It’s that time of year again. I get a farmer’s tan, smell like a bonfire for three days and jostle for position with four tv camera men and 12 photographers just to take a lame picture of Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s pitstop. Yeah. Why do I still come here.
Carl Edwards flips into the catch fence on the last lap of the Aaron's 499 at Talladega Superspeedway, Sunday, April 26, 2009. (AP Photo/Rainier Ehrhardt)
Well, every once in a while you get a “big one.” I’ve been coming to Talladega since 2001, and it only took 8 years and 15 races (they run two a year here) to get a decent wreck picture. Like it or not, it’s what people expect to see when they see NASCAR photos. It’s a luck of the draw kind of thing, and since I’ve always been the pit guy shooting for the Associated Press, I rarely saw any death and mayhem, so to speak (because lets face it, 100% of the fans are there to see carnage.)
Without getting into too much specifics, let’s just say it was the last lap, last corner, one guy moved down on the other to cut him off and they touched. Then one went careening upside-down into the catch fence. That’s classified as a big one in my book.
I’ll likely never top this photo. So again, why do I still come here?
CUZ I’M A REDNECK AT HEART! YEEHAW!
-RAE
Rainier Ehrhardt's Blog 