Hands on Sound received an assignment to go to Sonoma Raceway on June 23rd, for a shoot with Forza Motorsports.  Little did we know that it was a NASCAR weekend at the track, with the Toyota/ SaveMart 350 in full swing.

Arriving at Sonoma, our crew was treated to a golf cart ride thru the parking lots and crowd...taking us and our pile of gear right down into the thick of it, next to the Main Grandstand and into Victory Lane.  As the cameras got set up to do our bit with drivers Erik Jones and Chase Elliot, I turned on my rig and immediately got blasted with slammin' levels on my mics.  It was LOUD...like really loud....like my mic pres were turned down and still I was getting overs.  Next to us, the cars were exiting their garages and entering the track, where their competitors were already speeding by on practice laps.  Did I mention it was really loud?

I fretted for a moment, but then with a bit of creative mic placement on my part, coupled with past experience of recording around cars we ended up capturing some great results on the dialog and supporting tracks.  Later...back at the studio, I cleaned up the recordings to once again deliver Production Ready files to our client.  Cue the Checked Flag....