Cross Country state finals

Saturday will be a busy one for me. I will be photographing the Michigan Cross Country State Finals at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn. I will be shooting the Division 3 and Division 4 boys and girls races. Three boys qualified individually in Division 2, but there is a two hour gap in between the last race of the morning until their race. Sadly, I will be missing their race. Sorry. So many teams and individuals from the county qualified in the Division 3/4 races. I will have to be on the lookout for all of them. And I will be able to pick them out with no problems.

Besides photographing a cross country state final (which is awesome to begin with) I will be seeing some great runners. Between the years of 2004-2006, I saw Marissa Treece from Maple City Glen Lake jump out to an early lead each time and hold it to become a 3-time Division 4 State Champion. Marissa is currently a junior at the University of Notre Dame. She is consistently one of their top runners. Two years ago, I saw Maverick Darling from Ovid-Elsie High School blow away the competition. He had the fastest 5K time of the day, 14:52:8. Maverick now runs at the University of Wisconsin and was just named the 2009 Big Ten Freshman of the Year. It is fun to see the top runners before they make it big in college.

Another thing I love about shooting at the state final is riding on the track. The state final takes place at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn. The photographers ride in media vans and they shuttle us to a couple of locations on the course. We make a total of four stops. To reach the fourth stop, the finish line, the driver of the van has to drive on the track. Once we leave mile mark 2 and the accerlator is stomped on. We follow a path that leads us to a gate opening near turn 2 and we make a left hand turn onto the track. The van does about 80 m.p.h. going around turn 2 and turn 1 to make sure we beat the runners back to the finish line. That is the closest I'll ever get to driving on a NASCAR race track and it is pretty neat. It is one of the highlights on my day.