The 2010 WA State Time Trial Championships were held Sunday August 1 in Tenino.
Paula and I were out on the course about 1.5 km from the finish. I took a ton of pictures; unfortunately I didn’t plan well (I’ll blame it on a 5 AM departure time) and didn’t have a spare memory chip. Consequently I only captured images of about 25-50% the racers.
My strategy for shooting action pics is simple. My camera has a “continuous” mode and I just point and shoot and hope that a few turn out ok. In this case I shot about 500 images and kept 185. When you are shooting this way, you really don’t know what you’re going to get until you get home and look at the results.
There were a few surprises. I always thought a key part of a good time trial is mental focus and determination. Here we have a few examples of racers who seem to be out on sightseeing excursions:
I’m not sure why you’d look behind during a time trial, but maybe this is a top secret strategy that gives a previously unknown aerodynamic advantage.
Meanwhile, this guy is totally busted checking out Paula in the middle of his race:
When he went by Paula said something like: “That should be a good shot, he smiled at the camera!” I was skeptical that he was looking at the camera. When we got home we could see that he was clearly looking at her.
Focus and determination is inspiring to watch at races like this, and most racers came into the final turn at warp speed, anxious to see the finish line, and often drooling:
And what would a time trial be without endless speculation and critique about position on the bike? Here Sean Phillips (SCCA/Starbucks) is looking good to me, but apparently his turn needs work:
