This year’s Long Beach Grand Prix was to be the last race for the Champ-cars. After years of debate and conflict, all of the “Indy” type open-wheel racers will be joined into one group (Hey! I have an idea, let’s call it USAC!) and this will start at the next race.

With half the field of Indy-cars in Japan (a race that was won by Danica Patrick), the champ-car racers were given the streets of Long Beach.

I figured even with a half-field of Rookies, Long Beach was a place to get photos and exercise the “Auto-ISO” function of my D-200 Nikon!…..

Sunday was predicted to be cloudy, cold and overcast, but Long Beach, on Grand Prix weekend, usually has the same weather-gods working for them that the Rose-Parade has. It was a nice, bright, warm day in SoCal.

Shooting into the sun for most of the 3-races and one display of “Drifter” cars, I resorted to using the Center-weighted metering function , over-exposing by about 1.7 stops, and setting the camera on “Shutter Priority” at about 1/620th to help capture the speeding cars, and letting the ISO change automatically to help maintain my exposures.

With the Auto-ISO setting you can specify a minimum shutter-speed of up to 1/250th (on the D200) and if it drops below that, it automatically raises the ISO to at least maintain the shutter-speed specified.

With the Race Girls ready and the Bubba-Gump shrimp cruising the place, we were ready to cover the action….

There was a demo of “Auto-guided” cars, seen here negotiating the corner with no driver (or passengers….smart) on board!

The Tecaté Mariachis were providing some great music to add to the festive atmosphere found at the Grand Prix….

Some souvenirs were a lot easier to carry around than others.

… And a vantage point to see the races ranged from high-in -the-clouds…..

…to the “hill people” on Pine Avenue trying to get a free-glimpse as the cars raced by.

This fan had the ultimate Last Champ Car shirt signed by everyone involved!

The race was on, and as you can see, racing on a street-course usually isn’t the smoothest course around.

It was great to see the drivers negotiating the corner and struggling to keep on track as the cars were pitched around by the rough surfaces.

Here Alex Tagliani, who finished in 7th place, gets airborne on a speed-bump!

Here you can see, on this Double-exposure, how the bumps can pitch a car sideways, jumping out at after the corner apex.

I llove the smell of Racing Fuel and burning-tires as the cars speed by.

A last “good by” to Champ Car.

Eventual winner Will Power (really!) drove a flawless race, seen here speeding by.

Even the Cone-heads had a good time, and for the Champ Car race at least, the Yellow-flags weren’t too numerous.

Here, winner Will Power is seen in the middle.

A neat diversion from the racing was the “Drifter” cars, who see who can burn up a set of tires by pretty much slliding sideways (drifting) through the whole course. Sensibly, most are sponsored by a tire-manufacturer.

2 of the larger-motored drifters are seen here drifting through a corner.

The GT classes had some good drivers but were constantly interrupted by Yellow caution flags.

All in all, a good day for “High-noon” photography, people watching and last but not least, racing!