Glitz. Glamor. Travel. Racecars. My name is Halston Pitman and I covered the 24 Hours of Daytona again this year. It's fun. It's awesome. I can't wait to do it again. It however is extremely taxing and something that takes a lot out of you. I purchased a Canon EOS M recently as a pocket cam and decided to do a countdown and "Live Blog" style post on what all went into covering the event. I hope you enjoy the pictures. A lot are of food. Some are of clocks, what I am seeing and what all went on.

-Saturday 7am. Alarm Goes off. Shower. Dress for the day. Short ride to the Speedway.


-8:30am - Photo Meeting. Where you can go. Pit lane rules. Team intro setup. Minute by minute schedule. Extremely important. Also editing and sorting general photos, client photos and web uploads at the same time.


9:40am - Trackside. Ferrari Challenge race #2. Had some requested shots so did ~20min of shooting at this location.


10am-10:45am - Group shoot with CTF Art Car, NF Heroes and Park Place Motorsports drivers. Edit photos and upload.


11:49am - Autograph session.


11:55am - Lunch. Meat and Mac & Cheese. Some sort of squash... not for me. Photo editing continues. Upload. It's started to get a little crowded. And my friend's Nikon stuff is starting to move over into my space...


12:41pm - Cars rolling onto false grid. Real hard work begins.


1:00pm - Driver intros. Wait for clients to cross stage.


1:20pm - Back to the false grid. New prototype intros are a bit hit. Notice flags match nationality of each driver. Great idea. NOTE: Wes Duenkel Cameo


1:45pm - Now we are having fun. Walk out the speedway. And climb the starts to the grandstands for the start shot. I have 3 camera bodies, 500mm, 70-200 and a 24-105 plus a few flashes, batteries and backup CF cards. It's fun...


1:50pm - Made it. Now wait 20 minutes for the start. Luckily found some drivers from BimmerWorld that were watching from the stands. Good company and passed the time quickly.


3:03pm - Made it back to Media Center. Did enjoy a few laps of just being a fan which is lost most of the time. I love racing(and race my own car) and do like to watch when I can.

A lot of walking. Luckily flagged down a nice guest services person with a cart that gave a ride the rest of the way. Most welcome. Snack on some popcorn.


4:20pm - Done downloading, sorting and editing. Make some posts. Send in photo for live block for Jalopnik.


4:29pm - Sun is getting low. Time to capture the light. More walking... CAMEO: Foster Peters, Jake Galstad and THE John Thawley.


4:32pm - First spot.


5:02 - Red Flag. Everyone holds their breathe waiting for good news after a huge accident.


6:13pm - Follow the light. Sunset.


6:33pm - Darkness Falls


6:44pm - Dinner. Some popcorn. Download cards. Waste a little time on Facebook. Clock is making one full revolution for me... for the first time.


7:00pm - Hit the coke machine... get MelloYello. It begins.


7:00pm - Postings.


8:39pm - Back out to shoot. Wait for fireworks.


8:57pm - FIREWORKS! Fire away as you have 2-3 minutes. Sent second shooter to grandstands to get another view.


9:28pm - Firework shots uploaded and shared.


10:07pm - Trek out to the tunnel at NASCAR Turn 4. Shoot overhead and banking shots.


10:15pm - Erik Gilbert of Motorsport.com getting creative.


10:43pm - En Route to second horseshoe... slow goings.


11:25pm - More shooting.


12:00am - More MelloYello. More downloading. More sorting. More editing.


12:41am - Run for the border. Foster and I get some grub. And Mountain Dew.


1:17am - Editing. Monster added to the work area... might need that later.


2:18am - Uploads.


2:19am - A "Nap" waiting for upload to finish.(Foster took this)


2:32am - Foster succumbs to the night.


3:57am - Late night pit stops.


5:40am - Busted. Brian Cleary, photographer, is caught sleeping.


6:19am - This is me... quick "Nap" again. Waiting for Foster(who took photo) to get ready to go shoot Sunrise.


7:40am - Now it has gone past 24 hours. Shooting the Bus Stop.


8:17am - Back to the horseshoe. Follow the light.


8:37am - Breakfast... and start on the Monster.


10:04am - Sort and edit night photos.


11:55am - Still sorting and editing. Guess I'll have a cinnamon bun.


1:42pm - Close to finish. Already crowded. Glad I got here early.


2:06pm - Nut much time left!


2:21pm - Planned jubilation shots turn sour after penalty(eventually overturned)


2:34pm - Start of podium


3:43pm - Back to computer. Download. Sort. Edit.


4:24pm - Finally packing up car...


5:02pm - Time to sleep. And that is a wrap.


And that was a blast. Can't wait to do it again. Still have some photos to edit and post so stay tuned on Monday/Tuesday for a large gallery to enjoy! Hope you liked following along!

-Halston | www.racemsm.com