My company is sending me to an off road race we sponsor this week http://www.corracing.com/2007/

I'd like to take some pictures, any tips for shooting this kind of action?

I have a rebel XT with a 17-85 IS

 

Dust will be everywhere, so yo might want to throw a plastic bag over your camera while you shoot. Changing lenses won't be fun for the same reason, but if you only have the 17-85, then that shouldn't be an issue. I think you'll have it pegged to the 85 end of the scale when you're shooting action shots. If you can borrow (or expense ) a 70-200, that would be much better at capturing the action.

Get a few frames at faster shutter speeds so you'll have something to remember the race by, but try getting some panning shots with low shutter speeds to give a sense of speed. Switch to Tv mode and start at 1/200th then work your way down from there. You'll probably find 1/100 or 1/60 will be about as slow as you can pan and still get sufficiently sharp shots. It's just going to take practice to find where your limit is.

The nice thing about desert races is even with fast shutter speeds, you can get some cool action shots with the dirt frozen in mid air. Road racing at high shutter speeds just makes the cars look like they're parked.

Make sure you pick a place with a clean background so the cars/trucks will stand out. It sucks to get back home only to find some dude with a "foam dome" on in the background of every shot you took.

Here are a couple photogs I have bookmarked that shoot offroad racing regularly. Perhaps you can get some ideas of angles you want to try:
http://www.highrevphoto.com/
http://www.mikesracephoto.com/

 

for some good panning shots try around f/20-22 and 1/40-1/80. Here's one of my fav panning shots, taken at f/22 and 1/40. Hold the camera steady :P

 

thanks guys!