JCL, how much image editing, if any, did you do to your shots? If you did edit, what program did you use? The photographer there used a Canon 5d with a L-series glass. Wish I could afford something of that level!

And I do have a slight urge to autocross, but the season is almost over. I can see doing autocross for sport in the X5, but I will probably become a little more competitive over time making it frustrating with a X5.

That day I shot raw images, about 5-6 mB each. I don't often shoot raw. The images posted were not cropped, they were simply saved as jpegs at around 1200x800, about 175 kb each. I did not adjust colours or contrast individually on each shot, I just used a standard setting for all of them, and applied those settings to all shots. I used Nikon View software (now updated to View NX) for all of them.

For a couple of shots I did spend more time on them, but none of those were posted, they were for screen savers and such.

The pictures lose quite a bit coming down from 5 mB files to 175 kb files, but such are the limits of posting on forums.

I see. They indeed look more dynamic than the ones the OP posted. (no offence to the OP, your shots were interesting pics to look at as well) I can see the difference. Pictures are worth a thousand words.