El Mirage by Wet Plate

The romance of the place is captured in the name, redolent of the invisible goals of speed.  El Mirage is nominally a town in the SoCal desert, nearest Palmdale, which is itself nearly nowhere, even though inhabited by many thousands.  Its raison d’etre is a dry lake bed, now bounded by the El Mirage Off-Highway-Vehicle Recreation Area, under the purview of the Bureau of Land Management.

The lake bed is very nearly flat, with a cracked mud surface occasionally pockmarked by potholes, but with nothing of the inches-tall cracqueleure of Bonneville, nor its corrosive salt crust.  El Mirage lacks Bonneville’s pristinely bizarre beauty, and its relative cleanliness – as vehicles pound the miles of dried dirt to reach the SCTA timing camp, clouds of sepia dust trail them, as it does the high speed vehicles racing across its surface.   The effect is dramatic and beautiful, but layers everything and everyone nearby with an ultrafine grit.  While some vehicles used air cleaners while racing, others take their chances gulping in the powder, and never need worry about bedding in their piston rings.

November 13th, 2015, became an infamous day for more nefarious reasons, but it was my first visit to the place, and I reveled in its spare beauty, and the fantastic characters who temporarily populate its puzzle-cracked earth. The goal was to explore, and take a few wet plate photos, which was accomplished.  As the racing is over a weekend, not a week as in Bonneville, there’s no ‘village’ feeling, and the layout of disparate camps is chaotic, making introductions difficult.  Everyone is busy racing, and while very friendly, its hardly a relaxed place to take photos.  Thanks to the several people who took time for my work, I hope you enjoy the results. See more at MotoTintype.com