You're a real pro, John. The month of May in Indy will always be so special. Those who don't live there will never know how much everyone in the city celebrates in so many ways. I look forward to seeing you in August here on the "Left" Coast for the Sonoma IndyCar race at Infineon.
Best to you,
Bob Keller

: I posted the following photo on FaceBook of me (the tall guy on the
: left) standing on the Roof of the turn 1 stands with my friend
: and famous longtime motorsport photographer Dan Boyd. Jeff Stein
: saw the post and asked me to show some of my photos from this
: year's Indy 500. So...here are some pix from the month of May in
: Indy with my captions.

:
:

: This is the photo which Jeff saw on FB of me with Danny Boyd on the
: roof about 40 meters above the track at the beginning of Turn
: 1...The best seats in the house if you are up to climbing up
: there.

:
:

: The month of May began with some studio driver shoots on May 11 and
: 12. Here is Takuma Sato in my "studio" meaning I
: carted my lighting equipment over to the media center at the
: track and made due.

:
:

: Rookie testing also started that weekend. This is rookie Carlos
: Munoz at the end of his second practice session crossing the
: yard of bricks late in the day. Carlos was going about 235 mph
: or 378 kph and my shutter speed was 1/30th of a second to get
: the blur...not many shots actually come out looking like much at
: 1/30th but when they do...

:
:

: The next weekend, in between qualifying attempts the cars go out to
: practice. Here Oriol Servia in the white #6 gets ready to pass
: Helio Castroneves at the entrance to turn one.

:
:

: I love to shoot them going away too. Here three cars head around
: turn one late in the day. This was shot with a 600mm lens
: through the fence.

:
:

: Friday before Race Day is the famous Carb Day...even though the
: cars have not had carburetors for years. The feature of that day
: was the "Pit Stop Challenge" in which the teams
: compete for a $500,000 prize which is traditionally distributed
: among pit crew members of the winning team. The object is to
: race down down to where your crew waits, get up on the jacks,
: change tires and take on fuel and scream down to the finish
: line. In this picture driver James Hinchcliffe decides to race
: the two challengers on foot.

:
:

: Here the ultimate winner of the pitstop competition Helio
: Castroneves is congratulated by team owner Roger Penske.

:
:

: Race day morning is one of the best times at the track. The track
: opens to the public at 5:30 am. This was shot from the roof of
: the stands at the start finish line just after that time as the
: sun came up.

:
:

: This is the official start or "High Start" photo taken
: just after the first shot of Dan and I above. The grid of cars
: has just received the green flag and pole sitter Ed Carpenter is
: leading Marco Andretti into turn 1.

:
:

: This was shot from a small window/hole in the fence at the end of
: the front straight showing the eventual race winner Tony Kanaan
: leading the pack. There were a record 70+ lead changes during
: this race....it was a very exciting race indeed.

:
:

: This is a very patriotic shot I took with my 500mm lens as I was
: walking from the outside of turn one back to the pits.

:
:

: This is the race finish shot showing Tony crossing the line with
: his finger in the air under the twin checkered flags.

:
:

: This is Tony standing in the cockpit of his car with the Borg
: Warner Trophy in the background in Victory Circle with the
: traditional winner's milk.

:
:

: This is Tony posing with the trophy on the main straight the
: morning after the race.

: The month of May is long in Indy. Tomorrow I head to Detroit for
: the street race.

: JohnCote