I looked at your website and if you tell me for some of those rally
cars your not using a high shutter speed-Im going to tell you your a
bold face liar- Theres a car in mid air and I can see every part of
the rim. In focus-Which means it looks parked- No one is saying you
cant take good pictures with a slow shutter speed but for God sake
any kid or monkey for that sake can take pictures under a yellow
flag(which is the real point of this whole thing). Us professionals
(who shoot the Nascar circus) would never shoot a car under caution
and submit it to a newspaper-magazine or team. Its what seperates the
boys from the men(girls to women) to be politically correct. To each
there own but In my orginal statement Only sissy's shoot under
caution- For God sake- Any one can shoot a car at 40mph-Thats what Im
talking about
Sorry, you're so close here, but you're still missing the point. Of course I use high shutter speeds sometimes. I really didn't think I'd need to explain to a professional motorsport photographer but here goes...
When the car is on the ground, and the camera has a good view of the wheels, and there is a lack of other context cues for speed (see below), then it's up to the photographer to add the sensation of speed. This means slow shutter speeds (generally).
You quote that on my site there's a photo of a CAR IN MID AIR with the wheel frozen. I'd maintain that the CAR BEING IN MID AIR is a pretty reasonable context cue for it not being parked.
Other cues can include sprays of dirt from the wheels (also water sprays for jetsprint boats etc), being in the air, or on 2 wheels, smoke from a tyre lockup perhaps etc etc.
The other situation where high speed is used a lot is where the wheels typically can't be seen well, such as a head on shot. In this case I try to dial out as muchDOF as possible and isolate the car against the background - this means big aperture and consequently fast shutter speeds (unless I want to stack filters).
There are some older shots on my site that suck - like the first drift event I covered - They all look so static... Also, when shooting rallying I tend to be a little less creative because you get relatively few opportunities for each car over a weekend - but I hate myself when I find myself putting the shutter up to a safe speed...
Nascar is only a small subset of motorsport and I quite agree with you that a shot taken of a car at 60mph will have a different feel than one taken at 190... But that's pretty much a special case.
Other forms of motorsport that have real corners like rallying can give some great photo opportunities at 40mph, or 20mph, or even damn near static (think rear wheel drive BDA Escort at a hairpin in the mud).
I'm afraid that I need to quote something back at you... You say only sissies shoot under yellow and anyone can shoot a car going at 40mph...well, I say only sissies shoot at 1/640 or 1/800... Anyone could get a great photo at those shutter speeds.
Try shooting F1 cars at 1/125, or rally cars doing 100mph on gravel at 1/100. I guarantee you it's a lot harder than shooting a car at 190mph on a very predictable trajectory on a very flat surface.
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Regards - Neil
Check out my random pics at
http://www.nzsnaps.com 
