Paul Stenquist mused: > > > On Sep 14, 2004, at 1:45 AM, John Francis wrote: > > > But you weren't beside me at Laguna > > Seca in turn 4 in 2000 (I believe) listening to my PZ-1p rewind when > > all > > of a sudden Paul Tracy lost it, bounced across the gravel trap, and > > went > > into the tyre barrier. > > No, but I was. It was a frightening moment. Didn't even have time to > think about my LX on the tripod. And my lens was way too long to get > the shot. My full attention was fixed on saving my butt.<vbg>.
I was standing by the gate, well out of harm's way. I had the 80-200 on the camera, and was able to track and watch through the viewfinder. The car hit, tail first, around 30" in the air, pretty much flat and horizontal, and just about perfectly sideways on from my viewpoint. The big cloud of dust, gravel, etc. was mostly beyond the car, so I had a clear view of what happened - just some gravel to add effect in front of the car, and the big dust cloud as the background. There's no absolute guarantee that I'd have got the framing right, or presed the release at the right time. Fortunately I was set on a fast exposure time (I'd been shooting wide head-on shots of the cars coming under the tyre bridge). That's still "the one that got away" while I was present. The other shot I missed was "The Pass" (Zanardi passing Herta in the corkscrew). I had left the corkscrew at the end of the previous lap to head down to victory circle for the podium shots.
