During the planning of my second of what was becoming an annual trip to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Wendover UT for Speedweek, I had gotten a response from Grassroots Magazine after I sent a email blast to every car magazine saying I'd be there. "I'll have photos, I'm shooting this one car, If you have anything specific I'll shoot that let me know if you're interested, you can have first dibs on the shots", that type of thing. They were and picked up a whole story worth of images for a article they were doing about my friends Alfa Romeo Spyder. The following year I emailed my contact at GRM and asked if they could hook a brother up with a legal press pass and then same deal, they get dibs on anything I shoot that they like...not a problem...then I got an email from them..."hey we have a friend who's doing the ignition on this bananas crazy old Dodge, want to shoot it while you're there?"...yes!...4 days later "hey...how do you feel about writing a story about the car"...Yes...(note...never really written anything published before), but what the hell, how bad could I do, I can tell a story, just have to write it down.
The car was nuts, just a beautiful collection of horsepower, turbos, orange paint, perfect welds and aluminum. The team were all a bunch of full on characters. I showed up, started interviewing everyone, like a good journalist...I was very serious...as I felt more comfortable with my task, everything got more friendly and I was inducted into the group and I felt like one of the team as I observed, chatted, took notes, snapped photos. There was other press there, it was interesting to see how they worked compared to how I was operating. Not bad, not good, just me watching cocking my head and thinking..."hunh...ok"...A little weirdness was shooting the car out of the pits. Myself and a couple other people had asked to shoot the car with the blank flats in the background...the team decided to do one session and let everyone have at it. I got more access, better shots, but felt a bit like I was hijacking someone else's shoot.
The car's first post shakedown run the car ran 275mph average and a peak of 280mph. They're trying to bust past 300mph this year.
So, that was last September when I turned in the article. About 1700 words. 14 photos. I just got the magazine in the mail...They gave me the cover and 6 pages. I couldn't be happier...thrilled actually. They took a chance, I asked, win, win. The experience was really fun and I'd love to do more. So...ya know...photographer, film maker, writer...let me make magic for you!
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