Recently, I was summoned to visit the Slovakiaring – the Slovakiaring will feature in the 2012 V-WTCC season.
So I went, got on the plane to Budapest, picked up my rental and drove down to the race track! Here, I’m driving accross the border bridge between Hungary and Slovakia.
Upon arrival at the racetrack, I was suprisingly welcomed by a roaring racecar around the track. So I jumped out of the car and decided to have a look at what was going on!
There was a German Team testing their virgin white Porsche!
Some folks were testing their road going KTM.
And there was a team testing their Formula car. I couldn’t spot which one it was, looked like a Formula 3000, I wasn’t aware they were still being raced!
The best suprice was the team testing their Aston Martin for the coming season. It sounds and looks just great! Sadly enough it only passed by twice! I reckon it got stranded in the gravel somewhere…
Time to cross the road and check into the Ring Hotel just across the race track, and get ready for tomorrow’s reference shoot on the racetrack. I should have brought my own car, it would have blended in nicely with the other Civic’s! The local Honda Civic club were having a driving course on the test/wet track training opposite the hotel.
Although referencing is a great job to go out and shoot references, it is not all fun and games. On trips like these, with no major activities on the track, you go on your own, and have to entertain yourself on a tuesday night! So here is me having the best steak I ever had, but at that time noone to share it with…So here it goes, the best steak I ever had!
After a good nights rest, it’s time to get on the track. I normally start with a lap around the track to familiarize myself with the layout. Followed by minimum 6 video laps. Shooting video in all directions in Full HD for the artists in the office.
Then it is time for a [long] trackwalk on this location I have been allocated the whole day! Which is a luxury, during the race season, and of cource pending on the track, we are planned inbetween activities. So a few hours here, and there spread over a few days if you are unlucky. Or extremely early as I experienced in Macau, where I had to wake up at 04.00 in the morning to get an hour of track time everyday!
I shoot panorama’s, but mainly details photos of objects like a gaurdrail ending..
A marhsall hut…
Kerbstones around the track..
Came across this lonely plant next to the kerbstone, which suprisingly enough was fixed with a bit of duct tape after someone ran over it. And people say that racing is not environment friendly!!!
At the end of the trip I gathered 30 GB of photos and video. In combination with the data we received from the race track, we are ready to build a very nice virtual Slovakiaring!
Jay Ekkel