Challenge Description#

D’oh, I overslept and missed most of the race! But wait, my friend took a picture while I was out, but I can’t tell whose in the lead. Can you help me figure out the two cars that are in the lead? Usually they like to twin around this time of night…

Analysis#

The provided file unpacked to a single JPEG, but the important detail was that it was a Motion Photo rather than an ordinary still image. Pulling the EXIF metadata immediately gave the two pieces of information that mattered for OSINT: an exact timestamp and GPS coordinates. Those coordinates land at Daytona International Speedway, and the timestamp places the photo on Jan. 24, 2026 at 10:14 PM Eastern, which is right in the overnight portion of the Rolex 24.

exiftool 20260124_221412.jpg

GPS Latitude: 29 deg 11' 4.79" N
GPS Longitude: 81 deg 4' 28.43" W
Motion Photo: 1
Embedded Video File: 4,338,232 bytes
Date/Time Original: 2026:01:24 22:14:12 -05:00

Because the still image did not clearly show the car numbers, the next move was to treat the file like a short video source and inspect the embedded clip. The Motion Photo contained a 3.2 second HEVC video, and extracting frames gave enough material to test whether a sharper frame might reveal the leaders directly.

ffprobe 20260124_221412_motion.mp4

codec_name=hevc
width=1312 height=984
duration=3.210344

ffmpeg -i 20260124_221412_motion.mp4 -q:v 2 frames/frame_%03d.jpg

192 frames extracted

That route mostly turned into a dead end. Visual approach too noisy to trust.

crop_bright_contrast: 9, 48
crop_bright_sharp: 9, 4
crop_bright_contrast description: 4 and 2
crop2x_bright_contrast: 42, 8

At that point the reliable path was to lean on the metadata instead of the blurry pixels. The EXIF time and location matched the 2026 Rolex 24 at Daytona, and the official live coverage for Hour 9 lined up with the same part of the race. NBC Sports’ live updates listed the overall leaders for that hour as No. 6 and No. 7, which also fits the challenge hint about the leaders “twinning” around that time of night.

Hour 9 leaderboard: No. 6 leading No. 7
Hour 9 running order PDF: https://nbcsports.brightspotcdn.com/dd/b5/4a9b04754c7d8375e51268926d32/2026-rolex-24-h9-04-results-by-hour-race-unofficial.PDF

Once the race and time window were pinned down, the flag followed directly from those two leading car numbers.

Solution#

The solve was to use the image metadata to place the photo at Daytona during Hour 9 of the 2026 Rolex 24, then read the corresponding live leaderboard.

exiftool 20260124_221412.jpg

GPS Latitude: 29 deg 11' 4.79" N
GPS Longitude: 81 deg 4' 28.43" W
Date/Time Original: 2026:01:24 22:14:12 -05:00

NBC Sports Hour 9 leaderboard: No. 6 leading No. 7
texsaw{6_7}