Will Hearne: NASCAR fan and photographer

Just minutes before the drop of the green flag in Kentucky Speedway’s inaugural Sprint Cup Series race I was milling around behind Mark Martin’s pit stall. What happened next was something I least expected, yet it was one of the cooler things about the entire weekend.

A man walked up to me and said, “Hey are you Adam?”

He caught me a little off guard. I didn’t know people knew who I was, but thanks to Twitter, I had become a mini-celebrity to some folks while I detailed every moment I could from Kentucky Speedway.

“Yeah, that’s me,” I responded.

“Hi, I’m Will. I follow you on Twitter,” he said.

I had no clue how to respond. “Well, thanks, glad to meet you,” I said, probably looking more calm than I sounded.

On Friday night at Kentucky Speedway, during the Feed the Children 300, I posted Mark Martin’s radio chatter to Twitter. I tweeted an almost instant play-by-play of everything Mark, his spotter Jeremy Brickhouse and crew chief Trent Owens discussed on the radio during the Nationwide Series race.

Mark’s Cup Series media rep, Kendra Jacobs, who wasn’t at the track, tweeted to her 6,900-plus followers that if they wanted play-by-play of Mark’s radio chatter, they should follow me. Not only were the tight knit group of Markaholics following me, but I picked up nearly 50 followers on Twitter during Friday night’s race.

One of them was Will Hearne, the man I just mentioned who met me on pit road prior to Saturday night’s Cup race. Throughout the race and after the weekend we communicated via Twitter and e-mail. Will had mentioned to me that he took a photo of FOX19 Sports Director Brian Giesenschlag and myself during the June 1st tire test that made it into the local Community Press.

FOX19 Sports Director Brian Giesenschlag works the camera while I interview some fans during the June 1st Goodyear tire test at Kentucky Speedway (Photo courtesy: Will Hearne)

Will shared his stories about his photos with me. I decided, “Hey this is great stuff, let me blog about it.”

Folks, meet Will Hearne…

Will Hearne at Bristol during a snow storm in 2006 (Photo from Will Hearne)

They saw a picture is worth a thousand words, and Will Hearne knows what that is like. In August of 2000 he was standing feet from Dale Earnhardt Sr. at Bristol during qualifying.

“I was never a big Earnhardt fan but knew plenty of people that were and that has probably been the best [photo],” Hearne said. “I had to respect him for his dedication to the sport and the fans and I believed that I caught that.”

(Photo courtesy: Will Hearne)

He started taking photos when he was a student at Owen County High School, located just over 15 miles from the racetrack in Sparta. His main love though was sports.

“I liked the action,” Hearne stated.

Hearne studied photojournalism at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Ky., but couldn’t continue to pursue his education due to rising costs for his photographs.

“It was very expensive as a student, film, developing supplies plus tuition, etc,” he said. “The evolution of digital photography that has helped me get my foot in the door. It is easier and cheaper to get good pictures.”

When he took photographs on film cameras, Hearne noted that he had to wait and see if the photo was clean. With digital photography, he notes, you can take a picture and see it “on the spot.”

“The more pictures you take the better your chances of having a good photo as well as learning from your mistakes,” he said. “I am trying to get into it more and would love to find or have an opportunity to continue to follow this dream I have.”

This dream is a dream that any NASCAR fan has: to get paid to watch the sport.

When Will Hearne began following NASCAR, back in the mid 1980s, he began following an up and coming star from the ASA ranks named Mark Martin. He continued to follow the sport through the 1990s but didn’t get a chance to go to a race until 1998, when attended a race at Bristol in the spring.

Mark Martin waving to fans as he walks to driver introductions before the Quaker State 400 at Kentucky Speedway (Photo courtesy: Will Hearne)

“They always said if you think this is fun, go to Bristol,” Hearne said. “So off I went, and [I’ve] been hooked since then.”

Hearne got up close and personal with the drivers and the cars.

“I went down early and just started taking pictures of testing, qualifying,” he said, “trying to get as close to the action as possible. I had a lot to learn, but kept going back. Fortunately I have never had an issue with any driver. I have tried to stay out of their personal space and give them space.”

Hearne has also visited Daytona, Martinsville, Nashville, Bowling Green and now Kentucky Speedway.

“While in Bowling Green we started to go to the local track where I met Darrell and Michael Waltrip, Jeremy Mayfield and the Green brothers,” he said. All of those NASCAR stars are from Owensboro, Ky., near Bowling Green and the Kentucky Motor Speedway in Whitesville, Ky.

But no matter how hard Hearne has tried, his freelance work just hasn’t made him much money.

“I have had some success at selling to the public, a few publications and area newspapers,” he said. “It is a passion that I have carried with me since I started taking pictures—to become a photographer—but it is difficult. Sticking with it has been hard; got bills to pay and a life to live.”

Yet, no matter how hard it is to continue to pursue a dream of selling great NASCAR photographs, Hearne had an awesome opportunity to get photographs at Kentucky’s inaugural; Cup weekend.

“Never been that close,” he said of the action in Sparta. “I had been close before but I got a lot of great pictures.”

He also got to hang out in the garage area and take plenty of photographs of his favorite driver.

“[I] don’t mean this in a bad way but, he (Mark Martin) reminds me of my dad, same work ethic and perseverance. They don’t make ‘em like that anymore,” said Hearne.

He even had an opportunity to get some autographs from Mark Martin with the access he had at Kentucky.

“Mark signed everything I put in front of him for three days,” Hearne said. “[Drivers] are people too. They don’t mind you taking their picture, and it is part of their job, but [I] always keep the respect for them as well as others wanting to get a picture for themselves.”

This was Hearne's favorite photo of the weekend, a shot he got of Mark Martin walking toward the pre-race driver's meeting (Photo courtesy: Will Hearne)

It’s that reason that so many fans flock to NASCAR. Mark Martin has a lot of fans, and he made one fan’s weekend a great one at Kentucky Speedway. Those photographs that Will took will remain with him forever. They are mementos of a first-time event in the Bluegrass State.

Each snapshot means something to the person behind the lens. For Will Hearne, each photograph is another chance to chase a passion and a dream unlike any other.

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Like Will Hearne’s photography? Follow Will on Twitter (@ul1card) or contact him at whearne.pics@gmail.com for more information. And, if you ever run into me in public, feel free to come up to me and chat.

I always love meeting new people, especially NASCAR fans. I never knew a quick chat with Will on pit road at Kentucky would turn into a long blog post, but if you’ve got an awesome story, I’m willing to talk to you about it and post it here on the blog.

Have a good Monday afternoon. Stay cool, and thanks for checking in.

Kyle Busch takes Kentucky by the horns

I’ll admit, I was wrong.

When Bruton Smith stood in front of hundreds of reporters last August and said the Sprint Cup Series was coming to Kentucky Speedway, I brazenly said Joey Logano would be the favorite. Logano was named as one of the seven drivers to participate in a Goodyear tire test a month before the big show in Kentucky, furthering my feelings that the 21-year-old would take the checkers at Kentucky.

Well, I’ll at least take solace in picking the right team for the winner.

From left: Crew Chief Dave Rogers, Busch and team owner Coach Joe Gibbs

Kyle Busch came out at Kentucky and stole the show. He won the Camping World Truck Series race, finished third in the Nationwide Series race, and owned the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race, leading a race high 125 laps en route to becoming the inaugural winner of the Quaker State 400.

“This one ranks right up there with the best of them,” Busch said on Saturday night after winning the Cup race. “I haven't won any of the big races, unfortunately, yet. But, you know, it ranks right up there with Las Vegas being another of my prestigious wins that I feel like I've accomplished so far.”

Yet it began earlier in the week for the Las Vegas native. He mentioned that the car was fast right off the truck, and he worked with crew chief Dave Rogers to get the No. 18 just right throughout the weekend.

The one word that was thrown around all weekend was character. The bumpy surface at Kentucky was described as having character by Busch, Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jimmie Johnson and Clint Bowyer, amongst many others who spoke with the media throughout the weekend.

“This place — you never get a comfort here at Kentucky,” Busch said after winning Thursday evening’s truck race. “It’s such a hard race track. Turn three is just my Achilles heel. It’s killing me. I think it has been all weekend. I’d like to be able to get faster and I’m working towards doing that. We just got to work on things that will help me.”

But after the cup race, Busch was happy to explain what he had to do to get the No. 18 to Victory Lane.

Busch chats with the media on Friday afternoon

“It's certainly a driver's racetrack,” he said. “There's a lot of characteristics here with all the bumps, the way you have to run the line around, whether it's the bottom or whether it's the second lane, where the bumps are, figuring out that, whether you go through them or around them.

“Certainly it makes for an interesting setup, having to talk to your guys, having to work around a shock package or springs that will help your car that will make your car handle best through the turns, over the bumps. You take all that into consideration, do the best you can.”

Now that Busch has cemented his name as the first-ever Sprint Cup winner at Kentucky, he’ll be the go-to man for advice on how to get around the track. While some drivers want Kentucky to be repaved right away, others say let it be for a year or two. Busch is one of them.

“I've heard rumors of repaving this place. Hopefully they ask us before they do it,” he said.

Busch chats with his team after Wednesday's Camping World Truck Series practice

And who could blame him? He pretty much owned the place this weekend.

Kentucky Speedway photos: Tuesday

On Tuesday the campers started rolling in to the areas in and around the Kentucky Speedway. I followed around FOX19 reporter Joe Danneman and photographer Dan Wood. I got some cool photos, which you can view below.

Kentucky Speedway, as viewed from the lower stands in the entrance to turn one on Tuesday afternoon

The newest grandstands at Kentucky Speedway. This photo was taken high atop the Kentucky Tower at the entrance to turn one. These are going to be sweet seats come Saturday night for the lucky fans who get to sit up here

Turns one and two as viewed from the inside of the track. You can camp right up against the fence and have an amazing view of the race

From pit road a panoramic shot of the frontstretch at Kentucky

And the same view from the grandstands looking down at the infield

For all of the photos, check out our special section on FOX19.com: http://www.fox19.com/category/215363/nascar-sprint-cup-quaker-state-400-at-kentucky-speedway

Logano looking forward to Kentucky

To say Joey Logano is excited about Kentucky would be an understatement. Logano is undefeated at the 1.5-mile track in Sparta. Three poles and three wins in NASCAR’s Nationwide Series have made him an easy pick to be the favorite for NASCAR’s first-ever Sprint cup Series race, the Quaker State 400, on Saturday.

“I'd say I've got a little bit of an advantage, but I think a lot of it is going to come down to getting your car good,” Logano said on Tuesday’s NASCAR teleconference. “I think my big advantage that I have is I just know what I need to make the car go faster. I know what I need when the race starts and all that. I think that's an advantage that I might have there.”

Logano at the tire test on June 1st

Logano still considers his first win in 2008 as his favorite Kentucky Speedway win.

“It was really, really big,” Logano said. “I felt like that was one of those key moments in my career that was able to get me into my Sprint Cup ride that I have now. You see some guys that are able to win a race pretty quick like that, they get people thinking about you and moving you up pretty quick.”

And Logano mentioned that moving up the track will be a common theme for the Cup guys this weekend.

“I'm real interested in seeing the race, how much higher [the line] goes,” he said. “Every Nationwide race that we've run there has gotten to about the second lane, second and a half lane. I think these Cup cars are going to move up quite a bit further than that once it rubbers up.”

Logano at the tire test

Logano participated in the Goodyear tire test on June 1st at the track, but knows even though he’s got a ton of experience at Kentucky, the guys he races with in the Sprint Cup Series are the best of the best.

“They're going to know what they need and they're going to know how to make speed pretty damn quick out there,” Logano said of his competitors, some of whom have never raced at Kentucky.

When Logano burst onto the Cup scene in 2009, he took over for two-time Cup champ Tony Stewart in the famed No. 20 for Joe Gibbs Racing. Even though Logano was dubbed “Sliced Bread” by some (as in, the best thing since) he had some growing pains as a rookie at NASCAR’s highest level.

“I always say all 43 drivers in the Sprint Cup Series were really, really good in whatever they did growing up,” the 21-year-old Middletwon, Conn., native said. “They were the best of the best in whatever series they were in. Now we're all racing against each other, you know, so it doesn't get any better than that. So it's the best race car drivers in the United States for sure that are all running against each other, and it's tough for sure.

“But when you win against these guys, it means that much more.”

And Logano wants nothing more than to win twice this weekend in Kentucky.

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Race prep has begun in Kentucky and I’ll have more tomorrow from the Speedway. Check out the special section on FOX19.com where I’ll be contributing videos and photographs all week long: http://www.fox19.com/category/215363/nascar-sprint-cup-quaker-state-400-at-kentucky-speedway

No ticket to Kentucky? Watch it on TV...in Dayton

Dayton, Ohio, not Daytona, Florida had the highest ratings draw for the 2011 Daytona 500. Daytona even beat out Greensboro, N.C. for the top spot, and that, according to one NASCAR writer in Daytona, is a reason why the Quaker State 400 will be a, “hit.”

“Dayton forms a third of a geographic triangle that includes two other markets often found in the top 10 of Nielsen's NASCAR ratings -- Indianapolis, Ind., and Louisville, Ky,” wrote Ken Wills of the Daytona Beach News Journal. “Kentucky Speedway, which opened 11 years ago, is located inside that triangle, in Sparta. The track will be host to its first-ever Cup Series race July 9, a week after Daytona's Coke Zero 400, and if viewership translates to ticket sales, it should be a hit.”

***Just a note, this article by Willis, was published on June 27th, days before Kentucky announced the official sellout of the Quaker State 400. (Read Willis’s article here: http://www.news-journalonline.com/columns/hey-willie/2011/06/27/nascar-no-slouch-in-tv-ratings-game.html)

But even though some of NASCAR’s highest TV ratings come from Indy, Louisville and Dayton, the closest, largest metro area to the track is 40 miles away in Cincinnati. According to the 2010 US Census, Cincinnati’s metro area contained 2,130,151 people, Louisville had 741,096 and Dayton 141,527.

Mark Story of the Lexington Herald Leader used Willis’s info in a column he wrote on Sunday (http://www.kentucky.com/2011/07/03/1797585/mark-story-sprint-cup-doesnt-have.html).

“It remains to be seen whether the average Joe and Jane sports fans in the commonwealth who are not weekly NASCAR followers will embrace the race simply because Sprint Cup has now come to Kentucky.

“That to me is the question,” says Lachlan McLean, who is the host of the nightly Sports Talk 84 on Louisville's 50,000-watt WHAS radio. “You've got the gearheads, but does it cross over and become mainstream?”

Story also wrote that the sport is “polarizing.” Fans either love it and defend it passionately (that’s me) or hate it and will do anything to make NASCAR and its fans look bad.

“I'm not sure that, after the newness wears off, non-NASCAR Kentucky sports fans will be pulled in to the Cup race in Sparta,” Story wrote. “NASCAR exploded in popularity in the mid-to-late 1990s and has been a national-level sport since. By this time, everyone has pretty well made up their mind, in or out, on stock-car racing.”

But the one thing that must continue to happen in order for NASCAR to continue coming to Kentucky and making a huge economic impact (judged at around $150 million according to studies done by the speedway) is for the Quaker State 400 to be a success.

There’s no doubt it will be according to the track’s General Manager Mark Simendinger.

Simendinger was on set for SportsWrap on Sunday night with FOX19’s Joe Danneman (who has declared me a “gearhead”) to discuss it.

“I feel good that this isn’t just an event that [Kentucky Speedway] do well with,” he said. “We’re going to do well with this event obviously. But so will the city of Cincinnati and their hotels and their restaurateurs, so will Lexington, so will Louisville, so the entire region draws off this thing and benefits from it and that’s what gives it so much popularity.”

But even if it doesn’t cross over to the mainstream, stick-and-ball sports fans, it will always be a huge draw for folks around the speedway in Sparta. And that means tickets might be hard to come by, but if they are, just head up to Dayton. I’m sure you can find a TV waiting for you there.

Cincinnati, it’s time to step up to the plate and be the most welcoming center of the NASCAR world you can be this week. It’s up to the fine folks in the Queen City to provide a great atmosphere for folks traveling to and from the Kentucky Speedway.

I have faith in you, fellow Cincinnatians. Prove me right.