Spotters Guide
Discussion
Dear Racefans,
https://www.dropbox.com/s/m8u18kpv1ww4zur/le%20man...
Please find enclosed the link for my fans’ spotter’s guide to this year’s big event in France – namely Les 24 Heures du Mans. This year’s edition is my twelfth version, having started with a print out with a slightly modified a participants’ list in 2010. Over the years it has grown and grown and is now what it is today and being distributed in ever larger numbers – I have even seen it use trackside one year.
I hope to keep going as long as my fingers allow me because it is quite fiddly work. Some years ago, I consulted my ‘old’ Dutch friend Rick, about adding the helmets of the drivers to the guides as he is a great aficionado of those. So this became a feature and since then has grown to the extent that my ‘Helmet’ folder now has 4250 individual pictures (see a random screen grab below). Considering the time spent, because nearly all of those are hand traced by me and each one takes at least 15 minutes with mirroring, tidying up, re-colouring and re-sizing. This is done to every picture I use, to create, as far as possible, a uniform layout for the guide. That time excludes the long hours spent on all sort of websites, social media for drivers, teams, racing series all over the world to find the pictures in the first place. And that is before we even start on the cars….
I am not a creative person, but luckily I am retired and have a very understanding wife (“It keeps you out of mischief!” she says) allowing me to spend all this time on it. I have no graphics training and no special contacts within the trade so it really is a fan made guide. For those who might interested, I use Paint Shop Pro, Vector Magic and the guides are written using tables in Word, as I really hate working in Excel.
This is something I really enjoy doing as it tickles my sense of precision and accuracy as well as my love of endurance racing. The work starts each year at the WEC prologue as I publish guides for those race as well.
I will use this opportunity to thank my racing friend Rick for all the help and support over the years. Keep those pesky Facebook tags coming…
Enjoy the race week whether you are going or staying at home. Stay safe!
Regards Michael
PS. If you enjoy using the guide, you might consider making a small (or large) donation to Ayrshire Cancer Support. https://www.ayrshirecs.org/donate
PPS. Rick has a super great website http://rickautosportpictures.com/ (remember he is not a pro)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/m8u18kpv1ww4zur/le%20man...
Please find enclosed the link for my fans’ spotter’s guide to this year’s big event in France – namely Les 24 Heures du Mans. This year’s edition is my twelfth version, having started with a print out with a slightly modified a participants’ list in 2010. Over the years it has grown and grown and is now what it is today and being distributed in ever larger numbers – I have even seen it use trackside one year.
I hope to keep going as long as my fingers allow me because it is quite fiddly work. Some years ago, I consulted my ‘old’ Dutch friend Rick, about adding the helmets of the drivers to the guides as he is a great aficionado of those. So this became a feature and since then has grown to the extent that my ‘Helmet’ folder now has 4250 individual pictures (see a random screen grab below). Considering the time spent, because nearly all of those are hand traced by me and each one takes at least 15 minutes with mirroring, tidying up, re-colouring and re-sizing. This is done to every picture I use, to create, as far as possible, a uniform layout for the guide. That time excludes the long hours spent on all sort of websites, social media for drivers, teams, racing series all over the world to find the pictures in the first place. And that is before we even start on the cars….
I am not a creative person, but luckily I am retired and have a very understanding wife (“It keeps you out of mischief!” she says) allowing me to spend all this time on it. I have no graphics training and no special contacts within the trade so it really is a fan made guide. For those who might interested, I use Paint Shop Pro, Vector Magic and the guides are written using tables in Word, as I really hate working in Excel.
This is something I really enjoy doing as it tickles my sense of precision and accuracy as well as my love of endurance racing. The work starts each year at the WEC prologue as I publish guides for those race as well.
I will use this opportunity to thank my racing friend Rick for all the help and support over the years. Keep those pesky Facebook tags coming…
Enjoy the race week whether you are going or staying at home. Stay safe!
Regards Michael
PS. If you enjoy using the guide, you might consider making a small (or large) donation to Ayrshire Cancer Support. https://www.ayrshirecs.org/donate
PPS. Rick has a super great website http://rickautosportpictures.com/ (remember he is not a pro)
Also one on reddit alongside Greatdanes amazing work: https://old.reddit.com/r/wec/comments/p65ekw/le_ma...
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