Ameri Temp Challenge

On Saturday, GLX Snocross presented the Ameri Temp Challenge. The weather for photography wasn't the best. Before I left for the track, the weather report read that there would be an intense cell of snow tapering off and moving out of the area by 3-4:00 p.m. WRONG! It snowed almost the entire event with short respites. The sled count was down slightly due to some of the GLX Snocross members racing at the National event in Salamanca, New York. Several classes were combined, but there were two heats of fourteen races each followed by the finals of fourteen races and a Mechanics Race. 


In the finals there was one scary crash involving Jonathan Schwantz. He was attended to by medical staff and by the end of the night was doing well with no serious injuries. Besides the new starting time, it was decided to have an awards ceremony after the second heat races before the finals. I think it worked well, however from a photography perspective it was difficult to climatize my camera from the cold to the warm inside of the Bar and Grill. I think next time I will bring a third camera that I will keep wrapped in a camera bag so I won't have an issue with fogging. 


As this is my first year photographing Snocross , I am learning the best way to cover these events.  For you  photo buffs out there, just a quick note on how I'm shooting these events. I have chosen to use the TAv mode. I try to keep the shutter speed (T) at 1/500 sec. and the Aperture (Av) at 5.6 or above. I let the camera choose the ISO. Depending on the light, I will make slight adjustments to those settings, however whenever I drop below 1/500 shutter speed, I tend to get blur. I next will adjust my aperture down to 2.8. That will shorten my depth of field, but it can't be helped if I want to keep the ISO in a reasonable noise range. I am using a two camera rig with a 28-70mm f2.8 mounted on one and a 70-200mm f2.8 mounted on the other. As I previously noted, my intention is to bring a third camera just for in the inside awards ceremony. Next Saturday will be the American Industrial Co. Challenge, which is at the new start time of 2:00 p.m. By clicking on the links, you can visit the GLX Snocross and the race sponsoring companies websites.

Click here for the images from this weeks action.

Click here for all the Snocross action I have covered this year.

Click here for the complete portfolio.

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