1984 12 Hours of Sebring: A Young Photographer, a Goodyear Blimp, and a Porsche from the Sky
- Brian Cleary
- 15 hours ago
- 3 min read
Some assignments stay with you forever—not because everything went according to plan, but because nothing did.
In 1984, I was covering the 12 Hours of Sebring on 35mm film for United Press International, still early in my career and hungry for any opportunity that might set my work apart. Sebring was already a legendary race: brutal concrete, relentless traffic, and a history that demanded respect from both drivers and photographers. I expected another long day of trackside shooting. What I didn’t expect was a ride in the Goodyear Blimp.
At some point during the race, my editor caught me completely off guard. He handed me a 500mm lens—no small piece of glass in the film era—and casually instructed me to head up into the blimp to photograph the race-leading Porsche 935, driven by A.J. Foyt, Bob Wollek, and Derek Bell. Just like that, my perspective on Sebring was about to change—literally. A Porsche from the sky, I guess you could say.
For about an hour, I photographed the race from the air as the blimp circled Sebring International Raceway. From that vantage point, the track looked less like a circuit and more like a living organism—cars flowing through corners, braking zones compressing and releasing, pit lane pulsing with activity. The Porsche 935, wearing the familiar Swap Shop colors, was the car everyone expected to win, and from above it was unmistakable.
Shooting from the blimp presented its own challenges. Stability was relative, vibration was constant, and framing fast-moving race cars from hundreds of feet in the air with a long lens on film required a mix of anticipation, instinct, and luck. There were no LCD screens, no instant feedback—just experience and hope that the exposures would work.
By the time the sun dropped toward the horizon and the race wound down, the story shifted. The Swap Shop Porsche had fallen to third place, and suddenly those aerial images of the anticipated race winner weren’t quite as wire-service worthy as they had been just hours earlier. That’s the reality of motorsports—and photojournalism. The narrative can change in an instant, and images that once felt critical can become footnotes.
Still, the experience mattered.
For a young, ambitious motorsport photographer, spending an hour in the Goodyear Blimp over Sebring was unforgettable. The images captured during that flight may not have defined the race’s final outcome, but they captured something else just as important: a rare perspective, a moment in time, and a reminder that sometimes the best stories aren’t about winning—they’re about being there when history unfolds in unexpected ways.
This gallery of 35mm film photographs from the 1984 12 Hours of Sebring is a look back at that experience. Grain, color, motion, and atmosphere—photographed the old-fashioned way, when every frame counted and every assignment carried a sense of risk and possibility.
Some races you remember for the results.Others, you remember for the view from the sky.
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