Blurred by speed, a cyclist takes the checkered flag at the Vintage Motorcycle Days at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course last weekend.

RACING FOLLOW-UP—

In the earlier post on this event I mentioned our $35 tickets and nobody collecting them at the back entrance gate. To that, my oldest son, Brian, quipped, “It’s going to make it difficult for me to sell my other ticket.” He was kidding, naturally. He had four tickets as a gift from a business friend and managed to rustle up three of us to enjoy the day—including his helper Adam.

* * *

After devouring our lunch at the kiosk’s picnic table, we discussed heading for our favorite race viewing area and stood up, nearly in unison. There was a concurrent, squawking commotion and I turned around to see what was causing the ruckus. Our three rather rotund tablemates, seated on the opposite side were making a Herculean effort to free themselves from the capsizing table.
We offered our profound apologizes as six guys enjoyed our dose of poor table engineering with a collective laugh.

* * *

For you photo enthusiasts the above picture is an example of using shutter speed to create the illusion of motion in a still photo. I ran the digital SLR on the manual setting and pre-selected a shutter speed of 1/1,000 of a second with the appropriate aperture for correct exposure. While there is minimal shutter operation lag in these higher end cameras I still turned off other automatic functions like auto-focus because I needed an instant reaction from the camera.

As the bike approached the finish line I sighted the camera with my right eye through the viewfinder and, watching the action with my left eye, tripped the shutter the instant the bike came into view. A little bit of human and camera lag placed the bike ideally in the composition.

A slower shutter speed likely would have made the racer blurred beyond recognition and a faster shutter speed likely would have diminished the illusion of speed. The easiest way to determine the correct shutter speed is to do some test shots during the race.

* * *

While walking through a camping area I had eye contact with a fellow who promptly offered me a political brochure and explained swiftly, “Ron Paul needs your vote for President he’s the candidate who wants to abolish the IRS.”

That’s certainly a catchy way to get someone’s attention.

I made a careful comparison of this fellow’s visage to the brochure photo. Nah, wasn’t the candidate, just an enthusiastic supporter. I wondered why Paul’s candidacy was failing to ignite much national interest while we chatted for a few minutes.

Regardless, this fellow certainly received my “A grade” for grassroots political effort.

* * *

I noted a couple of other things that spoke to the classiness of this racing event. There was an astonishing lack of trash spewed about on the ground. Twice, I even saw parents escorting toddlers to trash containers for an early lesson on being friendly to our Earth.

And, at the conclusion of each heat, the track marshals in the infield would signal an enthusiastic “thumbs up” to the contestants for their gentlemanly and spirited performance. Real class!