Smeatharpe Drag and Drift 13/08/11 PICTURES FINISHED

[Cook318IS]

This is on again next month. I went to the last one and really enjoyed the day! Im looking to get a press pass again, so if you are out on the strip / drift circuit give me a nudge so i can grab some pics and say hello!

There was a whole mix of cars there last time from american muscle cars and classic mini's to jap turbo drift cars.
Taken from facebook (http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=192489807453939)

Dakota Drag strip located at Smeatharpe airfield Smeatharpe Devon is a 1/8 mile drag strip with a 1/4 mile shutdown area. Not only do we have a drag strip but 600 metre x 47 metre drifting area. We have a massive show area and car parking on hard standing.

General Public gate admission prices

Saturday
Adults £10.00
Under 16's £4.00
Drag strip per driver or rider Unlimited runs £25.00
Drifting per driver Unlimited runs £50.00


Advance tickets

Saturday
Adults £5.00
Under 16's £2.00
Drag strip per driver or rider Unlimited runs £20.00
Drifting per driver Unlimited runs £45.00
All advance ticket sales close at 9pm Wednesday before the event.
Paypal lee@ultimatepowerracing.com for you advance purchases.

Contact Lee on 07771 590 176

Address
Dakota Drag Strip
Smeatharpe Airfield
Smeatharpe
Devon
EX14 9RF

Heres some pictures of the last event that i took:
















More from the last event are here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/cook88/set ... 569078960/

Get some names down if you will be going / drifting / dragging

1. Cook
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

[Cook318IS]

Under 2 weeks to go boys and girls!

[randomdave325]

taxed the m3 yesterday. i'll be up for this! i'll try to get joe to bring the s62 beast too. hopefully i'll grip before him lol

1.Cook
2.Randomdave325

[Cook318IS]

I need a photoshoot of his car!! I'll come and say hi and grab some of both your cars when i'm there.

I just paid for my new lense to help get decent photos of the event... ££££

[Cook318IS]

BUMP! This is tommorow boys and girls! Should be a good day

My brand new lense turned up this week, I shouldnt be that hard to spot with this lense and in a high vis jacket

[randomdave325]

top day mate. good to see you. you'll be glad 2 know i won the m3 battle. 6 runs undefeated! fastest time was 9.15. old skool cool wins again lol. did you manage to get any pics? i know you spent most of time on drift track. i didn't fancy hurting it round there. i'm waiting for the vids

[Cook318IS]

top day mate. good to see you. you'll be glad 2 know i won the m3 battle. fastest time was 9.15. old skool cool wins again lol. did you manage to get any pics? i know you spent most of time on drift track. i didn't fancy hurting it round there. i'm waiting for the vids

Yeah it was good seeing you too I'm slowing going through all my pictures now I'm glad you won the battle though, i did notice that you snaked nicely down the runway

[randomdave325]

grip was a bit of an issue in 1st and the beginning of 2nd.
the worst bit for me was going from 8k in 2nd ,back into 1st, then 5th and finally 3rd!
Would have been expensive if i'd just dropped the clutch .i still won. lol
top day tho. i might wash it 2mo. it earned it

[Cook318IS]

I've been pretty much non stop editing so far since yesterday and i've barely scratched the surface! Here's a little teaser pic for the moment.



More to come once they've all gone live

[d6dph]

I hate you. Your photos are always awesome!

Guide me in your ways, Pm me some advice please

[Cook318IS]

Cheers Dave! There were plenty of e30's there too so there will be some e30 content

Best advice? Wear glasses - the novelty of getting sprayed in the face with bits of failing tyre and stones wears of very quickly! On a more serious note - practise. I feel that since the last time i went i've improved alot, both behind the camera and editing. Oh and shoot in RAW, always shoot RAW. That picture i've posted was taken with my new lense above.

I've joined Aatomotion now too who are venturing into photography as well as the current filming that they do (hence the aatomotion watermark!) Check out www.aatomotion.com to see how we roll!

[sunnyr83]

Some seriously awesome pictures as usual.....

[Cook318IS]

Cheers Sunny

[d6dph]

Yeah I always shoot in RAW just to allow the best chance of saving a bad shot.

I've popped a thread up with the photos that I took yesterday http://www.e30zone.net/modules.php?name ... highlight=

[Cook318IS]

Yeah I always shoot in RAW just to allow the best chance of saving a bad shot.

I've popped a thread up with the photos that I took yesterday http://www.e30zone.net/modules.php?name ... highlight=

Thats quite a good effort actually My advice would be to buy a CPL filter (Circular Polarising filter) for static car shots. You rotate the filter and it reduces the reflections on the car. This means that instead of having huge reflections on the car you can see the interior and whos driving it. Also I try to kneel down abit so you are more at car level than looking down on it (I know you've done that in a few shots but I'll say it anyway ). For example if i took that pic of the silvia up there ^ by standing up I dont think it would have looked half as good. I also find that i shoot at a low F number (F4, F5.6 for example) to give a good depth of field - I love depth of field long time! I also find that on zoom lense I am towards the longer length of the range which also helps get good bokeh (blurry background).

Oh and I love the D6 photography watermark. Makes a big change from seeing peoples initals with photography on the end Or diddlydaveaphotographylongnameislong

:Thumb:

[d6dph]

Got a cpl, couldn't find it in my bag when I got there haha I'm so useless.

I did kneel down on a lot of the stuff I took yesterday but often they were quick shots as I was trying to get out of other peoples way! The two nova pics were actually shot through the rear screen of a pulsar gti-r doing approx 70mph, the car was filthy too. I've got to do a shoot for my friends escort cosworth when it comes out of the workshop so will have a car to hang out of to get the best shot i can.

I think I'm making ok progress for 1 year into dslr ownership, don't get as much time as I would like to practise either.

[Cook318IS]

I didn't use a CPL at all for static shots this weekend. Because the lens hood on my big lense is so huge you cant rotate it easily

Considering it was shot through glass the nova shots aren't bad. I havent done any rolling shots yet but i really fancy it.
Back when i had only my dslr about a year i hadn't used it much. Only really over the past few months i've regularly been using it. Just keep it up and keep practising

I'm looking forwards to the cosworth shoot

[Jhonno]

Also I try to kneel down abit so you are more at car level than looking down on it (I know you've done that in a few shots but I'll say it anyway)

Dave doesn't have to kneel to be at car level.. Any shot where he isn't, he has found something to stand on..

[d6dph]

I was waiting for that, Thanks Dan. Now let me have your sisters number!

[Jhonno]

Glad to be of service..

She's too tall for you anyway..

[Cook318IS]

I'm tall. Pics of said sister?

[d6dph]

Glad to be of service..

She's too tall for you anyway..

I'll cut here legs down.

[Cook318IS]

Pictures are now done. 3am sunday morning, 2am monday morning and 3 am this morning and i've just finished doing the last of them now. I've just got to sort out the flickr and hosting side of things now.

Random Dave, do you know one of the blokes who was drifting his black e30? He has a fritzs logo on his number plate.

Oh and im uber happy with some of these pics.

[Cook318IS]

And here is a lovely little copy and paste...

They are a little bit late due to laptop + flickr issues and I'm sure some of you have seen some of these already by now. Anyway, here are a few pictures from saturday:




































Somebody is beating an e46 m3 rather easily...





There are a few up on the Aatomotion facebook page, so it would be awesome if you guys could tag people who you know into the photos!

www.facebook.com/aatomotion

And the rest of the set is located here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aatomotion ... 309241133/

[randomdave325]

awesome pics paul. i like the last 3. out accelerating matts e46 with both lit! nice
i really should mount my rear numberplate straight lol

[Cook318IS]

I just love the way that you are calmly looking at him through your wing mirrors I got this shot of matt which i thought wasn't too bad - nice and crisp!

[randomdave325]

Quality pics paul. the focus on the car with the rest in motion is wicked. i know you are probably bored of posting them now but could you put the ones of me and matt on the facebook page. they need to be tagged and in my life. matt still hasn't posted the vids up. i know he kept losing but he should get em up init. face the shame!! i wanna hear it!!!

i've had toms m3 rep/ drift skip here since sunday. doing all the electrics and making it drift friendly. i.e tightening everything important that was loose! i.e diff, balljoints etc. we used the bumper off my astra van as his got smashed which went on suprisingly easily with volvo side repeaters and raised the bonnet!
it could be the next big thing! the cones will bounce off that badboy!!

as you can tell from the second pic it looks just like a real one

[Cook318IS]

I'm not sure if i can put anymore up onto facebook because its not my page

I remember seeing him turn up and thinking "awesome! Somebody is drifting an m3 ... somebody needs to call the offset police though. Oh it's a replica" . It's abit scary that his diff and other vitals were abit loose though If i'm honest it looks like an e34 now with that bumper on - fair play for bodging it on for skidding purposes though

I think the e30 touring that was skidding broke his sump?