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So this past weekend I went to the final race in the ALMS calander at Laguna Seca in beautiful Monteray, California. For those of you that saw the race know how exciting it was and how awesome it was. I will try and recap all the good stuff for you guys with words and some pictures.

We were walking around the paddock which is utter chaos. It is basically a highway that people are allowed to walk on. We were walking down the "main" isle and next thing I know I hear an engine revving easily to 5000rpm telling me to get out of the way. So I turned around and grabbed some pictures.

He just strolled by like nothing was out of the ordinary. We then waited in line to get on the grid to take pictures....and look at the ladies. From the few I was able to see before the thousands upon thousands of people flooded the grid, this one was the keeper.

We then bailed off the grid to make our way towards turn 2 because thats where the action is at. After the long hike all the way out there we make it and get great seats. They start their pace laps and the porsche tried to warm up his tires aggressively like Mr. Alonso and paid the price.

And he spun on the pace lap. Super embarrassing. I was liking it because if theres already action and the race hasn't even started, then its going to be a good race. Race starts and De Ferran was walking left and right over everyone. Lots of lock up going into 2 but everyone kept their distance.

The GT start was along the same lines. Little lock up but everone was safe and smart. About 5 minutes into the race the first caution came out. On the other side of the track there was an incident involving the car that almost ran me over and the tire wall. Karma much? Race got back under way and not much going on. Then there was a bunch up of GT and Challenge cars with a lola mixed in there. I thought it was looking like a good time. Take a look for yourself.










It was super lucky that all of this happened right infront of us. Darkness was now setting in so we hiked back to the grandstands. Then I hiked up to grab some more pictures and got lucky with this one.

The race was now sadly coming to an end and somehow De Ferran and the lowes car were fighting for first and they were about 4 tenths off of eachother. The whole race he was walking over everyone. So something must have happened. The race came to an end with De Ferran winning, but with his win made the GT2 leaders do one more lap. And boy what a lap that was. After Jan had passed Berg cutting into the pit straight. He then had to give the position back and now had 1 lap to get it back. They go in side by side into turn 2. Some slight contact and Berg pushes Jan into the dirt and the exit of turn 2. Berg gets quite some distance on Jan. Jan makes up a lot of the distance by the corkscrew. They are going into the final hairpin and Berg gets on the brakes way early to throw Jan off his line. Jan wasn't expecting him to brake so early and gave him a slight tap to get him loose. It was now a drag race to the finish line. Berg pushed Jan all the way against pit wall. We were sitting at the start/finish grandstands and from my perspective Jan had the run up the inside and had easily a half car length on Berg with about 200 ft to the line. Berg then turned in on him giving Jan a tap which caused Jan to spin sideways and slam into a cement wall at 130mph. This is probably the scariest thing I have ever witnessed. The screeching tires, the sound of metal on cement, and seeing the body partys fly all across the track was a quieting moment. No one was saying a word. We were all thinking the worst. At least I was. So I ran over to a fence with slats in it because there was no one there because you cant see through it. I used my height and looked over the fence to see a sight that wasn't as bad as I expected. Behold Jan's car.


And there you have it. That was the final round of the ALMS. You are welcome to ask me any questions you would like.

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Nikon D90
AF-S 18-105mm F/3.5-5.6
AF-S 60mm F/2.8 Macro
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Great action shots, not to many of us would be in the right place at the right time, hope the drivers were ok. What setting did you use for the track shots.

Cheers

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Nikon D7000, D40X, Nikkor 18- 200 VR II, f3.5-5.6, 70-300 AF non VR, Kit Lenses.

Very nice pictures

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