{"id":188,"date":"2012-05-23T11:05:07","date_gmt":"2012-05-23T15:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/?p=188"},"modified":"2012-05-23T11:05:07","modified_gmt":"2012-05-23T15:05:07","slug":"this-was-the-weekend-that-was","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/2012\/05\/23\/this-was-the-weekend-that-was\/","title":{"rendered":"This was the weekend that was."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As <a title=\"Victoria Day weekend, not really explained\" href=\"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/2012\/05\/21\/victoria-secrets\/\">Cath noted<\/a>, last weekend was a holiday here in Canada. Victoria Day, the traditional time for opening up the cottage after a long winter, or launching fireworks into the air, or just generally sitting around on a patio or deck having a good time. We did remarkably little of any of the above, although the neighbours were certainly in the mood, with fusillades of fireworks going off on Saturday, Sunday <em>and<\/em> Monday nights (what happened to Friday?).<\/p>\n<p>This weekend is also (Oh no! Look out! Here it comes!) the beginning of motorsports season at the big track nearby, meaning I was out in the trees and rolling hills of <a title=\"It used to be called Mosport.\" href=\"http:\/\/www.canadiantiremotorsportpark.com\/\">Canadian Tire Motorsport Park<\/a>, until recently known as Mosport International Raceway. No matter, the infusion of sponsorship dollars has made big and welcome improvements to the track and its facilities, even if purists railed at the name change. I&#8217;ve written about this historic track many times, even <a title=\"Mosport, July 2011\" href=\"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/2012\/01\/08\/at-speed-mosport-july-2011\/\">here at Adventures in Wonderland<\/a>, where things are &#8220;supposed&#8221; to be a bit more science-y. I&#8217;ve made the <a title=\"Motorsport, astrophysics, and a Nobel Laureate\" href=\"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/irregulars\/2011\/11\/06\/motorsport-astrophysics-and-a-nobel-laureate-peripherally\/\">motorsports-science link once before<\/a>, but this time I&#8217;m not even going to try.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Formula 1000 racing, Canadian Tire Motorsport Park by Richard Wintle, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ricardipus\/7255927894\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8149\/7255927894_eaa95f9fd5.jpg\" alt=\"Formula 1000 racing, Canadian Tire Motorsport Park\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<em>Some small, but very fast, Formula 1000 cars.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Friday and Sunday were all-day-at-the-track days, in the company of a few good friends: my IndyCar shooting pal <a title=\"John's Flickr page\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/vitodens\">John<\/a> and his wife Kathleen, and occasional <a title=\"Motorsport dot com.\" href=\"http:\/\/www.motorsport.com\">motorsport.com<\/a> shooter <a title=\"Mike Tan\" href=\"http:\/\/miketanphotography.com\/\">Mike Tan<\/a>. Not too many mosquitoes, lots of sun, and some serious hiking up and down the hills &#8211; good for the heart, and maybe even the soul.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Trans Am, Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, 2012 by Richard Wintle, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ricardipus\/7238549464\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7218\/7238549464_191d0382bf.jpg\" alt=\"Trans Am, Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, 2012\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<em>Shot of the day &#8211; a Mustang, kicking up rubber on the Mario Andretti Straight.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>As I often do, I spent time lurking in the trees, trying for the slow-shutter-speed &#8220;foliage panning&#8221; shot. When it works, this kind of thing can be spectacular. When it doesn&#8217;t, it&#8217;s just a mess. This one turned out all right, but it could be sharper and a bit more dramatic. Something to work towards, next time.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Your Race Winner - J.R. Fitzpatrick, Vortex Brake Pads 200 by Richard Wintle, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ricardipus\/7244168760\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7244\/7244168760_8830fa30a8.jpg\" alt=\"Your Race Winner - J.R. Fitzpatrick, Vortex Brake Pads 200\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<em>NASCAR Canadian Tire Series winner J.R. Fitzpatrick, and some trees.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Of course, being a holiday weekend, I didn&#8217;t spend all of my time at the track &#8211; just two of the four days (yes, I took Friday off too, feeling I needed it after all of those grants <a title=\"Cath, the Wrangler of Grants\" href=\"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/\">some of us<\/a> have been working on). Hardly any time at all, really. The other two days were a pleasant, but still tiring, mix of Junior Wintle #2&#8217;s riding lessons, a jog down to a local park on Sunday night to watch the fireworks blasting off from the <a title=\"Canada's Wonderland\" href=\"http:\/\/www.canadaswonderland.com\/\">nearby amusement park<\/a>, and a trip with my brother to the <a title=\"Toronto Zoo\" href=\"http:\/\/www.torontozoo.ca\/\">zoo<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Going solo. by Richard Wintle, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ricardipus\/6994070999\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7201\/6994070999_d4e0639a74.jpg\" alt=\"Going solo.\" width=\"333\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<em>The young lady and Lola the horse, earlier this year.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>And that was the weekend that was. A typically exhausting holiday weekend that involved absolutely nothing that I could reasonably refer to as either &#8220;work&#8221;, or &#8220;science&#8221;. Now, all I have to do is recover.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Sometimes you wake the bear... by Richard Wintle, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ricardipus\/7062881649\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7203\/7062881649_c1345f51a8.jpg\" alt=\"Sometimes you wake the bear...\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<em>This Polar Bear has the right idea.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An exhausting, but fun, long weekend &#8211; full of car racing, fireworks, horseback riding, a large zoo, and a whole lot of photographs. <a href=\"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/2012\/05\/23\/this-was-the-weekend-that-was\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,9,10],"tags":[61,63,11,202,203,62],"class_list":["post-188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hobbies","category-photography","category-racing","tag-canadian-tire-motorsport-park","tag-holiday-weekend","tag-mosport","tag-photography","tag-racing","tag-victoria-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}