These racing photography archives contain my original work as a visual historian of motorsports over a period of five decades. The curated contents are a documentation of people, events, and sites in the greater motorsports community.
Archiving over one-half-million photographs is an intensely laborious, time-consuming compilation of historical records. Notes scrawled on envelopes and paper race results were dutifully filed with film negatives. These images and documents have now been translated and transcribed into digital format through detailed and diligent assistance by my wife, Lin.
My professional career has been based on an immersion in the visual medium of photography and collaboration with legitimate publishers and broadcasters of historical documentation. This career path has allowed me to initially experience and now present selected moments with those who share an appreciation for the significance of the visual history of motorsports. These legally protected - copyrighted - images are presented here as an exclusive online exhibition space. These rights managed photographs are not to be copied or reproduced without my detailed written consent. You are welcome to share a link to any of the pages you find interesting or significant, but do not independently link or take these images from this space.
Early recognition and respect for the historical responsibility of my role as a witness to events led to archiving and identification of these photographs. Across the decades, members of the motorsports community have encouraged the organization and protection of these visual records. People who have confirmed additional details, identification, and documentation are duly acknowledged on this web site. The journalistic integrity of this historic documentation resides in personal records made and obtained at the time these photographs originated, plus the painstaking comparison of multiple sources that were witness to the same places and events.
Enjoy your visit to this web site. Thank you for the honor of your time and interest in viewing my visual history of motorsports.
David Allio, Master of Fine Arts
visual historian