In a week’s time Wakefield Park will be hosting a few of NSW’s top time attack competitors yet again at Aus Time Attack. As everywhere else in the world this year, motorsports has suffered in Australia too, and this will be the first time attack event to take place in the country (to the best of my knowledge at least) since the beginnings of this pandemic of ours. I am hoping to attend this year’s event with a media pass, as I did last year, but restrictions may unfortunately limit that. We shall see …
To celebrate next week’s racing, I thought I put out some of my favourite photos from 2019’s event, hopefully making some of us excited for what is to come at Goulburn’s racetrack. A previous article on this website covered a few of my favourite shots taken on the day. This time I wished to share some of the other photos I captured, perhaps not as great, yet deserving of some attention. You be the judge.
A lovely S15 that caught my attention on the day: well kept, well driven and rather photogenic. This was one of the first cars in the pits that morning, and I took advantage of this specific moment when the owner stopped perfectly in front of his car – perhaps thinking of the day to come – to snap this photo. You can tell it was early in the morning by how long this gentleman’s shadow is. Another thinking man, another Nissan – one of my favourite cars of the day.
I am a Skyline fan, but I cannot turn a blind eye to a 35. Last weekend I got chopped by a Nismo R35 not far from my home, and it was great to see the vast gap that separates the RB generation of GT-Rs to the current one. The photo on the left was taken early in the morning; the one on the right, around midday – the shadows once again give it away. I don’t mind the teal and yellow grading on the latter shot. From memory there were four R35s on the day at Wakefield, not all of them competing. Yes, 911! Directly against the sun, full glare on my wide open 50mm when the sun was high in the sky. Against all photo guide advices – yet an okay shot. I like to photograph against conventions. It does not always work, but sometimes it does. In this case it looks reasonable. Note the exhaust fumes of the flat-six on the left side of the frame. If I’m not mistaken this car will be running again in 2020. It is not time attack for me if I don’t include a photo of Xtreme GT-R. At the time I did not have an ND filter for my 16-35mm (I still don’t!), meaning I was getting a lot of light in the sensor with my slow shutter speed shots. The result: an overblown, yet interesting photo. With a bit of creativity and colour grading I could highlight the black and red accents on my favourite 32 and still convey some of speed that personifies time attack. This was shot at 1/10 sec.Since we are talking about Xtreme GT-R, I have to re-post this. My favourite shot of the day, and one of my favourite shots of all time. I saw Brad Shiels standing next to the 32, after setting the (then) record lap, awaiting to see if he would need to return to the track for a last session. I stood afar, gathered the scene, moved a bit to my left and thought I play with the colorbond sheets: the straight line patterns taking most of the frame would reveal a great car and its driver for the day. Brad later told me he quite enjoyed this specific shot, so for me that is more than enough. Lan-Evo!And more … Even under the harsh light, with the undesireable chromatic aberration, this Evo still looks superb. The owner (who something tells me is named Tim) was a really nice guy, willing to talk to me at length about his Mitsubishi. I like the composition on this shot, it tells a story. I know nothing about Hondas – so that is that. I do like them, but can’t really make any interesting comments. The camber and tyre size on the front of this EJ tell me it is a serious car though.
So here are some of my favourite shots from last year – 10 of them, coincidentally. Primarily Japanese cars, as Australian time attack seems to be – and also where my eyes naturally gravitate to. I hope you enjoyed it, and hope I can bring you some photos of next week’s event too. As always, happy to chat and connect.
Frederico Estermann 