These race meetings, with different types of race cars out one after each other, are great for the spectator photographers. Not only do you have very different subject matter but it’s also good for practicing your panning skills. A Mazda MX5 accelerates at a different speed to a superkart so will require a different shutter speed, sounds obvious but it isn’t. 

You will get acceptable results at say 320th of a second with both, but the stand out picture will be the one with the most background blur and a pin sharp vehicle. So you need to juggle your tracking / panning / speed of the car with a suitable low shutter speed that keeps the subject sharp.

First up to practice my panning skills on were the Superkarts who were racing in a number of classes, basically 125, 250 and 450cc. The 45 Superkarts out on track for this meeting look similar to your standard kart but have been adapted for racing on long circuits of over 1500m.

Most kart tracks are quite short and twisty so they don’t need karts with gear boxes or fancy aero dynamics. The 2.18 undulating miles of Cadwell and the other tracks in the race series means that these Karts need more than one gear and a good dollop of down force.

With a great power to weight ratio these karts fair fly round the mini Nurburgring with cornering speeds that can produce up to 3 times the force of gravity. For the photographer this is an aspect you need to consider when shooting. As the Karts go round a bend they will slide and the driver's head will snap side to side very quickly. 

When I say freezing a motorsports picture is terrible, it has to be taken in context; head on or a shot from the rear can be very effective. For the best results, open your aperture to get a background nice and blurred, less depth of field. Or if you want to include the background, stop the aperture down, more depth of field. 

Its all about observation, the amount of red Biffa bins I see in the backgrounds of shots especially from MSV tracks is disappointing and distracting from the great shot that has been taken. 

Talking of Marshalls, they are generally on the ball and make decisive decisions, keeping the racers safe. The next sequence of images should not have happened. Glen Woodbridge in his Mini Se7en 998 engine let go in a big way with parts of it exiting the driver's side of the engine bay, spilling loads of fluids on the racing line coming into Hall Bends. 

Yellow flags were waved but no oil flags. I would have thought by the second car to skid off, it was obvious that the track was contaminated. I was one of the first to shout for a red flag as this was getting very dangerous. 

The race leader and eventual winner, Jeff Smith in car 35, and Joe Thompson came through with less drama. Both lost traction, with Smith hitting Thompson the race leader, at this point with both staying on track, just. 

In the end there were 11 cars to go off with two cars smashing into the barrier in front of me, the final one resulting in a red flag. It should have been flagged earlier but in defence of the Marshalls, a few cars who were off the racing line went through with no problems, confusing what was going on. However the crowd were shouting for oil flags and then red which he should have noted a lot earlier. 

From our vantage point we could see the slick on the track which I don’t think the Marshall could. In these smaller meetings the crowd are made up of friends and relatives of the drivers, so it's not a pleasant experience for them to watch the drivers heading into danger with nothing they can do.   

The rest of the meeting thankfully had less drama with Paul Roddison 55 in the 2Liter Mk4 Mazda MX5 car winning both races in the MAX5 Championship, with Andy Pretorious in car 77 taking second for both races.

In the other Mini race series the Mini Miglia Championship, Aaron Smith (1) drove from pole to chequered flag, however he couldn’t replicate that in the second race, being beaten by Rupert Deeth 23.

In the Northern Saloon & Sports Car Championship it was the Lotus Exige of Paul Woolfitt (95), who was closely followed by another Lotus, this time an Elise driven by Matty Codd (2) who both dominated the racing.

It was Karts I had come to see so will end this report with the Kart racing. It was Liam Morley (1) who had a great weekend taking all three race wins in the 125 class, with Charlie Johnson taking the win in the F450. 

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