Grand Prix of Houston

[philip]

Going today I'll be back with photos.

(sorry I guess I broke rule 8 )

[gucom]

cool ALMS is a great series, especially in LMP2 and GT2 classes, and the first pics i've seen of the Houston track look promising

[philip]

The first day started great. Ron Fellows dropped by the Corvette Coral for autograph signing. Not only did he sign autographed pictures, but he is such a great guy he went into the Corvette Coral and began signing cars.

Here the lucky owner of this red corvette got his valve cover signed by Ron.



More to come. Race is tonight.

[TopGearNL]

^^ Thats very cool!

[philip]

At the Corvette Coral tent there were two Corvettes a pace car and the Fellows ZO6 Corvette. The Fellows Corvette is a limited edition ZO6, only 300 will be made and they are all spoken for. I felt lucky to get close to this one and it only got better.

Good a ZO6 Fellows Corvette


Better a Z06 Fellows Corvette opened up.


Best a Z06 Fellows Corvette with Ron Fellows standing in front of it willing to pose for pictures.


Yeah it was a pretty fun day. Ron said the Crown Prince of Kuwait had personally asked him, if he could secure one of these cars for him. Ron said he still had not been able to arrange it.

Here is a detail of the fender graphic.



A detail of the wheel and big ass brakes.

[sameerrao]

Any pics from the race?

[philip]

The race is very hard to photograph. In fact its hard to really see too. I had my point and shoot digital with me so that did n't help either. I mainly shot video, but here is what I have of race photos.

Ferrari caged.



Spyder slow. Houston's football stadium is in the background.



Spyder fast.



Back to Corvettes. So did RC show up.

NoClose but still no.

But a French Corvette owner showed up.
Nes pas

[TopGearNL]

Nice pics!

Love the Z06 Fellows and Porsche Spyder pics!

[sameerrao]

Thanks for the pictures.

I couldn't go this year - In fact, I am not sure if I would go again. I had a great time last time as I was seeing all the different series for the first time but the track was boring and Mickey Mouse-like. I don't like street circuits without character/altitude changes.

[philip]

With the IMSA Porsche and Corvette Corals, it makes it a lot more fun, they have stuff scheduled all day. I've gotten to drive on the track now twice, this year with the Corvette. I tried to drive and film at the same time this year, I'm quite sure the black Corvette ZO6 behind me was totally pissed.

But yeah, its not my first choice for racing. However, it is in Houston and its my favorite cars, so I'm not going to complain. This year the car pickings were more slim Corvette, Panoz, Porsche, and Ferrari. Spyker and BMW stayed away.

Here is a video, this is my first time using Imageshack for hosting videos.

http://img531.imageshack.us/my.php?i...2370001bf0.flv

Another

http://img531.imageshack.us/my.php?i...2290001ib0.flv

[philip]

The Ferraris










The Ferrari Club this year decided to not let anyone in to their paddock area to look at the cars up close.

[sameerrao]

^^ Last year there were a lot of incidents where strangers would come up and sit on the hood of the cars for picture taking and crap like that. One guy's car was scratched. To give the club members peace of mind, the cars were kept separately corraled this year.

[PiTTbuLL003]

to bad you couldn't enter in the Ferrari club paddock but apart from that you took some very nice shots

[philip]

Here are the Porsches



Its the same two 914's that were at the brewery on a post earlier.

[philip]

Here are some more videos.

http://img531.imageshack.us/my.php?i...2370001bf0.flv

http://img531.imageshack.us/my.php?i...2330001zs2.flv

In order to not get the fences in the images you must be either press or be very creative. Sometimes you can shoot through the openings in the main fence where the flag men are, or gaps in the main fence for rescue trucks. In two instances I zoomed so much I was able to zoom though the mesh openings. Sorry for the shaking during zooming as I had no tripod.