See what happens to video game players, when a real World Rally Championship (WRC) pilot takes them to the real dirt. “Are you ready for the real thing?” Ken Block is not only a good driver, he’s trying his best to have them p…ing their pants.

Source: Autoblog.

In automobile racing, if you start from the last position, it is difficult to come back to the 1st position. But if you have the same car as the other drivers, this is even worse.

Dean Evans, in 1985 did much better than this in an Australian car race where all the competing cars were Lotus Elise: He went from the 16th and last position to the pole position within a single lap.

Watch this demonstration from a hell of a race driver:

 
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After looking at these images I shot myself, I advise you to visit the excellent web site of Thomas Baekdal about Le Mans.

24 heures du Mans, 2008.

Here is a good example of a photographic opportunity caught at the right time. I am going to the first qualification runs of the 24h of Le Mans (endurance car race in the West of France). Of course, I did not forget to bring some photo hardware with me, even if I was told that the wire meshes are everywhere on auto race tracks.

And, while the weather seemed crappy for most of the day, we have an early evening with a superb light. I grab my brand new second-hand Minolta APO G 400mm tele-lens in order to move back and shoot over the metal obstacles (sometimes, under the up-turned corner of a metal net). Here is the result caught by my Sony Alpha 700, the best images I could catch in the stands: A place where there is always something happening -at least before the race itself.

 

 
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Some of these images can be acquired as posters or as laminated prints on RedBubble.

24 heures du Mans, 2008.

 
Click on the thumbnails image to enlarge them

24 heures du Mans, 2008.