Santapod, the home of British drag racing, the only place to go to prove you are the fastest! It is a place i have been to many times over the last few years with my brothers and girlfriend but never focused on the photography, just enjoyed the racing and the atmosphere, its quite unique. Previous times i have been i have camped with my brothers and i didn’t want to take my camera gear and leave it in a tent as at night the camping area turns into something more like a music festival. We had parked up next to a coach before, not realizing it was just for partying, at night it became a sound system, drunk people everywhere, falling over the tent and pissing right outside. Whilst it was a good laugh its not somewhere i was comfortable keeping my camera gear.
This year i decided to book a hotel and only went for the Saturday and Sunday of the main event, the European drag finals, the fastest of the fast! I went with my girlfriend and we set of early Saturday morning much to her disgust! ( She is not a morning person haha ) We jumped in my car, connected the Spotify and were off, 2 and a half hours driving ahead of us. As we got closer to the the track, traffic get heavier, and the last 3 miles are a tiny back road, and it was rammed, stop start traffic for the whole 3 miles! Whilst waiting, 3 ambulances came flying past, we assumed there had been a bad accident on track. When we finally got in and had some child tell us where and how to park, i got my camera out right away! I wasn’t missing anything this year. The track was in full action and the ambulances were actually in the camping area.
When we finally walked up to the start of the track it was instantly loud and full of action. We walked up the right viewing bank, the strip on one side and a little arena area on the other with the stunt bikes, jet car and monster trucks in. I decided we should head for the pits, see what cars are here this year and find the big boys, the top fuel dragsters. As you head into the pits you’re greeted with stalls, food vendors, and and display of some old aircraft engines, the most interesting being the Lancaster Bombers engine! Finally some cars, lots of cars, mechanics and pit crew everywhere. We stood and watched some men work on a funny car, adding the final touches before heading for a run, they started the engine up and it was very loud! I managed to get some shots of them working on and inspecting the car before i saw them stop what they were doing and cover their ears! I downed the camera and put my fingers in my ears, even then i was stood 6 foot from the engine, it was loud and i could feel each cylinder fire in my chest!
Once they cut the engines and put the bodies on the cars they moved them out and towed them down to the start line ready for a run. We wandered a bit further, watching teams prep the funny cars, and nitro cars, even two jet cars! Eventually we made it to what we had been looking for, the top fuel drag cars, the loudest and fastest cars on earth. The tent was like a full mechanic garage, amazing set up. We stood and watched in amazement for a long while, i could watch them work on the cars all day, its fascinating when i have a passion for cars too. This team in particular was owned by and the main driver was a young blonde woman, looked like a typical girly girl, painted nails, long blonde hair, and then the race suit appeared and she got into a car that will do over 300mph in 3.8 seconds! She had a full team of men working on her car, she was helping too, and cleaning the car, making sure every detail was taken car of, it was then time for the engine start. If you have never heard a top fuel dragster its hard to explain the experience, its the loudest thing you will ever hear, it makes your ear drums itch, you can feel the ground shaking and the sound physically hitting you. It was Chloes first time experiencing one of these monsters, i told her about them but nothing could prepare her for it! Not only is the noise borderline painful when stood this close, the exhaust gasses produced are similar to tear gas used in riots! Our ears are being battered ,our eyes are streaming, and our throats are sore but we loved it, and so did everybody else, its what we came for! The engine test went well and they began towing the car to the start line, we decided to beat it down and watch it run. But first some of the photos i captured of the car, team and Jndia Erbacher, the young female racer!
When we got trackside, after a quick stop for an over priced drink, we walked and tried to find a spot we could actually see from. The hill was heaving, most people in deck chairs, set up in the morning and don’t move all day, but all the walkway was full of standing spectators. We found a gap in the crowd and i swapped to my long lens, ready to try some shots down the strip. It was WAYYYY harder than it looks, the cars accelerate so fast, the panning isn’t smooth, and as the car gets closer i have to pan much much faster! I fired off so many shots and kept checking between runs and most were crap, ready for the bin, but the odd one was just as i wanted! I was photographing the funny cars, they will do the run in around 7 seconds, i was able to capture at least one good photo from each run of these cars, but not many photos “worked”, even though i was panning and blurring the background, the cars get mixed up with the adverts on the side of the track and were hard to see. Sometimes the car was behind the other, or only one car would run and it would be on the closest lane where i cant see the whole car because of the wall. We stood watching the racing for a long while, slowly capturing photos i liked, playing with different settings and focal length, finally got to some settings i was getting constant good results with and then it was track prep time for the top fuel dragsters! As the first 2 lined up to do their burnout, EVERYBODY stood up. Now my view was seriously limited, a few photographers were on little plasterer/builder hop-up steps to get a good 18inch above everybody else, something to consider for next time! I kept my settings and was ready for the first run…..off they go….and they finished, 4 seconds! I couldn’t keep up, i lost them out of my viewfinder before half way down the track, they were much much faster than the funny cars, the photos i had managed to fire off with them in frame were awful, car was blurry, and missing some of it. I zoomed out as these cars are much longer, and doubled my shutter speed. There were a few minutes between races so plenty of time to make setting changes and review photos. Next pair were up, and gone! Did i manage to capture a photo i liked ??? I had, just one, of Jndia Erbacher! I tried a on the next few top fuel runs but nothing solid came out, it was back to the slower cars, very slow, junior drag racing, which isn’t that slow but looks it after top fuel racing. We stayed and took some photos, watched the racing, during track delays we saw car and motorbike stunt men perform to keep the crowds entertained.
We decided it was time for food, the ques had died down and a look around the stalls. We got some really good chicken nuggets and chips for a not too unreasonable price and wandered looking at car stickers, toys, signs and merchandise. Chloe wanted a Santapod jacket, we looked but only XS size was left, nobody could fit into that ! We had a really good look around all the pits, we cut it short the first time to watch the top fuel racing, we looked at everything, even peoples own cars were impressive, you could tell these people had BHP in their blood! We spent hours in the pits, watching, moving on, watching, engine rebuilds, parts machining, computer diagnostics, and cleaning. There were top fuel cars, funny cars, nitro, junior drag and all different types of motorbikes competing! Everything was so clean, tools for every job, no adjusting torque wrenches for different bolts, just have 10 of them set instead! It was fascinating, even lined up on the road down the team were still tinkering with them. I was trying to capture some photos of the mood, some teams were mega relaxed, some were a little more stressed about the up coming race.
We spent so long in the pit and watching some more racing we had walked over 8 miles! We decided to head to the car and find the hotel for the night, I had apparently stayed before but i didn’t remember, so we used the satnav to find it, a half an hour drive from the track. only a few miles down the road we were forced to turn around, somebodies car had stopped and decide to burst into flames, BIG flames! When we finally arrived at the hotel i only remembered the car park, nothing else! Chloe knew where to go and sorted everything with booking in, that is not my thing. Found the room, shoes and camera bag were off, much better! Showed and laid on the bed relaxing, ears ringing still, watching some tv and i ordered a pizza hut, over and hour for delivery, when it got close i went outside to wait for the driver, he was late, a little rude and when i got up the room……they had forgotten my chicken strips! We stuffed our faces, and watched the film Split for the first time, very strange but good! Early night, for an early start tomorrow for the finals!
New day, up early, we were meeting my older brother, Ben, at the track. He was coming down for the day to join us. When we finally got in, he apparently managed to miss the hoards of traffic we got stuck in, we met up and he wanted to head straight for the pits.. Track action was starting but most cars were still in the pits getting ready for the first runs. He is as interested in the mechanics as me, we wandered and found Jndia’s teams tent. He watched for a while, intrigued he starts touching car parts and wandering into the tent, nobody cares, the team must be used to this! Not getting in anybodies way we have a closer look at things, i manage to get some detail shots of the engine and other parts. We wander much the same as yesterday but with more technical talking, he is a people person and will start talking with anybody, even if they don’t speak English, somehow he was talking to them ! This was great though, i already knew a lot about these cars but some questions i had never asked and we had gotten answers from the teams, they don’t hide anything, no team or trade secrets from each other. After hours of talking to pit crew and watching them rebuild and answering Chloes car questions we ate and headed to the track to watch some action and i could try my panning again, but with hopefully better results!
It was race day, finals day, and the turn out was bigger than the day before, huge groups of people, come to watch racing but i think to mainly have a good piss up in the sun. The racing was good, the cars were being pushed to the limits, European records were being broken ! The cars kept coming, i was getting a few good shots off but really struggling with crowds. The jet cars came out but i didn’t get a single photo. On the other side of the bank the monster trucks were running over some cars, a car was drifting and an old Peugeot had a jet engine in the boot ! The rest of the day was watching racing, more overpriced drinks and talking to race mechanics. I managed to get some more good photos in the bag but was happy enjoying the racing for most of the day. After all the racing was done, they open the track to the public to walk on, and present the trophies at the start line. We walked the track, took a few photos, mainly to show just how sticky the track is, its almost entirely rubber and glue, if you stand still too long you will lose your shoe!
We finally decided to head home, after a short stop at McDonalds, i got in and right, away uploaded my files to laptop and backed up to my hard drive. I started editing some photos but it was late and unfortunately had work in the morning, they would have to wait for another day. It took a while to eventually get though them, i took maybe 800 photos and i saved 145 in the end, not an awful ratio for motorsport and one i hadn’t tried before! I hope you enjoyed the images, and if you haven’t been, i urge everybody to go drag racing at least once!
