WTF (Was That a Finger!?)

In 2004 I was photographing NASCAR’s Brickyard 400 at the legendary Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and my assignment took me to the short shoot between turns 3 and 4 to shoot head-on shots of the cars racing past.

Jamie McMurray salutes his teammate Sterling Marlin with his middle finger as the two teammates race on the track during the 2004 Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. (photo by Brian Cleary/bcpix.com)

The photo hole in the fence was pretty small so it was tricky to get the big Canon 500mm f4 lens positioned properly to train it on the speeding cars. Also, since the cars drifted out of turn three toward the wall at an awkward angle, it was tough to lock on with auto-focus at such fast moving targets! For this reason I decided to prefocus on a spot and then hit the shutter button as the cars raced into the frame.

Upon arriving back to the media center, I downloaded my memory cards and began to edit the photos. I was really happy with the results as I reviewed the images.

I was scrolling through the photos quickly, grabbing the ones that I wanted to crop and edit when something caught my eye. In one thumbnail of Jamie McMurray's black Havoline Dodge, there was something seeming to protrude from the side of the race car. Was it some sort of antenna? A side mirror? Of course the cars did not have mirrors and I'd never seen an antenna configured in this position. I clicked on the thumbnail to enlarge the image on my computer screen.

What I saw caught me by surprise. McMurray had just passed his Ganassi Racing teammate Sterling Marlin as they approached my position and he was very obviously displaying a well known single-finger hand gesture to his teammate as he sped away.

It was quite a memorable image! I never had the chance to ask about the hand signal and to this day I don't know if it was made in jest, a good natured ribbing of a buddy as he raced past on the racetrack or whether it was made out of some sort of simmering bad blood among teammate rivals.

Whatever the case, the photo remains one of my favorites that I've every taken at racing hallowed Indy grounds.

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