Grand Prix, Part the First

I'm slowly editing my way through photos from the Honda Grand Prix of St Petersburg this weekend, and I am up to the end of the IICS (Izod IndyCar Series) morning practice.

I'm going to apologize to both Monica Hilton (her awesome blog is linked on the left as The_Race_gIRL) and Lindy Thackston (Pit road reporter and Versus IICS coverage Presenter extraordinaire) for repeating here things they heard me mention at the race, as well as those few of you that follow me on twitter and may have read them, since I WAS tweeting throughout the day ;)

The morning started off before dawn, when I got up and hit the streets to head over across the bay to hit St Pete. I wanted to be sure to be on scene before the gates opened.

I got there by 740am, and, while waiting for the gate guards to open up, got to say hello to Will Power, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Sebastia(e)ns Bourdais and Saavedra, and shake hands with Tony Kanaan as they arrived at the track. Roger Penske nearly got waved away by security, who, per her own admission, didn't know anything about racing, before the 15-20 of us standing there all told her, almost as one, that he was Roger FREAKING Penske, owner of half the cars in the field!

I also got a text from Monica making sure I remembered to come and see her. We'd missed each other at the race last year, and had been talking over the interwebs for the past year since.

Finally, the gates opened, and I headed in, shooting the sunrise over the pedestrian bridge as I walked towards the paddock.



Even before I got there, I was shooting the cars being towed out for morning practice, and almost literally ran into Pippa Mann, a standout driver who spent last year in the Firestone Indy Lights series, and whose fanclub i am unabashedly among the members of, who was at the race trying to secure an IICS ride. If any team owners read this.......call Pippa.
(And, if any owners DO read this....call me too....I'll do any job in the series :) )



I chatted with her for a few moments before it became apparent that she was on a mission, and I wished her well and wandered into the paddock, where I walked right past Monica before my brain kicked in and told me I had passed her. We talked for a couple of moments before she had to head to pit road, and I headed for my seats to do some shooting.

I didn't stay in my seat long, indeed, I wandered around the track shooting various angles. Below are a pair of shots from well above my seats in Turn 10.


James Jakes follows Vitor Meira into the corner

Simona rolls into the corner.

I then walked towards the pits, getting THIS shot of Raphael Matos tracking Charlie Kimball through turn 1. This was taken THROUGH the fencing.


TK, Tony Kanaan, rolls through Turn 1


This is one of my fave shots of morning practice. Ryan Briscoe creates contrails as he roars down the front straight.

After coming down off the grandstands at Turn 1, I ended up talking to Lindy for a few moments. Thackston and I have been bumping into each other, off and on, at the race for the past five years or so, and one of the first things out of my mouth was an apology for nearly running her over during the deluge last year when Steve and I were heading into the Paddock to get out of the rain.

So, I had been at the track about half an hour and already talked with three of the four people I wanted to run into at the race. The day was certainly looking up!


More later....for now....I'm headed to bed!