Richard Shute used to be a wedding photographer until he decided to unite his business with his  hobby of photographing drag racing events.

The result was Auto Imagery and it proved to be an extremely wise choice because the Carlsbad, Calif.-based company is celebrating its 30th anniversary this month.  

Over the years, Shute and longtime associate Dave Kommel have traversed the United States and Canada attending drag races   They are virtually permanent fixtures at National Hot Rod Association event starting lines, in pit areas and any place where a race-track photo opportunity beckons. Richard Shute used to be a wedding photographer until he decided to unite his business with his  hobby of photographing drag racing events.

The result was Auto Imagery and it proved to be an extremely wise choice because the Carlsbad, Calif.-based company is celebrating its 30th anniversary this month.  

Over the years, Shute and longtime associate Dave Kommel have traversed the United States and Canada attending drag races   They are virtually permanent fixtures at National Hot Rod Association event starting lines, in pit areas and any place where a race-track photo opportunity beckons.

Shute had no idea his brainchild would develop and prosper as it has.  He’s witnessed NHRA drag racing’s growth from nine into the 24-race Full Throttle Drag Racing Series of today while capturing thousands of fond memories for racers and fans alike.

“I started Auto Imagery to provide professional photos for race teams on the national event level, making it more of a business,” said Shute.  “Before that, you just traded t-shirts for photos and things like that. I wanted to take this to the point of turning it into a real business instead of a haphazard hobby.

“After the closet was full of t-shirts, I decided to make drag racing photography my business opportunity.  In 1979, I was shooting races and I had a fulltime job running the photo lab.  I didn’t really have a lot of time to mail proofs out and stuff like that, so I brought Dave on as an associate.

The following year, we started covering every national event, including going into Canada,” he continued.  “In the early years we tried to cover all the nationals and two divisional races in every division.  As the national-event schedule expanded to the size it is now, we had to drop the points races.  Now, the entire focus of Auto Imagery is NHRA drag racing.”

Airline miles and photos taken have spiraled higher with each passing season, too.  “I’ve rung up just about three million air miles and Dave has flown about two million miles,” Shute noted, “I’ve been to more than 100 different drag strips.  We’ve taken well over two million photos and we’re up to almost 700,000 photos on our website since 2000.  Now we are in the process of digitizing our archives.”

Auto Imagery photos have been published in every major publication that covers the sport, including Sports Illustrated.  “And an Auto Imagery photo was used as the cover shot on Robert Post’s book, High Performance: The Culture and Technology of Drag Racing, 1950-2000, which many call the bible of drag racing,” added Shute.

“But the number one highlight throughout the years is all of the personal relationships I’ve established with the racers.”

And all the numbers will continue to grow because Shute isn’t ready to stop now.