A weekend of firsts, NASCAR!

After a long even shooting the first UFL game, I was pooped Friday driving to Fontana, CA. Luckily, I was able to crash out while Mark drove. Having another first of shooting an event, I had planned on mentally preparing and picking my mentors brain before we arrived. But I woke up right as we were exiting for the Auto Club Speedway.

On the way to the media room, I was busy taking in the environment when I looked in front of me and saw one of my future ex husbands, Ricki Rachtman! I knew it was going to be a great weekend.

First line of business during qualifying was drivers photos. Mark handed me the 600mm with a D3, showed me where to stand my ground and said had fun. Two seconds later I was about to rip my freakin hair out. Nothing would focus. By chance, Mark came back over to see how I was doing and I scolded him for letting me use his crap gear. He looked super confused, grabbed the camera from me, popped off a few shots and said it works fine.

B*llsh*t! I tried again and it still didn't work. He hesitated for a few moments, then finally said, well with this camera and lens, you have have to juggle the lens around and make sure you push it right up against the body since it has a loose connection.

OOOOH, so that's all I have to get it to focus. FML. Needless to say, I missed a few moments since I had to readjust my set up. I'd show you an example, but I deleted them out of anger.

Mark Martin makes his way to his #5 car.

Kurt Busch.

I was pretty excited to capture this tough guy smiling.

When I first started taking shots of Max Papis, this orange flag was getting in the way, but then I focused on it and realized it was a photo of himself.

After a great dinner with friends at Wood Ranch for dinner and a healthy Denny's breakfast, I was ready for a boring day at the track. Although, I was actually really looking forward to shooting the drivers in the garage as they were getting in their cars before practice.

As tempting as it was to run over to the big crowd of photographers to see what they were shooting, I wanted to try to get something different. And I could not of been more excited when I was standing in front of Carl Edwards car when he touched me from behind and said, "Excuse me." :)

Kasey Kahne mentally prepares.

The Auto Club Raceway is one of the few tracks that you can stand on the 2nd floor suite level where the cars drive right underneath you. I rushed up there to catch the drivers as they were driving thru.

It was also pretty artsy, I thought, to include the shadows of myself and other fans with cameras in the shot.

Since this was my first time shooting a NASCAR...and going to a NASCAR, Mark suggested I shoot the first 100 laps of the Nationwide race from a photo tower at the end of the front stretch to oversee everything.

The race continued to be uneventful so I made my way down and eventually over to the finish line, where things couldn't have gone worse for me. I had planned to shoot the winner crossing the finish line with a wide lens. I had my shot set up all pretty and right as Jimmie Johnson crossed the finished line, I went out of focus. Again I would have should you, but I deleted it out of frustration. I need to stop doing that.

So then I was ready to at least do the burn out and of course he did it no where near me.

As Mark, Jason, and every other fan was getting excited in the pits to see Adriana Patridge from The Hills, I look over and spot Brian Deegan from the Metal Mulisha talking with Clint Boywer.