The CART Indy Cars at the Milwaukee Mile in 1994.

April 8, 2024

I've been a music and rock'n'roll photographer since I was 16 years old (1970) for several newspapers, bands, record companies, Summerfest and more. I wanted to work for Rolling Stone Magazine as a music photographer but it was never meant to be apparently.

An album cover was another item that I ALWAYS wanted but never achieved until this week! I have done photos inside of albums, books and several publications but have never gotten the elusive album cover until now.

On June 3, 1973 at Milwaukee's Performing Arts Center, Foghat played with the Thomas Jefferson Kaye band as the opening act. I photographed the show for the Bugle American newspaper here in Milwaukee.

Bearsville Records Inc. along with Rhino Entertainment Company, a Warner Music Group Company, contacted me a few months ago for usage of my photos for a Record Store Day Foghat album release on April 20th.

Thanks to using metadata in all of my photos on my website, they found me.

The album called Foghat-Permission to Jam-Live in New Orleans is from a show they recorded on September 1 and 2, 1973. This is my first ever album cover and they used three other photos on the back cover. It is a huge honor and only took me 54 years of photography to get'er done.

The album cover is a nice full photo of the band in black and white and the three photos of mine on the back cover were color but they made them black and white.

Lonesome Dave Peverett was the vocalist, leader of the band and a character. Dave was a lot of fun and had the energy to ROCK!

So enjoy a peak at the only copy that is in our house here but you can pick one up soon at your record store.

Thanks,

Rich Zimmermann

March 25, 2024

So, was that an interesting Indy Car race at The Thermal Club with the Million Dollar Challenge?? Interesting but crushed for Pietro Fittipaldi with his team not giving him enough fuel!!! Congratulations to Alex Palou who now has some extra money for diapers and drinks he said!

This week we take a look back at the 2018 Road America Indy Car race and the Indy Lights racers. During these old times IMSA ran with Indy Car for a fun filled weekend.

Interesting to see the young Pato O'Ward, Aaron Telitz and Colton Herta back in their Indy Lights days. Pato and Colton are in Indy Car now doing well. Aaron Telitz is racing in IMSA doing well in Jimmy Vasser's, Vasser-Sullivan Lexus team.

There are a couple interesting photos of Colton Herta pushing it and spinning out in turn 5 during qualifying. Will Power had an interesting off the track move in turn 6 coming in a little too fast I believe, also during qualifying.

See if you can find the super hot glowing front brakes on Alexander Rossi's car towards the end of my photos here.

For 2017 Indy Car Champ Josef Newgarden, the 2018 race at Road America was great with winning the pole position and the race!

Ryan Hunter-Reay finished second and Scott Dixon finished third.

Enjoy a look at some interesting young men and the days when Robert Wickens was still running Indy Car before his accident. Now he is back in IMSA racing and getting better every day.

Have a wonderful Easter.

Thanks,

Rich Zimmermann

March 11, 2024

On June 15, 1977 Pink Floyd brought their Animals/In The Flesh tour to the Milwaukee County Stadium for another great show in the rain!! Their last show here in 1975 for the Wish You Were Here tour was also a rainy event.

It was another amazing show and a lot of work for their team to set up and protect all the gear from the rain. The rain stopped the show a few times, but no one cared.

Notice the photo of The Pig before it was inflated for the show and traveled about via a cable.

Enjoy a look at the setting up and rehearsal plus a bit of the show.

The setlist consisted of;

1. Sheep

2. Pigs on the Wing 1

3. Dogs

4. Pigs on the Wing 2

5. Pigs (Three Different Ones)

6. Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I-V)

7. Welcome to the Machine

8. Have a Cigar

9. Wish You Were Here

!0. Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts VI-IX)

11. Money

Thanks,

Rich Zimmermann

Pink Floyd doing their "Animals Tour" June 15, 1977 at the Milwaukee County Stadium.

February 26, 2024

On June 22, 1975, the Pink Floyd "Dark Side of the Moon" tour came to the Milwaukee County Stadium for a show.

Milwaukee County Stadium was not real happy to have their nice grass baseball field messed up, so I was hired for insurance purposes by Daydream Productions to photograph it before and after! One of the weirdest photo jobs I've ever had but I also got to photograph the setup and rehearsal for the show.

That is why you see a friend holding a board that has 21 on it for the June 21 field condition on the day before the show.

It took two days to set it up and the field survived well enough that more shows were allowed like the Rolling Stones a few months earlier when I also photographed the grass.

Fun to look at the old days and the gear that was used for the show. An airplane they made that flew on a wire over the crowd was one of the more interesting things used.

For the show it rained and I didn't risk the photo gear getting soaked but the crowd didn't care. The show started and stopped a few times and ended at 12:30am with the crowd still wanting more!

Enjoy a look at the setup, people, cars and staging on a very hot couple of days! It makes you appreciate all the work it takes to setup a major show and notice the $0.65 beer!

Also take a look at the guy with the long curly out of control hair parted right down the middle. That would be me!

Here is the setlist from the night.

1. Sheep

2. Dogs

3. Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts 1-5)

4. Have a Cigar

5. Speak to Me

6. Breathe

7. On the Run

8. Time

9. Breathe (Reprise)

10. The Great Gig in the Sky

11. Money

12. Us and Them

13. Ant Colour You Like

14. Brain Damage

15. Eclipse

16. Echoes

Thanks,

Rich Zimmermann

February 12, 2024

I keep finding photos of races that I don't have in my website at www.richzimmermann.com. Here is one of those missing races that I've scanned in now.

It is the Road Runner 225 Champ Car race held on June 3, 2005 at the Milwaukee Mile.

Jimmy Vasser would get the last pole position of his career and I have his helmet visor from the pole winning run!

Paul Tracy won the race and led most of the laps of the day with his beautiful Forsythe Racing Champ Car.

I spent a lot of time with the Mi-Jack racing team with drivers Andrew Ranger from Canada and Nelson Philippe from France.

Andrew had a lot of promise as did Nelson but they finished the race 16th and 12th respectively. Andrew would continue racing after one more year of Champ Car then back to racing in Canada.

Nelson Philippe had a heavy shunt during a practice session and was just very sore. I shared my Bio Freeze with him!  I always carry it with me and use for my sore neck and back. Got his helmet visor for that. He's a very nice guy.

Oriol Servia was racing for injured Bruno Junquiera and finished third with future star A. J. Almendinger finishing second.

Great late racer and friend Justin Wilson finished fourth. Justin was one of the nicest guys in pit lane.  He always had time for a chat.

Sebastien Bourdais won the championship in 2004 and would win it again in 2005 but only finished sixth here. Love the photo of Carl Haas giving Sebastien a thumbs up before the race and hugging the nose of Oriol Servia's car as he always did with his cars.

Enjoy a look at that weekend.

Thanks,

Rich Zimmermann

The Road Runner 225 Champ Car race at the Milwaukee Mile on June 3, 2005 won by Paul Tracy.

January 29, 2024

Listening to the 24 Hours of Daytona IMSA Race as I write this and there is one hour left to race! Pulling for my friend Pipo Derani in the Cadillac who had the fastest pole position ever at the track and has led many of the laps. Team Penske Porsche with Pipo's old teammate Felipe Nazr is leading right now...

My blog this week is about one of our great Indy Car, CART and Champ Car drivers, Cristiano da Matta. He won the CART Championship in 2002 for Newman Haas Racing.

Cristiano drove F1, Indy Lights where he won the championship in 1998, F3, Formula Ford and more after starting racing in karts at 16 years old. His father was a 16 time Brazilian touring car champion so Christiano had racing in his blood.

On August 3rd in 2006 Christiano collided with a deer that ran across the track at Road America as he was coming up the hill to turn 6 during testing. Thankfully, Christiano survived but had a head injury that took him until September 21 before being released from the hospital in Neenah, Wisconsin. On September 24th he gave the command to start your engines at Road America for the Champ Car race.

Thanks to his great physical shape and a great safety team, he made it back to a race car in 2008 and then raced in 2009 and 2011 in the American LeMans Series.

The Championship Auto Racing Auxiliary (CARA) was formed years ago to help drivers and their families pay for medical services and other things.  Insurance for race drivers is like being a fisherman for a living. CARA has helped injured racers for years and had an auction with Autoweek magazine to raise money for the Christiano da Matta Recovery Fund.

I bid on a Firestone race tire signed by all the drivers and Paul Newman.  Surprisingly, I won it. I later had Mario Andretti sign it and that photo is on my Rich Zimmermann Photography Facebook page. The tire proudly sits in our race room/man cave.

Christiano is doing well now and so is his family. Did you know that he is a musician too?

Enjoy some photos of racer Cristiano through the years.

Thanks,

Rich Zimmermann

Cristiano da Matta through the CART and Champ Car years in the early 2000's and winning the championship in 2002.