2023 GMR Grand Prix

I didn’t intend to go to this race, but when I had COVID last year I bought them in my sleep. So I made the plans and almost didn’t make it because I was hospitalized week of the race with an internal bleed. I was able to recover just enough to go with my mother and friend watching over me.

I’ve been wanting to shoot Indycar for some time now but it hasn’t worked out until now. This is my favorite series, and hopefully I’ll be back next year. I want to get some better photos, because I didn’t try all my creative techniques. I was still tired from losing blood and my brain wasn’t 100%. I still had a great time and met my fellow members of the PrueDay (an Indycar fan group) and motorsport journalist Marshall Pruett. I went back to Indy two weeks later for the 500, expect that post in about a week.

Indianapolis 8 Hour 2021

The 2021 Indy 8 Hour was the first race I attended in person since July 2019. A lot happened since then, at the Indycar race in 2019, there was a pandemic, I started a new job in 2020, I came out as transgender. 2021 was the year I started living as myself and came out to everyone. As a result, I made lots of new friends in the trans community and met a few that like racing! This was the first race I went to with one of those friends.

Since there was such a long gap between in person events for me, I was way more excited than usual. We arrived about 10 minutes before the green flag. We watched the start from the front stretch, and watching them take the green moved me to tears. Happy crying was still quite new to me, and was surprising. It happened again watching the start of the Indy 500 a few months later. Being removed from the emotional numbness of my pre-HRT days, really showed me how important the sport is to me.

It was great to see Taylor Hagler race for the first time after I discovered her earlier that year. She’s great to see on track, and there were a few other women drivers that day, which always awesome to see. Currently we are smack in the middle of winter here in Michigan, so it might be a couple months before I get to see any racing. Might really delve into my old photos and see what I can find for the next post.

IMSA Mid-Ohio May 15, 2022

The next day had much better weather, and the light was much more consistent. I didn’t get many photos I was happy with in the MX-5 Cup race or Prototype Challenge. The 2hr 40min IMSA race paid off. Many great vantage points and the length of the race gave me time to stay in one corner to let action develop. Mid-Ohio is a very photographer friendly track. Highly recommended if you ever want to shoot a professional racing event.

IMSA Mid-Ohio May 14, 2022

This was the first IMSA event I attended since the pandemic and I was very much looking forward to it. A warm day with a weather stoppage in the afternoon during the MX-5 Cup race. The Michelin Pilot series also had it’s race at the end of the day. Lots of great on track action and reminding me why I love this track so much. I do wish I had taken some notes, but I didn’t really have this project in mind quite yet in May. This feedback I got from some of these pictures encouraged me to start this blog in fact. I’ll post the next blog over the holiday weekend with pictures from the next day, which features shots from the IMSA Weathertech race.

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Welcome!

Hello everyone! My name is Marisa and I’ve finally decided to start blogging my photos and travels. Mostly I take photos are the race courses I visit in the United States. If it goes fast I want to capture it in the lens of my camera. Occasionally might post other things between race weekends. Over the next couple months I’ll make post for each of the events I attended in 2022 and perhaps further back, though those would be long before I moved back to a DSLR.