Two disparate sides of the same coin

Last Saturday (25-Apr-2008), I was at the Madras Motor Sports Club's race track with some friends for a pay-and-practice session where we could drive our cars on track after paying a
per-car fee. The state of Tamilnadu might have quite some cons, but then which other state
in India can boast of having the only 2 race tracks in India ? Given this, I think I can live with
the weather. :-)

This time though, I was not getting my car on track and was instead planning to try my hand photographing the 4-wheeled beauties in action, which by the end of the day I discovered was not as easy a task as shooting nature or humans.

Anyway, there we were on a hot & humid Chennai summer day, walking the length of the track, trying to identify good locations from where to shoot the cars in action. There were some nice track-friendly cars like the Mitsubishi Cedia, Fiat Palio, Skoda RS, Hyundai Elantra etc being raced, but the highlight of the day was my friend's Suzuki Gypsy which was being raced on track.
With its high Centre of Gravity and SUV-ish + offroad-ish character, it is not exactly a sensible choice for track racing. But at the end of the day, it had managed to notch some impressive timings and won the admiration of all the spectators. Ofcourse major credit goes to the driving skills of my friend.

Some random snaps from the event.

1. The main straight leg of the MMST track.




2. The Mitsu Cedia in action



3. The Palio and Suzuki M800



4. The Hyundai Elantra CDRi


While I was scouting around for good locations, I came across this sad picture of a family on
the outskirts of the racing club campus, lacking some basic stuff which we consider a given.
Could not help feeling guilty that while we were there burning away tyres and fuel, there was another part of India that was worrying about bare subsistence.


So much for 'India Shining' and other such tag lines spouted by our self-serving politicians.

Also came across an unusual group of spectators, who were very camera shy. There was a
whole herd of them, but managed to snap only these few, while the rest scampered away.


Ofcourse, this guy was not prepared to back-off and stood his ground on what rightly is his
territory, enabling me to get a close-up snap.