I spent this morning down at the Austin Convention Center for the first day of Formula Expo 2012, an event intended to fire up local enthusiasm for the upcoming US Grand Prix on November 18th. From the look of the folks there, there wasn’t a lot of firing up needed – the vast majority seemed to be hard-core car fanatics already.
It’s strange to me how many locals still don’t “get it”. Austin is about to host one of the world’s premier motor racing events. It’s a bit like having the Super Bowl held here except people come from all over the planet to see it (and likely spend a great deal more money in the process). I suspect that the main problem is that people here just don’t understand Formula 1 – this is Nascar and Indy territory and F1 hasn’t really figured in the news at all until Circuit of the Americas came to town along with all the highly newsworthy contractual bickering involved in the process.
Regardless of the local apathy, I’m 100% fired up about having the race here and about Austin having a world-class motor racing circuit. My ticket for race weekend is bought and I’ll be there to cheer on Lewis Hamilton (I have to – he’s a Brit) and generally soak up the experience of a real, honest-to-goodness Grand Prix race in my back yard.
Oh, by the way, this picture isn’t from a Formula 1 car but another rather gorgeous, red, shiny Ferrari that was also on display alongside the F1 machines (as if I needed to tell you that).
Thank you sir. I made the mistake of not taking a tripod to the show so all the shots for this week were handheld. The tripod would have been enormously helpful and it wasn’t too busy so I could have used it quite easily. I’ll remember that next time.
Nice job! I like how you are able to focus on details of the cars. I keep trying that, but I just cannot figure out what works. When I see your pics, I just think, “Wow.” Well done!
Evan Gearing´s last post ..Ferraris
Thanks, Evan. I found myself having to stop and force myself to shoot wider on Saturday! Most of the pictures I took were like this one (as you’ll see over the next four days). I’ll probably use the wide ones for a post on my blog later since they give a better impression of the event than these artsy close-ups.