[one_half]My day can be summed up with one word: defeat. I was really looking forward today’s race – it was one of my favourites last year. I got here early enough to have a look around, I wasn’t stressed and yet it somehow didn’t want to happen.

I managed to find a few good spots but I felt there were so much more to be done and yet I had so little time. One of the contributing factor probably was the lap count, they only did seven laps, while they normally do 9-10 laps. Less laps, less opportunities to shoot.

The bulk of the course was in the forest and the sky was overcast, so it was dark and I sorely felt the limitations of my cameras: not being able to crank the ISO beyond 800 meant painfully low shutter speeds. [/one_half][one_half_last]I hadn’t used much the flashes this season but today they got used plenty. The coup de grace was when it started raining with about two minutes before the elite men’s race, leaving me no time to fetch the waterproof camera covers from the car.

When you think you’ve all figured it out, a humbling experience teaches you that there is so much more to be learned. So I’m off to lick my wounds but I’ll be back with my cameras on next Sunday. [/one_half_last]