Mike Slade

I lived in Montgomery, Alabama where I went to high school while working around motorsports since I was 15 years old. It wasn’t until I picked up my first camera and started taking pics when I was in Vietnam. After the Army in 1972 I went back home and obtained a press pass to the race at Talladega, where I shot my first race. There I met NASCAR’s chief photographer and was picked up as a stringer to help cover the races at Talladega and Daytona. I spent the next few years shooting the races at Talladega and Daytona and other sanctioned tracks in the Southeast. I met Rob Griggs in 1976 who was getting ready to start a new racing newspaper called Grand National Scene. He needed someone to shoot the Grand National circuit and I became one of the first contributors to the publication. In 1984, Peterson Publishing started Circle Track magazine and while contributing to it I also had the opportunity to work with a number of motorsports writers doing, technical pieces, shop tours, personality profiles as well as general race coverage. Next, I expanded my photo coverage into other forms of motorsports such as NHRA and IHRA drag racing. In 1988 I began covering the Super Chevy Sundays when they made their swing through the southeast. That lead to me shooting for a number of other automotive titles such as Hot Rod, Car Craft, Truckin, Popular Hot Rodding and Super Ford, to name a few. In 1995 I got out of racing and concentrated on shooting car and truck shows and features for magazines. About six years ago I started shooting college sports and have shot for 40-plus colleges and universities east of the Mississippi River. About two years ago still having the racing bug I got interested in vintage stock car racing and vintage gasser drag racing. I hope to continue covering car and truck shows and shooting automotive features.