IndyCar at Infineon Raceway 2009

This year marked the first time since its inception that Victoria and I didn’t get to go to the Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma. My brother’s wedding in Germany was a tad bit more important Through a DVR glitch (okay, I just forgot to set the recording) we didn’t get to see the telecast, either, but I dug up the final few laps on YouTube. And damn, this actually looked like a fun race! A year after a sleep-inducing pole -> victory lane routine by Helio Castroneves, this race actually had some drama and fun racing action! If you didn’t look towards the very front, that is… Dario Franchitti, uhm, won the race from the pole. Still, a step in the right direction, and a lot better than any Formula 1 racing I’ve seen recently. The “overtake button” adds some much needed action.

While we’re at it, here’s the web trailer I created for the raceway a few weeks before the event. Click to see the 720p version.

Sonoma IRL Race

As usual, I took lots of video and not a lot of photos. But I found a few pictures from the IndyCar race last weekend that I feel like sharing. It was a great event – attendance was up, there was lots of pre-race entertainment, and people seemed to enjoy themselves. Unfortunately the race itself ended up a bit too boring, because there was only one caution and the field never got bunched up. As a result not a lot of passing was happening, and Helio’s victory was never really challenged (good for him, though – he was ecstatic!). Here’s the pictures. Might have to do a second round later with extracted video frames of actual racing action

Up To Speed

The latest episode of the IRL’s official Up To Speed show is using a bunch of the footage that I shot at Infineon Raceway last week.  Kinda cool, and glad to see my footage find new uses Here’s the Youtube version.

One of the things that I like about the Indy Racing League is that it’s really embracing new media to promote their series. Some of that might come out of necessity – TV coverage and promotion is lacking a bit right now and the league is looking for additional ways to bring coverage to the fans. But in general they are going in the right direction – weekly update shows, streaming qualifying and races, lots of interaction opportunities on the webpage. Other racing leagues are a bit behind this, or overly driven by corporate and outside interests (NASCAR contracts out its own webpage to Turner, for example).

IndyCar Test Session

The Indy Racing League allowed teams another test session at Infineon Raceway yesterday and today, in preparation for next weekend’s race. I had the day off, so I headed down the racetrack to shoot the press conference and some b-roll. Here’s the video I quickly edited together tonight.

Clone Wars IndyCar

This goes out to all the people I know working at the Ranch right now. Taken at Infineon Raceway today, very nice looking car!

Danica Patrick Wins

IndyCar is picking up some steam these days! Some early momentum was built last season, with a closely contested 2007 championship, Dario’s flips, and tempers flaring at Watkins Glen, but then the whole thing seemed to fizzle a bit with two former champions (Hornish and Franchitti) leaving for NASCAR. Well, look at where we are after just three races in 2008: Champ Car and the IRL have reunited to form one league, drivers from both sides of the old fence have already won races (19 year old Graham Rahal became the youngest driver ever to score a victory in St Petersburg), and now – finally – Danica Patrick has become the first woman to win a major automotive competition in the United States! I don’t really have a strong preference when it comes to racing – Victoria and I pay attention to both NASCAR and the IRL equally these days. But it’s great to see OWR slowly return to its former glory. Congrats Scott Dixon, congrats Graham Rahal, congrats Danica Patrick! Looking forward to the rest of the season, especially the stop at Infineon Raceway this August. And of course I’ll be there to document it all, up close and personal

IndyCar Test at Infineon Raceway

My latest video is now available for public view on the official Infineon Raceway website. IndyCar drivers Scott Dixon and Ryan Hunter-Reay visited the racetrack on December 6 and 7 to test for the new season, and I was there to document those two days.

Expect more of these kind of videos in the 2008 season. The Infineon Raceway staff are giving me great behind-the-scenes access, so the videos should turn out even nicer than the ones I already made this year. Go to my Youtube page to get your additional fix of IndyCar, NASCAR, Karting etc. at Sears Point

One of the necessary but unfortunate side effects of creating video for the web is the resolution. The movie is usually tiny and heavily compressed to account for bandwidth and dial-up users. So I thought it would be fun to post a few fullsize frames from the IRL Testing video posted recently.

As a sidenote, I’m still working fulltime on new game projects for our company. But you shouldn’t expect any announcements for quite a while, it’s still too early.

IndyCar 2007 Video

The finished Indy Car video is now on Youtube.

I played it much looser with this video, just throwing shots against the wall and seeing which ones got soaked up by the music and which ones didn’t seem to fit. The ending happens a bit quickly, but that’s okay I’m happy with the final routcome. I’ll post some frames from the HD version later.

Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma

Because it was so much fun for the NASCAR race, here’s my panorama shot of the Indy Car lineup this weekend. Once again beware, the full image is 14000×1420 pixels big and might take a second to load

More on the race later!