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Decisive Moment

The “decisive moment” for this Volvo 444 was not here and now, but a few minutes before, back in the pits. That’s when someone on the crew grabbed a can of “aqua pura instead of petrol,” as a British-speaking caption writer at Autosport put it. Until then, co-drivers Frank Baptista and Art Tweedale were holding 4th overall in the 1958 “Little Le Mans” enduro at Lime Rock. But one team’s bad moment resulted in a good one for the author—publication of his first photo. Photo: Pete Lyons - www.petelyons.com

This one picture is why I’m writing these thousand words. I’m doing so in the first week of August 2008—precisely 50 years since I exposed the negative at Lime Rock, made a print in my dad’s darkroom, and air-mailed it overseas to England’s Autosport magazine.

When we duly received our weekly copy, issue date of August 15, 1958, there it was: my very first published photo. I really can still feel the thrill.

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