2011 American LeMans Series – Road America, WI « meghan orud photography & design

2011 American LeMans Series – Road America, WI

August 21, 2011 No Comments

Special Guest Blogger this week – The Other Half.

I think this recap needs to start where the weekend began. Almost 12 years ago, Meghan fell in love with the Lotus Elise (in Europe only at the time). Ever since, she has been on the lookout for a cute Elise, and many others along those lines, for her fantasy garage. We headed to Wisconsin for a weekend of watching wonderful cars on one of the most treasured tracks in America, and the following is what we found.

Of course, the first thing you notice is a sea of cars parked in the fields, and that is where we found the first of many cars to check out up close.

Not bad, but let’s get to why we are really here.

The American LeMans Series brings the excitement of 24-hour European LeMans-style racing to the US, albeit in a shorter format. Each year Road America in Elkhart Lake, WI hosts a 4-hour race in the Series on their 4 mile track. These races include competitors from five different classifications, all on the track at the same time. The most identifiable class is GT, with cars such as the BMW M3, Chevy Corvette, Porsche 911, Ferrari 458 Italia, Ford GT, and Jaguar XKR. A brief explanation of all 5 classifications can be found here: http://photos.americanlemans.com/files/2011/101/Classes_11.pdf

We started out the day at the edge of the woods, right next to the track at the exit of Turn 3, where the cars get their first chance to crank up their engines on their way to 180mph on a slight uphill. The first time the field came around on their warm-up lap, I had a huge grin on my face from the sight of weaving cars, the blare of roaring engines, and the smell of race car fuel. Wow.

Later we moved to Turn 8, where the racers come down a steep hill before taking a 90-degree left. This is the only spot where a chain-link fence was in our way, for our own safety. You always need to roll with the punches, and this was an opportunity for something different, as shown below:

This was a great place to get action shots of cars jockeying for position in the corner, and in LeMans racing the action is enhanced by the different speeds and braking strategies of each class of car. Meghan was able to snap action shots from many different spots around this corner. The GT race was close between BMW, Corvette, and the red Ferrari all day long.

Here are a few shots of cars from the other classifications.

Closer to the Corvette Bridge, at Turn 7, we were able to capture a few more pictures as the sun began to disappear behind the trees and the car lights came on.

Then it was back to Turn 3 to get a different look at the cars for the last 30 minutes of the race. Overall winner was the Muscle Milk Aston Martin prototype.