Tricky light at Autosport International

[SmartWombat]

You can see the length of the shadows.
The charity kart race doesn't start until late afternoon, and it's an endurance race.
The light goes from fingers of late sunlight to mixed sodium and mercury lamps, so colour balance is a bit of a lottery.
Until it gets so dark flash is the only answer.

[Photo-John]

Is that a local indoor cart track, Paul? How many hours is the race? Are there teams or is it all solo racers? How is it you ended up shooting this? I can see how it fits in with your usual subject. But it's a little different for you.

I like that first image. The shadows make the photo. I wish it was a little closer to the drivers. Although I'm sure you tried

The flash photos immediately made me think of remote flashes. I am no fan of direct flash - especially for action photos. Having the flash in front of or to the drivers' right would have been much more interesting. And panning would have added more of a feeling of speed. This is definitely a tough subject, though.

[SmartWombat]

It's a temporary track set up at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham.
Lighting at the NEC is appalling for photography; skylights in the roof let in blue daylight, then the main exhibition lighting is a mixture of yellow sodium, greenish mercury vapour, and from the stands tungsten light.
Colour balance varies every few feet, and may be different on different sides of a car

The race is three hours (or maybe two) with a mixture of paying race fans and race drivers in each team. So you can race with Jamie Green (DTM), David Brabham (Le Mans), Allan McNish (Le Mans), Frank Biele, Tom Kristensen (Le Mans), and many many more.

I shoot only two karting events, Johnny Herbert's Karting Challenge, and the Racing4Charity challenge at Autosport. So it's not like I get a lot of practice.
Being right next to the track with a wide angle it's actually panning faster than most motor racing as you can't get that close to single seaters or touring cars.