Double-Take: When NASCAR felt like home again

Imagine exploring an unfamiliar environment. Everything seems new and unexpected, even if you feel twinges of familiarity here and there. But there's this feeling of shock and confusion that happens when you round one more unfamiliar corner, only to realize that you suddenly recognize your surroundings. That all this time, you've actually been closer to home than seemed possible, just moments prior.

That was NASCAR, for me.

Now don't get me wrong; I've watched plenty of NASCAR over the years, and there've definitely been times when the whole thing had felt like it made sense.

But stereotypes have a way of pulling you away from the things you used to enjoy. In part because they're just pernicious like that, but also because they often have a kernel of truth, and sometimes it makes you worry…

But when the Toyota / Save Mart 350 rolled around in June of 2014, I finally had a chance to look back and recapture some of those feelings I thought I had left behind.

Slow, Fast, and Slow Again (Moments In Between, part 6)

The morning before the race is a period of acceleration, but it can feel just the opposite. Many teams start off with some amount of anxiety — a thousand tiny tasks remain before the car is "perfect," and it can still feel tempting to try to knock them all out in the dwindling moments before the green flag waves.

But once the race is underway, the mere fact that the car is out on track, turning laps, and away from convenient access makes a lot of those small issues seem to disappear. You're going faster than you were before, but that sense of being overwhelmed with tasks is replaced by a focus on the more singular task at hand — drive smooth, get good track position, run quick pit stops, don't break anything. You light the rocket, and then you do your best to get out of the way and let that baby burn.

Momentum (Moments In Between, part 5)

In some ways, an endurance race is a lot like a rocket launch. You put a lot of energy into getting up to speed and getting good track position. During those more aggressive parts of the race, you might make mistakes and have to work even harder to make up for them. You have a plan and a strategy, and you do your best to stick to them.

By the time the sun comes up on Sunday morning, you're mostly coasting on momentum. Track position has already been pretty firmly established, and you're doing your best to just keep things on the straight and level. The race isn't over yet, by any stretch of the imagination. But even for teams that are still trying to make moves, their goal will generally still be to hit a pace that they can maintain through the checker.

Survive the Night (Moments In Between, part 4)

A good endurance race is more slow than fast. And in the dead of winter, it's also more darkness than light. One of the unique challenges of the 25 Hours of Thunderhill is the amount time that's spent enduring the darkness.

Pit stops in the dark take longer. The growing fatigue of 6+ hours of racing combines with the reduced visibility to delay the most mundane of tasks, and the challenge is magnified for any extended diagnosis or repair. If a tool rolls out of sight, it's that much harder to find. Coordination between teammates becomes more difficult without the aid of hand signals and eye contact. And any dark corners in a cramped engine bay become that much darker and trickier to work in. So a repair that might be a quick fix during the day becomes a bit more of a slog at night.

The Waiting Game (Moments In Between, part 3)

There are so many ways to wait. And even when you're going hard, sometimes you're also waiting — for an opportunity… for a break… for something to go wrong…

There are so many ways to wait. They're each a little different, and in 25 hours of racing, you're liable to experience more than a few. That's just how endurance races go. Plus, aside from the times when you're in the driver's seat, an endurance race is a lot like a relay race: when you've got the baton, you can make things happen. But when you don't, you still have to wait for it to come back around.

The Calm Before The Storm (Moments In Between, part 2)

There's a gap before almost every competition. After the madness of preparation and last-minute fixes, you pause, take a breath, and get ready to put that work to the test.

At the 25, there's a twist. Once the cars are all gridded up, the spectators are welcomed out onto the track to check out the cars and take pictures of (or with) the teams. It's chaos. But amidst that chaos, there is a calmness to the team's crew and drivers. But beneath that calmness, you can still sense an underlying tension and anxiety: The start is coming. Did we miss anything? Did we forget anything? There are still a few moments left to remedy any oversights.

Moments In Between: 25 Hours of Light and Darkness

There's a saying in motorsports: "fast is slow; slow is fast." And while it's questionable advice for the actual technique of driving, it's still relevant for the driver's mindset. Actions that feel fast tend to be reactive — something happened and you were fast enough to catch it and respond. Like if you trip while walking and you catch yourself — it certainly takes a bunch of skill and experience to avoid a spill, but tripping and recovering still slowed you down.

By contrast, a feeling of slowness tends to accompany actions that don't even require a reaction. Maybe you predicted the problem and avoided it entirely — you saw that raised edge in the pavement and you adjusted your stride to walk right past it. When a driver has a feeling of slowness during the race, it often means that they're actually moving fast. They are relaxed and in control of the situation. Their actions are precise and proportionate. Deliberate.

But the specific memories that we retain about an event tend to center around the fast moments, and the slow periods tend to be compressed and forgotten. We anchor on the things that were exciting, and everything else fades away.

A Glimpse Behind the Curtain (Behind the 25, part 8)

Evil lairs are always inaccessible. Impenetrable. And the constant distance creates an aura of mystery about the place. A handful of interactions grow into a half-true caricature of the people who actually reside there.

I had seen the view above many times over the years, and a similar kind of caricature had grown in my mind. In my imagination, the people working in the tower were sticklers for everything. They loved rules, order, and nothing else.

Finally, in 2016, I was able to take a glimpse behind the curtain. And I can say for certain that the notions that I had were not the full story, and they were not a fair depiction either.

Of course, I should have known that. As with any fractal, the traits that I came to appreciate about the pit marshals, the flaggers, and the safety crew also reflect the traits of the race control team itself. And vice-versa. This is definitely a race where the details show you the bigger picture. But the opposite is also true: the big picture can show you hidden details.

Muscle (Behind the 25, part 7)

As the race-day sky turns from black, to blue, to red, orange, and finally, sunlight, the members of the Safety crew awake from their last moments of guaranteed sleep during the race. Safety is the last of the trifecta of teams that represent Race Control outside of the tower: the pit marshals are the eyes, ears, and voice along pit lane, and the flaggers fulfill a similar role around the track.

Safety is the muscle. When a car has to get moved, or a dangerous situation needs to be disarmed, Safety is called to the scene. And just like a fire company, they rest between calls, and they work when they're called. But during the 25, they're on call all race long.

Enforce and Protect (Behind the 25, part 6)

Flaggers are the second manifestation of Race Control. Just like the pit marshals on pit lane, the flaggers keep watch, enforce rules, and relay observations from around the track. They communicate with the drivers by way of a set of flags, and they use radio to communicate back and forth with Race Control, and/or with other flag stations.

The flags encode a small set of relatively terse messages, including things like "caution," "faster cars approaching," "dirt or oil on track," and "you did something bad; pit now." The flaggers also use motion to convey urgency — a waving flag is more urgent, a still (or "standing") flag is less urgent. Anything more nuanced will likely come over the radio, once the pit marshals talk to the driver's crew chief.

Like Hawks (Behind the 25, part 5)

In nearly every sporting competition, there exists some group to set and enforce the rules. They make sure that every team is playing fair, so that each team has a chance to excel. At the 25 Hours of Thunderhill, that group is Race Control. But they work via an old-timey kind of magic.

Race Control is the proverbial group behind the curtain. They observe the race, and when needed exert their influence, by way of three other groups: the pit marshals, the flaggers, and the safety crew.

The pit marshals wear bright vests and patrol pit lane. Like hawks. When they spot an issue or a violation, they report it to race control. And when Race Control wants to communicate to a team, the pit marshals act as their mouthpiece, finding the team's pit box and delivering the message directly. But that communication method only works in one direction — if the teams want to talk back, they can call or visit the tower.

2016 Year in Review: January through June

This review is a tour through the year 2016, as illustrated by one image from each of the 17 posts I published that year.

2016 was a year of continued growth, both for myself and for Doppler Photo. It was a year of unprecedented stability, as I figured out just how much I can photograph, write, and publish without burning myself out. But at the same time, it was a year of expansion and evolution, as I investigated new ways to find and connect with new audiences, as well as novel ways of telling stories to the folks who are already watching (I appreciate y'all).

I set some goals and made some plans that didn't quite pan out, and I also followed some whims that were more important than I could have known. I failed to predict the future very well, but I've put in enough work that things are still moving forward, and the momentum is growing.

The year started off with an amazing concert that made me grateful for the friendships I've already forged, and hopeful for the ones I strive to invest in every day. It reminded me that my perspective arises, in part, from past experiences that I no longer remember, but that nonetheless influence the moments I notice and the compositions that speak to me. It reminded me to search more actively for the people who have shared those experiences, and to see if my perspective speaks to them as well. That reminder is one that I'll be carrying forth into 2017.

(From "Ms. Lauryn Hill Breaks It Down in Brooklyn", published in January)

Food and Shelter (Behind the 25, part 3)

Baby, it's cold outside. Well, chilly, at least. So what are you gonna do about it?

One of the most human ways to deal with the elements is to find food and shelter. At the 25 Hours of Thunderhill, you can find both at the Thunderhill Grill.

Fractal Nature (Behind the 25, part 2)

Chilly. Again. It's race day — Saturday morning. It was below freezing overnight, and now the ground's cold. The cars are cold. The tires are cold… Everything's cold, really. But it'll be sunrise soon, and it's already time to get back to work.

Race day is really day four of the race — most teams got here on Wednesday. And that's not even counting the months or years of car and team development to even get to this point.

If you take a step back and think about it, though, racing has a fractal nature to it. Every little piece is kinda similar to every other little piece, and then each little piece gives you its own little glimpse of the big picture. And no matter how close or far you get, what you see tells you a bit about the details that you'd see from other distances.

So even if you only show up on Saturday morning, you can still get a sense of the preparation that happened in the days, months, and years prior. There are multiple cars, because endurance races are all about contingencies, and unfortunate situations do happen. There's a pit cart, because you can't have a race team without logistics, and the essence of logistics is movement. And it's this pit cart, because the details of the race effort reflect the personalities and identities of the people involved. The details show you the bigger picture.

Behind the 25: A Journey to the Center of the Race

Sunrise. The warm, orange glow of a brand new day starts to soften the chill of another Thunderhill night. It's not really day yet, but things are moving in that direction. That's how it always goes. Park. Pop the hatch. Get your stuff. You know the drill.

Five years, huh? That was quick…

The amazing thing about this race is that there's so much depth. Everyone who returns brings a little more experience. The same tenacity as last year is a little more effective now than it was then. Somehow, the relentless march of 25 Hours is a little more fluid; the surprises are a little less surprising. You spend less time figuring out how to handle each situation, and more time figuring out how to handle it better.

Make no mistake, there'll still be curve-balls. If you don't keep your eyes open, things'll go pear-shaped in a hurry. But every December, you come back a little bit better, and those same curve balls don't seem to curve quite as much as they once did.

Eager (Stories from the 25, part 6)

There's a saying (commonly misattributed to Winston Churchill) that a pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, and an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. I was reminded of that saying when I spoke with A.J. Singh (far right, in picture) about eagerness in motorsports, 8 hours after his team's car was retired due to a major fire in the engine compartment. Here's what he had to say:

"The eagerness occurs every time we get ready for a race. That typically is about a month before we start getting ready; there's an excitement that you can see just start to infuse itself amongst our team members."

I asked what they're eager for — a win? The experience? Just to be out on track?

"Our first perspective is to finish, and to improve. Our thought process is to always be better than the last race. If we can do that, we've come away a success. Perfect case in point, we've got a car that just got burned up and we're going home, but we felt, quite honestly, that we performed better than we did last year…"

The 25 Hours of Thunderhill is a race that is nothing if not difficult. But Singh's response reminded me that it's the combination of eagerness and opportunity that brings teams to the race in the first place. The teams that only see the difficulty don't show up, and the teams that focus on the opportunity come back year after year, even when things don't go as planned.

The V/M Racing Lotus Exige is one of the most easily-recognizable vehicles in the race. The mirror finish glistens at the start of every race that I've seen it contest. It's easy to imagine that the team's eagerness to improve also motivates a certain level of pride in their vehicle.

Unfortunately, the team's race came to an untimely end at Thunderhill's corner 1, after an engine failure spilled hot oil onto an even hotter exhaust manifold, causing an immediate, intense fire. The driver (pictured) drove straight off the track and jumped out; it was the only time I've heard the Thunderhill safety crew use an audible siren while responding to a situation. Back at the team's paddock space, other teammates noticed that the back of the driver's Nomex racing suit had been singed from the heat.

This was the first year for the Ryno Racing team's Ginetta LMP3, and it was set to be a good one, with the car starting on the front row. Once the flag dropped, the car demonstrated the speed to stay near the head of the field.

But as day turned to dusk, a slight misjudgment on the corner leading into the front straight sent the car spinning straight into the hot pit wall, causing damage on all four sides. During the team's wrap-up meeting, the summary was pretty matter-of-fact: it was a racing incident; these things happen. We'll be back next year.

Fresh off their 2014 victory, the Davidson Racing team was gunning for another great result. Around the team's paddock area, you could sense a bit of tension as they started their engines and warmed up their two cars. Once on the track, though, both cars were turning incredibly fast laps — fastest overall for the #17 car (pictured), and within the top 5 for the #16.

That good form didn't last, though. The cars experienced electrical and mechanical issues, which ended the team's hopes for another podium. The #16 (on the lift, in the photo) was retired first, and the #17 (under the canopy) would follow.

The #00 Porsche GT3 Cup car, fielded by Award Motorsports / Ehret Family Winery, was also looking for a repeat. I saw the car take the outright at my first 25 Hours of Thunderhill, back in 2012. It had always been a car that combined speed with reliability.

Sometimes speed and reliability aren't enough, though. The team was forced to retire, by race rules, after three incidences of significant vehicle-to-vehicle contact.

In the end, though, racing is like a roller-coaster ride. No matter how many ups and downs you've seen, there's always a chance that a new upward turn is right around the corner. And maybe that's something to be eager about as well…

The full Stories from the 25 series:

• Humans of Thunderhill: Stories from the 25
• Part 2: Confident
• Part 3: Proud
• Part 4: Devastated
• Part 5: Concerned
• Part 6: Eager

Concerned (Stories from the 25, part 5)

AIM Tires is the permanent tire-mounting shop at Thunderhill Raceway. Alan (right) runs the shop, and his brother Nick (left) helps out during the big races. Just watching how they work together, you can tell they've been at this for ages. During the race, I asked Alan about a time when he's felt concerned, and the two stories he shared reinforced the notion (which I've shared before) that fuel and tires are the two currencies of motorsports.

"I was working on our tire machine and just putting the tire on the rim. And the bars just happened to snap right down and kinda break on me while I'm in there. And I had a line of tires to go through… I had to stop everything, fix that machine, get it going before I could continue, you know? And I was the only one in the shop working on it."

The common theme of the stories seemed to be that "tires always come first, but sometimes, they have to come second for a little bit." He continued,

"And last year, during the 25-hour event, our shop actually flooded… [we had to] block off this entrance right here, so water couldn't get in any more. It just kept comin' and comin' and comin'. Kind of had to slow things down a little bit, kinda scoop the water out too…"

The other thing I noticed was that the concerns he shared centered on situations that were out of his control. When it came to challenges that he could impact directly, they didn't seem to merit concern so much as, just, awareness. When he mentioned them, he simply told me "you gotta watch out."

The echoes of Alan's two stories appeared throughout the race, but particularly Sunday morning, when rain and mechanical breakages combined to make the going that much more difficult for the teams who were still putting in laps. And the factors compounded — the tough conditions induced mental fatigue, and mental fatigue leads to mistakes. And then the rain makes it more difficult to recover from those mistakes, leading to more work and more fatigue.

The race had started off simply enough, though: tall stacks of rubber, and teams eager to put that rubber to use.

When a car would slide into the pits for a tire change, the teams leapt into action. Off with the old rubber, and on with the new. Out with the old driver and in with the next. Add some fuel to the mix and get back out on track.

And when the rain finally arrived, it was a similar story. The still-hot slicks steamed as the rainwater evaporated into the cool night air. The wet-weather tires went on — less rubber to grab the track surface, but the gaps would let the rainwater get out of the way as the teams struggled to keep pace in the worsening conditions.

But the strategy was still simple: do your best to deal with the uncontrollable issues as they arise. And as for the challenges that you can impact directly…

You gotta watch out.

The full Stories from the 25 series:

• Humans of Thunderhill: Stories from the 25
• Part 2: Confident
• Part 3: Proud
• Part 4: Devastated
• Part 5: Concerned
• Part 6: Eager

Devastated (Stores from the 25, part 4)

A car race is an environment where pragmatism and optimism can go hand-in-hand. I interviewed my friend Andrew during the race, and when I asked him about a time in motorsports when he felt devastated, his answer was simple:

"I think that is yet to come. Motorsports is pretty much the most fun thing I've ever done, and I haven't lost a car or anything irreplaceable yet, so it's always been worthwhile."

In the photo, he sits in the driver seat as the team gets everything ready for his first night-racing experience. I've mentioned in previous years that optimism alone typically doesn't get you through the night safely. It might be one piece of the puzzle, but it's still only one piece.

Vehicle lighting is essential at night. Both so that the driver of a vehicle can see the track, the vehicles, and any unexpected obstacles; and also so that other drivers can see that vehicle. A stopped vehicle that has no lights (or, that has lights that aren't visible to approaching traffic) is a sitting duck, and a recipe for disaster.

Lights make it possible to for the driver to see what they are approaching, and flaggers make it possible for drivers to know about situations that they can't actually see yet.

For the 25-hour race, two rotations of flaggers switch off during four ~6-hour flag shifts during the race. And just like the pit lane workers, they have to bundle up and be prepared for whatever climate conditions may occur during the race. The flaggers are so important that the race pauses (full course yellow, cars circulate but no passing is allowed) during the shift changes.

Spotters offer more of a competitive benefit than a safety benefit, but that competitive advantage might mean that a driver can be more conservative during stretches of the race that are more treacherous. For instance, if you can maintain position without having to dive-bomb slower cars into the corners in the rain, you're a lot more likely to avoid contact when mistakes inevitably happen. Generally, the spotters find a spot with a clear view of the track, and relay any relevant details back to the team over radio.

Here, a spotter stands on a hilltop bench above the back half of the track (near turn 9), and looks on as cars pass over turn 5 in the distance.

For drivers and crew, it also pays to stay warm and to avoid hunger and dehydration. The inevitable fatigue of spending dozens of hours on alert, and of dealing with a deluge of rain for half of the race, will add up on their own. Other sources of physical discomfort just make things worse.

Fundamentally, endurance races are about extending that comfort as long as possible — the more comfortable you are, the better you can focus, and the less likely you are to make mistakes. The fewer mistakes you make (as driver or crew), the more time you spend turning fast laps, and the less time you spend waiting for the tow truck, or fixing things that broke.

When you put enough puzzle pieces together, this is what it looks like. The #45 Flying Lizard Motorsports Audi R8-LMS dominated the race from sundown onward — they outlasted the faster cars (none of which made it to sunrise), and once the rain started falling, they passed other cars everywhere imaginable. Corner, straight, it didn't seem to matter. By the end, they placed first overall with a 35-lap margin over second place, and a 59-lap margin over third.

The full Stories from the 25 series:

• Humans of Thunderhill: Stories from the 25
• Part 2: Confident
• Part 3: Proud
• Part 4: Devastated
• Part 5: Concerned
• Part 6: Eager

Proud (Stories from the 25, part 3)

Around 22:30 Saturday night, Rob Rodriguez climbed into the #10 Catfish Miata (supported by CRE / Jackson Racing / AIM), got settled, and adjusted his mirrors. Then he drove out into the darkness and what would soon become a deluge of rain. I caught up with him 13 hours later, with a scant 30 minutes left on the race clock, and asked about a time in motorsports when he felt proud.

His team had just clinched the second-place position in the open-cockpit ESR class at that point, proving more reliable than cars that were faster by 15 seconds per 2-minute lap. But the story he focused on had happened two months prior.

"My proudest moment in motorsports was when my son beat me in a Spec Miata… We started side-by-side. We had never raced against each other, and I saw him for the first three corners and then he just left me."

"Y'know, there's nothing like father-son out there," Rodriguez reminisced. And I think that sentiment is shared. It reminded me of how many families I see at the races. How many times I see people sharing their love of the sport with people that they care about, regardless of whether those family-members are related or not.

Every year, families and friends congregate to watch (and sometimes help) as the cars lazily form up on grid.

Street photographer Jamel Shabazz pointed out that families often like to be photographed together. That's true here as well.

I've been fortunate to spend hours upon hours with the folks at Edge Motorworks. And even though they've spent months and years in each other's company, they still take photos to capture their times together at the racetrack. There's something about a family in the midst of a unifying pastime that is worth remembering.

And you see it again when suppertime rolls around. You've gotta eat something during a 25-hour race, but seeing people come together at the same table reminds me that these teams are more than just individuals striving for the same goal.

The mid-race reunions remind me that some families are created by choice, and that many race teams are families in disguise. They share food and shelter; they help each other out when they can; and they band together when times are tough.

And the post-race reunions remind me that different kinds of families can overlap. Here, Monica (center) and Ken, wife and husband, safety crewmember and race driver, share a hug during the safety crew's post-race parade laps. There's nothing like family.

The full Stories from the 25 series:

• Humans of Thunderhill: Stories from the 25
• Part 2: Confident
• Part 3: Proud
• Part 4: Devastated
• Part 5: Concerned
• Part 6: Eager

Confident (Stories from the 25, part 2)

"I feel confident all the time. I'm an old man."

I bumped into Timothy "Red" Bray under the Thunderhill Grill canopy, warming himself by a small fire pit during the final rain-soaked hours of the race. He had a way of cutting to the chase that made each response seem like a nugget of hard-earned, well-worn wisdom. After a short false start, where he told me "I don't give a s___ about motorsports," we spent most of the interview discussing something he does care about: fires.

Bray fights wildfires as an equipment operator. He used to work across the 11 Western States, but has since come to focus on California. He started off driving a bus (to move the firefighters around), then moved to operating water trucks and hauling equipment, like showers and laundries. He says, "It's a lot of fun and it pays real well. It's a little bit dangerous, y'gotta pay attention to what you're doing, but they pay you for the danger. That's okay. If I'm going to be in danger, pay me for it."

Earlier in 2015, Bray had gone out 5 times on 4 different fires. Now, he was at Thunderhill, waiting for the race to end so that he could pick up trailers that the organizers had rented for on-track shelter. Talking to him reminded me of the sheer diversity of supporting roles that are required to stage an endurance race, hot or cold, day or night, rain or shine.

And it certainly did rain. This is a course worker whose job was to control the track entrance. If the entrance was closed for a serious incident, or if a particular car had to serve a timed-stop penalty, he was in charge.

But during the times in between, he sat against a concrete wall, huddled in a tent-like outfit, and did his best to stay warm amidst the blowing wind, rain, and spray from cars flying by at 100+ mph.

It's easy to watch a race without realizing how many people are tasked with rule enforcement. For instance, the race rules disallow any mechanical work on the vehicle while it's being fueled during a pit stop. Pit lane course workers like the one in this picture spend their entire shift on their feet, observing pit stops, and issuing warnings and penalties when appropriate.

Even things as fundamental as verifying that all the right cars are on the track, and that they're in the right order for the start, are double-checked by hand prior to the green flag.

If a car jostles a barrier hard enough, those get fixed by hand as well. Here, NASA founder and executive director Jerry Kunzman waits for cars to pass by at low speed before continuing to direct the repair of a tire wall on Saturday evening. The National Auto Sport Association is the sanctioning body of the 25-hour race.

And finally, if a serious injury should befall someone at the track, there's a medivac helicopter on standby.

The full Stories from the 25 series:

• Humans of Thunderhill: Stories from the 25
• Part 2: Confident
• Part 3: Proud
• Part 4: Devastated
• Part 5: Concerned
• Part 6: Eager