrown our way! :)
 
DEW, we have always tried to get pics with either our digital cameras or those automatics and of course, nothing seems to turn out. However, I'd like to get out the old 35 mm slr and give that a shot. But the last time I did that...up at Richmond, the pictures didn't turn out. I didn't have the film loaded properly. Man, those old cameras were hard to use and once you quit using them, you kind of forget how. How high of an F-stop using a 200 mm zoom?
 
CB We sit about half way down on the south side of that wall. I love to sit on the 1st row. You can almost reach out and touch'em. Wife don't like the 1st row. Are you going to the Friday 4/25 practice? I just put in for that day off. Joe
 
And they took Martinsville off the schedule this year.
If there is one track in the country that was modifieds, it had to have been that great little half mile.
I don't think they have any live TV coverage this season either.
Seems as if everyone is in love with the late models and everything else isn't worth the time to watch anymore.
Do you remember Ray Hendrick and Satch Worley?
That "Flying 11" Chevy coupe has to be one of the prettiest little race cars that ever ran anywhere.
 
Originally posted by buckaroo
How high of an F-stop using a 200 mm zoom?
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Depends on the lens. My Vivitar 70 - 210 mm zoom mounted to an old Canon A1 is F-22. Don't depend on automatic anything. Manual will give you better results with night shots. Like I said, focus will be the big factor with and large F stop.
 
I use my built in meter to get close to the settings. Then I bracket that setting. Night pics of fast moving cars, I would bracket with shutter speed instead of f stop. Set focus ahead of time and when car gets to that point take the shot.
 
Joe,
I've got an old Nikon, use either DX600 or DX800 film, set the aperature at the highest setting, and the shutter speed on PHI and have had pretty good luck.
The color isn't quite as sharp as with slower film, but it stops the action better. I'm using a 70-210 mm telephoto for the longer shots and a 28-80mm for around the pits and garage area, and the 50mm for most of the stuff in and around the media center, normal snapshot type stuff.
Should add that my camera isn't an autofocus, it does have a motor drive to advance the film and led's in the viewfinder to tell you if you're too far off with your settings.
I found the camera, with a flash, the telephoto lens, a 50mm lens, and even a camera bag, in a friend's pawnshop for $200. The 28-80mm lens was another $75, brand new on sale at Ritz Camera. I'd never used a decent camera before and while I have ruined some film, I've got some pretty professional shots from the races here at NHIS.
I tried a digital HP 215 but between a funky flash system, the poor viewfinder, and the shutter delay, had to resort to something more workable.
This old Nikon N2000 seems to be perfect for what I wanted and need. And parts are available to repair it if that should become necessary.
Even my wife is comfortable with the thing after about five minutes it took to show her how to use the different knobs and settings.
 
DEW, here's what I have. A Sigma 80-200 mounted on an old Ricoh KR-5. Nothing is automatic on this fella, but it does have a light meter...I guess that's what it is. You know, line up the marker with the speed. I'm pretty sure that's the F-stop, right? And I took a photography lesson once. Jeez, what you can forget. :)

Joe, you have probably seen me then. We always have our scanner with headphones on during the mod races.
 
Buck, just a guess but say your highest f stop is 22. Assuming 400 speed film, I would start off with a shutter speed of 1/500th of a sec. Take a couple shots. Increase to next highest shutter speed......take a couple shots. Then decrease to next lower shutter speed (from the 1/500th). Keep notes so you know what settings were for the shots. After a couple sessions you will get a pretty good idea of what you need. Remember the mercury vapor or sodium lights at the track will cause some color problems, but you can get lenses to correct for that (color correction lenses will mean you will have to go through the bracketing again, though). I would use outdoor film instead of indoor.
 
DEW, my lens goes up to 32 and bottoms out at 4.5 and speed tops out at 1,000 with 500 the next step down. What about flash? I've got just a small flash attachment to this camera.
 
Don't use flash........that automatically sets your shutter to about 1/60th of a second. Way too slow. An f stop of 32 would mean starting with a shutter speed of 1/250th or there about.......which may be too slow. I was using my settings on my camera. Before the race starts try figuring out where you might want to take a shot. Use the light meter in the camera to find a shutter speed for different f stops. Use the f stop that gives you some room to bracket with shutter speed. Then use the setting the meter gave you and bracket it. The higher the film speed the smaller f stop you can start with. A smaller f stop would make focus easier. I was just guessing (mostly from memory) what I thought a starting point would be......but use your meter to give you a starting point. You should be able to get some really good pictures after a couple times at the track.
 
I believe Tiny is a retired professional photograper.........he could help more than me.:) Alaska has posted some professional looking photos too. He may not be a pro but he sure looks like it.
 
I always wanted to get into photography, and only dabbled in it years ago. I bought this camer, along with the attachments probably about 20 years ago. As I said, nothing is automatic on it and it should take great pics if I only knew how! :) Back when I bought the zoom lens, I was taking pictures of boat racing on the Mississippi River near where I lived. I was using 1,000 speed film then and I got some really good photos. I got some great stop action shots by various techniques. Now, as I said, I buy a roll of 400 film and ruin it cause I don't load it right. I know I'm an old fart, but that was rediculous.
 
I've done that with loading film incorrectly. I didn't notice is until I got 40 some odd pictures on a 24 pic roll! Rewound and after a long time of winding, opened camera and saw the exposed film still on the take up reel. Could have been the film canister, but never figured out why I could keep ****ing the thing. Mystery to this day.:D
 
I also didn't release the roll and forced it and that ruined it as well. You gotta use this stuff to stay up with it. :)
 
Well my digital cam gives me problems too. I can't figure out how the turn off the auto flash!! I tried to take pictures of our Christmas tree without flash and I never got it to do it........finally put a piece of black electrical tape over the damned flash lens to get my picture.:D
 
LOL Today at the Preview, I began taking pictures of the cars. After a couple of pics, I couldn't get it to work. I had somehow earlier corrupted the smart media and had the wife fix it. I thought that was what was wrong again, but she couldn't remember how she reformatted the disk. I changed batterys thinking that might be the problem. Then I realized that the disk was full and that I'd have to delete some pictures. At the highest quality 640X480, I can only get 22 photos. I had a bunch of junk on the disk, so I only needed to delete them. Right? Yeah, how do you do that? :) The wife tried and couldn't remember and finally, I played around with it and figured it out. In doing so, I deleted a good picture of the #49 car and didn't find that out til I got home. :mad: Hey, I keep the manual right where I can find it...at home!
 
Great shots of the mods...love that form of racing, wish it got more exposure, it is definetly a Back East form of racing. The Mods out here at the local track have narrow tires and don't look agressive like the SKs or tour Mods back in New England.
 
DH, these mods are North Carolina mods. They don't hold a candle to those boys from back east. Of course, they don't have near the amount of money in them either. :)
 
great pics man.
too bad NASCAR Winston cup still don't race there.
that track would be cool.
 
Originally posted by j ozzman 5000
too bad NASCAR Winston cup still don't race there.
that track would be cool.
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They wouldn't be able to field 43 cars. The mods field 24 at the most and that's a bunch for this little track. I'm just trying to imagine what it was like, but we see the late models race (sportsman class) and that's great too.
 
Originally posted by buckaroo
They wouldn't be able to field 43 cars. The mods field 24 at the most and that's a bunch for this little track.
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don't let the nobody's qualify.
maybe they aughta let them race the winston there.:D
 
One quarter mile, totally flat. It goes around a football field that Winston Salem State University uses for their home field. During the races, only the pace car and a few officials are in the infield. They are of course protected with boiler plate barriers. The pits are located at one end of the track, with the entrance in turn three and the exit in turn four. The track is surrounded by boiler plate barriers with the exception of the two gates. The track record for getting around it is 13.458 seconds, 66.875 miles an hour. That's getting around that little track.
 
Ok, I was a photographer in thue 70s, 80s & 90s. I use to cover BGS in the 80s. A friend mof mine was the press flack there. We always shot from then fotball endzone about 20 feet from the inside wdge of the track. I always used 35mm. SLR cameras and 400 ASA film withn a big flash. The correct way is the pan the shot. It like following thru a golf swing. You don't stop as soon asn you taen the shot but keep followint the car. Use manual focus and pre-focus the spot where you want to tae the shot. Pic up the car in the view finder before it gets to that spot, take the picture when it gets to the spot, and follow thru after the shot.
Remember even though the camera shutter speed in usually 1/60 or 1.125 a second the atcual flash speed is faster (mili-seconds).
As far as digital cameras are conserned we didn't have them when I was shooting. I am thinking about buying on and have ask experts about them. From what I understand about them they are not very good for taking fast moving subjects. There is a small delay from the tim e you push the shutter button untill the picture is scanned on to the part of the camera that atcualy regestures the picture. The only thing I can tell those of you using digital cameras is try going to a fast highway and taing pictures of the trafic untill you figger how tho get good pictures. Remember the cars at BGS arn't averaging muc more than 55 to 60mph. At least you arn't burning film.
 
Thanks Tiny. I've got both digital and 35 mm cameras. We've tried using the digital at the stadium, but with not very good results. The bad thing about using the 35 mm is the cost of film and processing. I'll bet you got some pretty great shots back when you were covering the stadium.
 
Real Hot Rods!...of course I'm talking about the Mods...not to take away from the Drags!
 
Fil is cheep.I use to bu t in bulk at Wal-Mart. I use Kodak 400 & Max 800 (when tcme aable) It's the processing that's expenssive. Most of the papers took the film back and processed it themselfs.

http//tinysphotos.homestead.com
 
mod.jpg


BGS mod @ Martinsville sometime in late '70s.
 
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