The pictures on this page were taken by Andy Rogers
aka Tog of Eurodragster.com who also supplied the captions.
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Click on any image to get the bigger picture |
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When Eurodragster.com started in 1998 I was a photographer as much as a reporter, also posting pictures on my personal web site Tog's Drag Racing Page. It quickly became clear that someone should concentrate on the words on Eurodragster.com especially when we were covering races so, writing being one of my big loves in life, I took on the role of News Editor and Race Reporter whilst Sharkman became Photo Editor, and we were recently joined by Simon Groves who produces the very popular pit notes in our live Event Coverage, helps me with the news, and works on special projects. I still take photographs occasionally and although not as active as I once was in that area I have amassed a library of nearly nine thousand photographs from 1996 to the present day. I have picked twenty five pictures from this library, some at random and some not so random. Either way, though, there is a story behind most of the pictures I have taken. |
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I have always thought that one of the biggest sins the media can perpetrate is to walk off when the Pros are not running, it is so rude to the Sportsman racers. But those of us who remained were the only ones there to get certain shots, which amongst other things meant extra business. That's Super Street Bike racer Graham Dance hidden behind his near-vertical bike as he tried for Earth orbit. |
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For the 1999 FIA European Finals I offered to sponsor Pro Mod racer
Nick Davies' weekend fuel bill in return for running a Tog's Drag Racing Page
sticker on his six-second Oldsmobile. Nick carried the sticker, set PBs for ET
and speed, and then refused to take my money. |
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The 1999 Midnight Sun Internationals at Pitea was my first encounter with Comp Eliminator and I caught this picture of Kenneth Feldthusen's wild six-second AA/Altered in qualifying. I've seen this picture all over the place and even encountered another web site whose webmaster claimed to have taken the shot. When I asked the guy whether he would like a scan from my negative he removed the mendacious (it means untruthful - Ed) caption. |
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My second-ever visit to a drag race in the USA was to the 1996 NHRA Winston Select Finals at Pomona. John Force was running a special body that weekend to celebrate yet another Championship and he was pulling the longest burnouts I'd ever seen a modern Fuel car make. This picture popped up on John Force's web site; when I wrote and asked for a credit and a link to my web site the webmaster responded by thanking me for letting him download and use it! |
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Thanks to the good name of Eurodragster.com I was accredited to go
trackside at the 2001 Goodguys Fall Classic at The Strip at Las Vegas, which
took place the week after 9/11. |
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Everyone knows how much I love Jet and Rocket-powered vehicles. I had long had a dream to get a head-on shot of a Jet FC doing its flame and thunder show; in 2005 I got a nice head-on shot of Martin Hill at the Xtreme Wheels Press Call in a car park at Alexandra Palace and then with the kind permission of Lee Child and Ozzy Ewing I was able to stand in front of Roger Goring's Firestorm Jet FC at the Halloween Showdown at Shakespeare County Raceway and got exactly the picture I had always dreamed of. |
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Santa Pod Raceway held the Press Call for the 2000 FIA European Finals not at the track but at Marble Arch in the middle of London, which I thought (and still think) was an inspired idea. One of the highlights was a burnout across the square by Supertwin racer Anders Karling. I stood at the other end of the square to get this shot, and stood my ground as Anders came towards me and only just stopped short of parking his bike in my crotch. |
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My first race outside the UK for Eurodragster.com was the 1999
Midnight Sun Internationals at Pitea, which I attended as the guest of Swedish
Top Fuel Dragster racer Peter Lantz to cover the first-ever running of the
Swedish Top Fuel Tour. |
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I was back at Pitea for the 2000 Midnight Sun Internationals and before one qualifying session Swedish Top Fuel Dragster racer Pelle Lindelow asked me where I would be standing. "I'll wave to you" he said. Through the camera viewfinder I saw a movement in the cockpit as Pelle pulled his burnout but it was not until I got the prints back from processing that I saw that Pelle had been true to his word. |
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At the 2002 Sko Uno Drag Racing Festival at Mantorp Park, Leif Andreasson's niece Lotta Bergstrom sang the National Anthem on race day. I was asked by Leif's wife Asa if it would be possible to give Lotta a name check on Eurodragster.com. If I was to give Lotta a name check then people would need to see who we were talking about - that's the way I rationalised persuading the pulchritudinous (he's at it again, that means beautiful - Ed) Lotta onto the VIP balcony at Mantorp to take a portrait. Such is the hell that is drag racing photo-journalism. |
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I encountered this guy, a reporter from a local radio station, at the first Santa Pod Raceway Press Day I ever attended, before the 1998 FIA Main Event. I was a bit overawed and it seemed to me that I had a lot to learn if I was to be as successful as this chap. |
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Sammy Miller, one of my all-time drag racing heroes, made a very
welcome return to his second home of Santa Pod Raceway at the inaugural
Speedfreaks Ball in 2002. As ever laid-back and cheerful despite what he was
about to do, a strapped-in Sammy paused for a smile and a thumbs-up before
running. |
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I have always maintained that there are photographers, and there are those who take pictures. Roger Gorringe, Andy Willsheer, Sharkman and a number of others are photographers whilst I place myself firmly in the category of those who take pictures. But occasionally I "see" a shot in the way that the proper photographers do and finding a pair of mirror shades in Peter Lantz' pit at Pitea was one of those occasions. |
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When I moved over to digital photography I found that the autofocus on my Minolta camera was not quick enough to keep up with a Top Fueller at full chat, so for each shot I had to set a focus point on the track and then hit the shutter when I thought the vehicle was there. Until I got the hang of it there were several failures but this shot of Tommy Moller worked out OK - check out the shape of the rear slick. |
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This has got to be one of the best views from any race track Media Centre on the planet. A spectacular race facility and mountains is what the lucky media at The Strip at Las Vegas get to see from their desks. That's my very good friend and Eurodragster.com US correspondent Ed O'Connell, whom Goodguys kindly accredited for the 2001 Fall Classic, sitting at the front. |
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Already pretty low to the ground, I still crouched down as far as I could to get this burnout shot of Pro ET racer Tig Napier. I got a nice lungful of smoke and was covered in Goodyear freckles but even though there were no amends to be made Cath Napier made me a very nice cup of tea that evening. |
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Danish Top Fuel Dragster racer Jens Nybo is still much missed although a lot of his crew are still around. It was starting to get dark on the Sunday of the 1998 FIA European Finals, so I put the camera into fully automatic mode and let it work out what to do - I just pointed in the right direction. |
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I caught this shot of Swedish Top Fuel Dragster racer Kent Persson at the 1997 FIA European Finals, a few weeks after he had recorded Europe's first four-second pass at Hockenheim. Kent ran a few 5.0s at this event but was moving plenty fast enough for me at half-track. |
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So they called off the race and, inevitably, the clouds parted . . . |
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Mantorp Park's first Four and 300 mph were recorded on the same run by Kim Reymond at the 2003 Sko Uno Drag Racing Festival. As soon as the track closed that day I left my reporting seat in Race Control and hurried down to Kim's pit to shake his hand, get some words, and get an appropriate portrait for the event coverage. |
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Every photographer has a picture on which they dine out and this is mine - everyone who knows me is sick of seeing it! The 1998 FIA European Finals was the first time I had ever photographed Fuel racing at night and I had absolutely no idea what I should do. I approached German photographer Martin Geldermann for some advice, which he kindly gave. I followed Martin's advice to the letter and this shot of Bill Sherratt was the result. |
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Gerry Steiner is the world's fastest Austrian, having run five-second passes in Goodguys Nostalgia Top Fuel. When I was at the Goodguys race in Las Vegas in 2001 I was heavily into engine-and-cockpit shots and caught this picture not of Gerry's burnout but his launch. With a track temperature of 153 degrees in this qualifying session just about every car was going up in smoke at the hit, and Gerry's dragster was no exception - in fact the car almost stopped moving forward. |
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I spent the 2001 FHRA Nitro Nationals at Alastaro as the guest of Top Methanol Dragster racer Dave Wilson and his team. Grumpy went out in round one of eliminations and when I went back to his pit a while later I thought he had thrown the dragster out in a fit of pique. |
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One of the classes which Scandinavia has and we in the UK don't is Stock/Super Stock. These guys really go for it especially in qualifying when it is no holds barred and Jan Wickstrom gave me a good introduction to the class at Pitea in 1999, showing me the entire underside of his car including the Milodon sticker on the sump. |
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To me this shot of Patrick Wikstrom at Santa Pod in 2002 sums up everything for which we love Pro Modified, front end up and charging for the finish line. |
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All material on this site is copyright and should not be reproduced without permission |
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