NHRA comes to Maple Grove Raceway in Reading!

My buddy Mark Rebilas and I were chatting last fall about NHRA and how I should go shoot an event if I could. He said it was a different type of rush from shooting NASCAR and that you can walk away with some pretty cool images.

I checked out the NHRA website and realized they come to Maple Grove Raceway just outside of Reading, PA, which is a hop-skip-and-a-jump from my house here in Harrisburg. I sent in a request and crossed my fingers and hoped I would get credentials for this event. Friday came along and I didn’t find out until the afternoon that my credentials had been approved. I was extremely lucky because due to weather, the events at the track were delayed, which allowed me to get there just in time before the events got underway for the first time on Friday. As I was driving, I was hoping that the racetrack could finagle with the town to see if they could extend the ordinance that would prevent the drivers from racing past a certain time at night.

Well, after taking close to 2 hours to get there (it was only supposed to take one) due to construction on the highway into the track, I was able to pick up my credentials and enter the track to get started with the event. As I was hoping, the schedule was modified, but nothing was said about how long they would go into the night. I didn’t care, I was just happy that I would have an opportunity to shoot the cars at night and get some good shots with the flames.

First up on the track were the Pro Stock cars.

After a few cars made their runs, I saw out of the corner of my eye, 14-Time NHRA Funny Car champion John Force driving around on his scooter. I noticed he stopped back behind the staging lanes. I threw on my 300mm lens and wanted to get a nice up close isolated shot since the lighting was really nice.

Ok, now back to the racing. So the pro stock cars were done with there qualifying and it was now onto the Funny cars.

On word describes these cars…WOW!! 7,000 horsepower cars that go from 0-320+ mph in 4 seconds should be enough. These cars haul the mail! The first time a set of these cars took off from the line, I almost hit the deck because I thought the world was coming to an end. The ground shook and the flames from these cars felt like they had burned the hair off of my head! It was crazy. Oh, and out of all the frames I shot (which was about 10) I didn’t get one car in the frame!!

Well, it got better as the next set of cars came up and went down the track. Below are some of the images from Funny Car qualifying.

Of all the action during qualifying on Friday, I believe the shot of Ron Capps blowing up off the starting line was my best.

Well, next up after the Nitro Cars were the Top Fuel Dragsters. These cars are just as powerfully and really push out the flames. An added bonus was that it was dusk and you’d really see how far the flames shoot out from the cars. I underexposed by about a stop and a half so when the cars took off from the starting line it would produce a decent flame that would light up the car. Below are a few of the shots from qualifying.

At the end of session one, it was announced that they would not continue onto session two because weather was in the area, so that wrapped up Friday evening’s events.

Sunday morning came with a 5:30am wake up call from my alarm and I head out the door for Maple Grove Raceway because I wanted to beat all the traffic into the racetrack. Well, you can sure say I did! I was the first one there!! I guess when it comes to motor sports, I’m used to NASCAR where you have to get there 6+ hours before anything starts to beat the traffic. NHRA, not so much! So with all this free time, I walked around getting a few ideas of what I was going to try later on during eliminations. I wanted to get up to top end, which is past the finish line where the driver’s parachutes deploy. Unfortunately, Maple Grove Raceway and the NHRA don’t allow anybody up there because of disturbing ESPN for their broadcasts of the event. After a few hours of waiting, racing was about to begin, so I headed out to the track. In the staging area, Tony “The Sarge” Schumacher was waiting for the Top Fuel eliminations to begin.

Below are a few images from the first round.

One thing I noticed was through out the weekend was the stress the Top Fuel Dragsters put on their Goodyear Eagle racing slicks. Below are two separate images, one of the rear slick as it sits still and the other one just as the driver hits the throttle and applying 7000 horsepower to these tires.

After Top Fuel were done, next up was Funny Cars. Ashley Force-Hood was the top seeded qualifier and was the one to beat. Though after an engine failure on Saturday afternoon at the top end that required a new body and her crew working early into Sunday morning to prepare the car to be competitive just like it was before the crash.

First up was point’s leader Tony Pedregon in his NitroFish Ultimate Gear Chevrolet.

Then it was time for Ashley Force-Hood’s run in her Castrol GTX Ford Mustang.

Though Ashley Force-Hood would go to defeat Jeff Arend in the first round, she would be disqualified because her car was too light on the scales. She was done for the day!

Below are a few other shots from funny car first round eliminations.

Below, Ron Capps in his Napa Dodge competes in first round eliminations. His day was done once Bob Tasca III eliminated him.

Once first round eliminations for Funny Cars were complete, the track started to seep water from the amount of rain we’ve had over the past week here outside of Reading. The Safety Safari jumped on this right away so we could get back to racing, though it would take over three hours for them to stop the weepers from coming up through the track….insane!!!!

Finally, we were back to racing with second round eliminations for top fuel.

Below, Top Fuel driver Cory McClenathan (near) races against Spencer Massey (far).

Below, Joe Hartley does a burnout prior to his run.

Next it was on to second round Funny Car eliminations. I started to think about being creative, so I pulled out my wide-angle lens to incorporate the nice puffy cumulus clouds. There is nothing better than a nice sunny day with cumulus clouds!

Funny Car driver Jeff Arend does a burnout prior to his run.

Funny Car drivers Jeff Arend (left) and John Force (right) race each other. Force would take the win to end Arend’s day.

Funny Car driver Robert Hight, (near) and Bob Tasco III (far) race each other.

Funny Car driver Del Worsham does a burnout prior to his run.

Funny Car driver Tony Pedregon (far) takes advantage of Del Worsham (near) misfortune of smoking the tires on the start to ruin his chances of advancing to semifinal eliminations.

Crew members push the car of Jerry Toliver after having problems during his run

Once second round eliminations for the funny cars were over, NHRA put the Pro Stock cars on the track for their first elimination round.

Below are a few shots from the pro stock cars first round eliminations.

Pro Stock driver Justin Humphreys

Pro Stock driver Greg Anderson

Pro Stock driver Ron Krisher does a burnout prior to his run.

After finishing up with pro stock cars, I thought I’d go into the media center to transmit, until I started to walk back into the staging area and liked the angle from behind the bikes. So, I stuck around and shot a few of first round eliminations for the pro stock motorcycles.

Pro Stock Motorcycle riders Andrew Hines (near) and Matt Guidera (far) wait for the green light to start their run.

Pro Stock Motorcycle riders Geoff Godfrey (near) gets a red light as Hector Arana (far) gets the win to advance into the second round.

After moving a few pictures, I walked into the staging lanes where I saw top fuel driver, Larry Dixon preparing to climb into his car prior to semi-final eliminations.

After unsuccessfully able to locate other drivers, I made the walk back to the track for top fuel semi-final eliminations.

Sean Langdon (near) and Larry Dixon (far) race each other. Dixon would defeat Langdon to advance to the finals.

While shooting, fellow friend Jeremy Drey, of the Reading Eagle shot a picture of me hard at work along the wall of the drag strip.

Photo by Jeremy Drey, The Reading Eagle

Below, Spencer Massey does a burnout prior to his run.

Antron Brown does a burnout prior to his run.

Spencer Massey (near) and Antron Brown (far) race each other. Massey would defeat Brown to advance to the finals to race Larry Dixon.

Now that the finals for Top Fuel has been set, it was time to find out who the two Funny Car drivers would be racing in the finals as well. Though semi-finals would be up first.

John Force does a burnout prior to his run.

Ashley Force-Hood watches as her father, John Force prepares to race.

Crew members look on as John Force makes his run. John Force would lose to Bob Tasca III due to jumping the start, which resulted in a red light.

Mike Neff (near) and Tony Pedregon (far) race each other. Neff would defeat Pedregon to advance to the finals to race Bob Tasca III.

Well, now that the field had been set for both Top Fuel and Funny Cars, it was time to for second round and semi-finals eliminations for the Pro Stock cars.

Jeg Coughlin competes in second round eliminations.

Johnny Gray (near) races against Kurt Johnson (far) during semi-final eliminations.

Jason Line (near) and Jeg Coughlin (far) do burnouts prior to semi-final eliminations.

Alright, now with Pro Stock cars done for a bit, the Pro Stock Motorcycles had their semi-final eliminations.

Below Eddie Krawiec (near) races against Hector Arana (far) during semi-final eliminations.

Finally, after racing all day, due up next were the Funny Car and Top Fuel final eliminations.

First up was Top Fuel final eliminations between Spencer Massey and Larry Dixon.

Below, Larry Dixon does a burnout prior to his run.

Spencer Massey (far) spins the tires and gives Larry Dixon (near) the victory.

After Larry Dixon took the win in Top Fuel, it was time for Bob Tasca III and Mike Neff to race for the Funny Car win.

Below, Bob Tasca III, (far) and Mike Neff (near) do a burnout prior to their runs.

I would love to show you Bob Tasca III pulling off the win on Mike Neff, but I had a gut feeling going into the finals that Mike Neff was going to pull off the win, so I focused on him and got a nice tight shot of him taking off at the start, but it wouldn’t matter because Bob Tasca III would take the win, making the image of Mike Neff worthless.

After this, I rushed up to victory lane to get reaction shots of both Larry Dixon and Bob Tasca III as they arrived into victory lane.

Though, before the drivers showed up, I noticed the Wally sitting in front of the NHRA logos on the backdrop of the victory lane wall and felt it would make a nice shot. (The official NHRA winner’s trophy named after NHRA’s founder Wally Parks.)

Finally the drivers showed up and got a few decent shots of them celebrating their wins in victory lane.

Below, Funny Car driver Bob Tasca III celebrates by hoisting the Wally in victory lane.

Top Fuel driver Larry Dixon (left) and Bob Tasca III (right) celebrate in victory lane.

That would wrap up my weekend at Maple Grove Raceway. I look forward to covering next year’s race, but instead of it being in August, the race has been moved to the weekend of October 7-10. An added bonus to this will be that it's a race within the 2010 Countdown to 1 playoffs to determine the 2010 championship. Should be a very exciting race!!