Aston Martin Vantage

Chandler Welling is a fan of fast cars and race tracks. A few weeks back he was attending a track day at the National Corvette Museum Motorsport Park in Bowling Green Kentucky and invited me to come along and film.

The crew met up at the local Starbucks just south of Nashville, TN. Fueled with caffeine the convoy quickly dispersed. Navigating morning traffic made it tough to stick together but it’s hard to get lost when the trip directions simply, “go north until you arrive at the track”.
I’ve filmed at NCM once before a couple months ago. But this day was much quieter and I didn’t need to focus on the activities in the paddock as much, so in the afternoon I put on a blue photo vest and made friends with the nearest corner marshal. I spent most of my time in the infield bushwhacking through tall grass and dodging large spiders. Coming from the pampered world of car magazines where we’d have the track to ourselves and I could just pull the camera van off track where ever I pleased, this was a different excursion. But, it was well worth it. Especially with the leaves changing colors the additional saturation really helped the orange accents pop on Welling’s Vantage.

I intended to spend more time gathering aerial footage but that proved difficult from a few factors. The first being the local airport, with the track within their airspace I submitted my flight plan and received approval to fly before arriving at the track. However, the airspace restrictions meant I couldn’t fly above 300’. Then after submitting my insurance and FAA license to the race track officials they advised that I couldn’t come within 50’ of the surface of the racetrack. A tight window to fly in and not ideal for the king of footage I was looking to capture.

So, I filmed most of the track footage with my Nikon Z7 and Sigma 150mm f/2.8. It’s a good lightweight setup. Sure I wish I had the 400mm f/2.8 I had last time I was at this track and I wish I had a camera that could film 4k @ 120fps (this video is in 1080p because the Z7 can only film 120fps at 1920x1080). But, between the Nikon Z7, DJI Mavic Air 2, GoPro Hero 6s, and DJI Ronin SC. I can have a complete production kit all in a backpack.