So by now you already know Saturday FD was rainy and initially I wasn’t sure what that would mean for how much I would enjoy shooting the event, which was a bummer because I look forward to it every year. This event is a yearly requirement for us, we get to catch up with our Team Rowdy friends and spend the day hanging out with folks we don’t see often through the year while enjoying a motorsport that both of us have a long love for. Most years I’m toting along a lot of water, light layers and at least a double pack of sunscreen, but this year was wildly different. This year was multiple layers including a rain jacket and umbrellas, and hoping it might warm up above 56 for the day. The dampness was unending and seeped through your clothes, past your skin and lingered in your bones- like a cold winter day you almost feel you’ll never warm up from.

We arrived early to catch some of GridLife and go ahead and get all our passes sorted out for parking and the like and caught some relatively quiet moments where the rain was light and the noise from anything other than the cars on track was decently low, an experience I rarely have had at an FD event, even when they only shared Saturday with the Time Attack events. I wasn’t sure if this was some unwelcomed foreshadowing for the rest of the day- FD events are usually loud and involved and a little bit rambunctious and this was feeling more like a private day where the fans were few and far between, hindered by the cold wet weather we would normally expect for early March.

If you’ve read the other 2 posts covering May 10th you already know we left the soggy wet of Road Atlanta during some of the GridLife action, where we had a decently cozy tent to huddle beneath, and headed to the BBS USA headquarters right up the road to check out the BBS Bound event. By the time we returned to the track the rain had picked back up, the racing had slowed down and we were mingling with some more folks who had shown up while we were out waiting for the dry spots to happen we had seen on the radar. We missed the entire section of the GridLife drift session on Saturday as we headed to the pits- a requirement at least once every year- to meet up with some friends, look at the carnage from the weekend and grab some merch and freebies (here’s to you, Rockstar energy drinks). I traded the camera for an umbrella and was grateful I did because it rained pretty heavily the majority of the time we were out of the tent and I was exceptionally grateful to have checked the weather a bit excessively leading up to the morning, leading to the choice of hiking boots for the day.

As the afternoon crept in and morning slipped away the rain continued, creating the most spectacular of soggy messes on the hill that surrounds the turns 10a, 10b and the horseshoe that Formula D uses at Road Atlanta. Orange clay puddles and squishy grass were underfoot everywhere, including the gravel pads where the food trucks were parked, the lots where cars were parked and in half-formed trails from foot traffic when the rain slowed down long enough for the mud to linger along the pavement. Our group had started to fill in even more by the time we made it back to the tent and it was great getting to start catching up with old friends and making new ones before I decided to journey to the fence line with my camera and rain cover and just embrace the off and on again rain for a while as top 32 began.  The on and off again wet conditions of the track made the competition a challenge for many of the drivers and the amount of off-track cars continued to tick up as the day continued, the sweeper definitely being put to use regularly during the event.

The clouds made it feel like the evening rushed into darkness quickly and top 16 started in what felt like dusk lighting, the rain threatening to let loose every few minutes. I was grateful to have thrown my pullover on under my rain coat and as the darkness swept in the temperature slowly started creeping downward, leaving a lot of folks wishing they’d brought more than the light jacket Road Atlanta in May usually commands. The battles to the top 8 were hard fought, and even down to the top 3 podium decisions the track conditions and driver adaptations made some of these choices exceptionally hard. James Deane and Frederick Aasbo were brought down at the end of their battle just to be sent back up for a one-more-time to settle any inconclusive feelings, setting up another run of challenging choices to be made.

As with every round of Formula D there were calls I didn’t understand in regards to judging, but ultimately it was a great event despite the cold and the rain. I am excited to see if GridLife joins the party again next year and am hopeful for more average weather, good times and great company again in 2026.