Intercontinental Le Mans Cup, 1000km of Spa

Only a week after the second MaX5 Cup races of the season I found myself back behind my camera shooting hard fought battles again. This time at Spa Franchorchamps for the Inter Continental Le Mans Cup. With less than a month to go to the 24 Hours of Le Mans, this event was the last possibility for the teams and drivers to check their materials, cars and routines in race trim before the main event in La Sarthe.

It is always a pleasure to stand at the top of the famous Eau Rouge corner, the speeds these cars carry up this hill is just incredible. Also the view from here just breathes motorsport history at it’s best. There are so many good memories of races I have witnessed here in the past. This image was taken with the Go Pro camera which I use to film the action during the MaX5 events.

The all new Audi R18 made is race debut at Spa after the test days in Le Mans where it appeared in April. With the cars placing in the top three spots after qualifying, Audi looked as strong as ever. The futuristic look of these cars strongly reminded me of the Cylon’s from Battle Star Galactica. You either love them or you hate them but I think they look great.

I ran into this broken Porsche of the IMSA Performance team near the Stavelot section of the track. Hopefully it will have more luck at Le Mans.

My 100-400mm lens gives me some great new opportunities. Standing on top of the Kemmel straight I shot this image of the start/finish line. The tilt/shift effect was added later.

Due to the lay out of the circuit and the high speed of these cars, Spa is a great place to make some great panning shots. M Power all the way!!!

The all new Ferrari 458 Italia of the AF Corse team makes it’s way through the late afternoon sun at the Malmedy corner. One of the R18 Audi’s is just disappearing over the crest.

It is great to see Henry Pescarolo and his team back at Le Mans this year. Here the car is leading two Ferrari’s out of the Bus Stop Chicane.

In the end it was Team Total Peugeot who took the top honors leaving Audi with a third place finish. I have a feeling that this years Le Mans race is going to be epic!!!

Here is the trailer from Peugeot in the run up to the event.

MaX5 Raceday 2, Images

On Saturday the 30th of April, while the rest of Holland was celebrating Queensday, the second round of the Total Mazda MaX5 Cup was held. A sunny Zandvoort racetrack welcomed the drivers and their entourage. With a laid back atmosphere and great racing spirit it turned out to be one of the best race days in the cups history. For a full race report and championship standings visit the MaX5 Racing website

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The Season Kicks Off!!!

The season kicks off!!!

The Total Mazda MaX5 Cup 2011has finally started. With new teams, cars and a great vibe, the whole circus got in full swing on Sunday the 10th of April.
With a lot of new camera equipment to get my head around and many new cars and people to shoot I had my work cut out for me. Fortunately it was beautiful weather and I was very happy to be back behind the guardrails to shoot the action.
Besides photography I will be also shooting film during the season. A great new challenge and it gives a whole new look on the drivers perspective. One problem, it really makes me want to be in their seats!!! I definitely should hurry up with my track project!!! Until my car is track worthy again I will just focus on the shooting side of racing. Enjoy the photo’s and the first racing film of the season.

http://www.vimeo.com/22420347

MaX5 Racing Spotters Guide 2011

The new season of the Total Mazda MaX5 Cup is on it’s way!!! With plenty of new cars and teams I thought it would be a good idea to post a Spotters Guide. The images down below show all the entries of the 2011 season. Three of them are old shots as these cars were not participating in the session in which I took the images. Enjoy the Guide and if you are in the neighbourhood of one of the events, don’t hesitate to drop by for coffee and a lot of racing fun. All the dates can be found here!

See you in 2011!!!

Miata Track Project

My Miata is getting a pretty old Lady. With twenty years of cruising, travel and track abuse behind the wheels, the time has come to give the engine a proper rebuild. The money was in place, parts were about to be ordered but how do I travel around during the rebuild? Last weekend the whole situation took an unexpected turn as I got a great offer on another Miata.

As some expensive parts on my car, besides the engine, needed to be replaced as well, the car on sale had these already installed and they were in good shape. Hmmm…..what to do??? Sell one, get the other? That was not an option. A lot of changes had already been made to the red Miata to make it work both on the street as on the track. Unfortunately I can not keep two cars in front of my house due to limited parking permits. Fortunately a great solution presented itself and I now have an indoor space to keep one car dry during the year. Great stuff!!! I bought the blue Miata the same day. Finally I can get some work done and learn more on how to do some wrenching myself.

This is my new NA Miata. Like the other one it is one of the first ever made. The chassis code is even under the 5000 produced NA’s at that time. It still feels like I am cheating when I drive off and leave the red one parked. The wheels are way to big for the car and it’s handling. These 17 inch wheels will be replaced with soon with the spoked wheels which I run on the red car. Small other changes will probably follow as well to make it handle better and give it a bit more of an aggressive look.

As I do not have the budget to run a full season of MaX5 racing and I love taking the photo’s for the series, I run the occasional track day instead. For this reason the car was already transforming slowly into a track car. Now that the blue car has joined the family I can go a bit more crazy. Once this car has been turned into the track spec, that I have in mind, it has some more horse power and great throttle response.
The engine will get a full IRTB set up with AE101 throttle bodies and many other additions to make it a bit more aggressive and functional. It will remain street legal so I can enjoy it while running the hills surrounding the Nordschleife and other great roads as well.

Ever since I own a Miata it has surprised me how well these little cars handle on track. While being way down on power these cars fight off some pretty hardcore machines in the corners. This photo was taken a few years back by Michael from Autofotos.nl.

This is one of my favorite shots of my car running at the Zandvoort racetrack in Holland. I was doing a track day together with the guys from Team Zerospeed. An awesome day out. Here I am running together with Mike (R.I.P.) in his mighty S2000. Credits go out to Austin from Team Zerospeed for taking this image!

The full progress on this build we be published as soon as the project starts on PagodaGarage.com

VW Kever Winter Festijn

A few weeks ago I went to see an event called The Winter Kever Festijn. As both my brothers in law are very passionate VW fans (one of them currently is restoring his Karmann Ghia) we decided that a road trip we be a good start to 2011.
This was my first VW event and I had a blast looking at all the tuned and souped up Beetles and VW vans which were present. I would love to own one of those old school vans one day and just go out camping with it.
I brought my camera just incase I would spot some awesome stuff. There was an awefull lot of awesome stuff but I decided to enjoy the event and for once not to take a million pics.
Fortunately one of the others guys did take many more images so check out Leo Kuilder’s Picasa web for some great VW’s.

Enjoy some of my impressions of the event:

Maximum5 X MaX5 Racing

On February 1st a new German online magazine called Maximum 5 was launched. This magazine features the lifestyle and fun around the worlds most popular convertible the Mazda MX-5. Focused on the MX-5 life in and around Europe, the first edition features: stories about travel, technique, and all the fun you can have when you bring out these little roadsters to a racetrack or a slalom cup. As this first issue looks back into the last season of our MaX5 Racing series, I was asked to provide the editors with several images out of my archives.

Currently the magazine is only in German but when it turns out to be a succes other languages will follow. Click on the link below to read the first edition of the magazine or go to the Maximum5 website. Don’t forget that it is an interactive magazine so clicking on links can get you anywhere from new products to cool race videos!

Read the Magazine

Here is a sneak preview of the film which is attached to the MaX5 Racing article:

Nike Factory Store Amsterdam

On Saturday the 22nd of January the new Nike Factory Store in Amsterdam opened it’s doors. This new store is the flagship of Nike’s European factory store business. For a factory store at this moment this is as premium as it gets. Great lay-out & merchandising, mannequin podium, light boxes, magnetic graphics, in store I Mac to log into Nikestore.com. That and many more exclusive features raise the bar to set the future for the Global business in Nike Factory Stores.

Even though there were some very long work days to get the store open, it was a very enjoyable project. It was the perfect project to say goodbye to Nike! I have been working for the company as a Product Presentation Territory Manager for the last half year. In those six months I have seen a lot, travelled all over Europe, opened stores, visited many more and made friends for life! As I want to spend more time with my family I decided to move on and leave the company. Since all the support, which flew in from all over Europe, to merchandise the store came from my territory, it was awesome to see them all once more on this final store opening.

After a soft opening event on Wednesday the 19th for all the staff from Nike’s European Headquarters, the Saturday featured an opening event for all customers. Dutch rap star Yes-R came to perform in front of the store and free waffles were handed out to the stores customers. Furthermore people could get autographs and a picture taken with Yes-R.     A very fun day since I was asked to take all the photo’s. It is always great to mix pleasure in with work. So as this was my first time shooting such an event it was quit a challenge.

Enjoy some more images of the day:

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If you want to see more of this great store please visit the Zuidermolenweg 58-60 in Amsterdam. It is next to the Praxis, G-star & Toys XXL

Dining in The Pink

During last weeks trip in Ireland I got the opportunity to visit long time friend Femke who is living in Dublin. After finishing up work in Kildare for Nike, I took my rental car and drove 50 minutes up the M7. I parked the car and after checking in at the hotel we headed out in to the city. As the bar, where we were heading in the first place, was closed for a private venue we ended up in The Pink. The Pink just opened it’s doors two months ago and is a members only club. Between six and nine PM however the restaurant is open to everybody. The kitchen serves up some great fusion cooking out of a variety of Asian cuisines and has some good wines to go with it. Here is an impression of The Pink’s interior.

The Sartorialist

I just found a cool short film about blogger Scott Schumann on The Coolhunter.
Scott is also known as “The Sartorialist” and shares his blog with thousands and thousands of readers each day. The way he explains his work in this film is something I can really relate to and that combined with the laid back music made me want to put it up on Provence. Scott shares his everyday vision on the people of New York and far beyond on his website