Darley Moor Photographers Guide
Address: Darley Moor Sports Centre Ashbourne Derbyshire DE6 2ET
Telephone: 01335 343833
Email: info@darleymoor.co.uk
Website: Darley Moor
4 December 2023
This has to be one of the easiest guides to taking photographs as a trackside spectator I have ever written. The Darley Moor race track is basically a triangle so if you read no more than this, head for one of the three corners and start snapping!
However, we have a few tips from our experience of visiting Darley that will guide you to a few more locations where you will be able to capture some great action shots.
Darley is located in Derbyshire in the West Midlands just off the A515 and a few miles from the town of Ashbourne. The track is part of a standard ex World War Two airfield that so many of the UK tracks were built upon.
The original team at the Darley Moor Motor Cycle Road Racing Club leased the land back in the early 1950s for motorsports.
Today the team continues to run successful motorcycle events and have recently improved the spectator experience with raised areas, giving a commanding view of the track.
These banked areas are popular places to spectate from and the largest is where we will start our walk around this 1.5 mile track using the map below to guide us.
When you enter Darley you can follow the road to the track and park up. You can park around two thirds of the track, only some of the Pope Straight is inaccessible. The first area, and a great area to watch the racing, is Park Corner. The very large bank here gives you a great view of the first corner, the chicane and in the distance the start / finish line.
Park is where I will capture the first corner madness. As the riders set off at the start of the race approaching Park it will be the only opportunity to capture all of the riders together as they try and out-brake each other to be the first rider tipping into the corner. Generally I will stand at the top of the bank in line with the track for one, at a push two laps.
No need for any fancy photographic techniques here! This is a head-on capture shot, so use a fast shutter speed to freeze the action and if anything untoward was to happen, keep the shutter button pressed.
The next spot at Park is to the right and down the slope from where you took your first shots. From here you are on a level with the riders. The background will have some advertising but I think it adds to this panning shot. A slow shutter speed is required. The numbers will depend on your skill.
Start at 320th of a second, and when you have matched the speed of the bikes and are getting consistent sharp pictures, drop the speed to get that motorsports image we all strive for, a blurred background with a sharp race machine.
Next up, follow the racing past the raised viewing area towards the hairpin. There is a hardstand area with a few marshals, but keep going. Looking back to the corner you will be able to take a great capture shot (fast shutter speed) of the riders tipped over.
The fence here is quite high so a small step might be required. There is also a nice shot through the trees as the riders approach the corner.
If you have a very long focal length lens of 500mm or over, the start of the raised area along the straight again looking back into Park is a great location. The added advantage over the previous area is that if anything untoward happens there is no fencing obscuring your view.
The next area the Esses is not one of my favourite places to take pictures from at Darley. There is not much to be seen here from a photographer's view point. The double kink in the track is in place to slow the riders down for the hairpin complex.
All you can capture here is a fast panning shot and there are a few of those around the track. However, it’s a good spectator area as you can see a lot of the track from Park to the Hairpin.
As I've said the track from the Esses to the Hairpin is good to spectate from, but is not so good for photography as the bikes will be going flat out just slowing for the corner into the Hairpin. Panning is all you can get here, which is not a bad thing but I don’t spend too long here as the Hairpin beckons.
This area is one of the best for taking motorsports pictures at Darley. There is safety fencing but it’s not too thick and is only around the apex of the corner.
Shooting through the wire at the run up to the apex is not a problem. Up close with a long focal length and a wide aperture and the chicken wire will all but disappear.
Moving round the corner following the racing it’s time to get some great capture images. Here is the detail as the viewing area on the southern side is free of wire, so if the sun is out you are going to get a well lit image regardless of the time of day as seen in these examples.
Having said that it always seems to be raining when I visit Darley but I do generally only go once a year for the Stars of Darley meeting, which is held at the end of the season when the weather is changing from summer to autumn.
The Stars meeting is great for watching racers from different motorcycle classes race together. TT icon John McGuinness, along side British Superbikes and Supersport racers is always going to spark some interest in the motorsports community, so you can expect the Stars meeting to be well attended.
Following what now is a footpath, previously a dirt road, following the track you have the long walk down the Pope Straight. The bikes will be going flat out here so there is only one good shot, the cool down lap. This part of the track is great for wheelies as is the section between Park and the Esses.
Generally though I will double back from the Hairpin to Park and miss out the Pope Straight so no pictures from this area.
One of the unique features of Darley is the start line at Paddock Corner. It is part of the track, but not on the track. The riders come out of the paddock and form up on the spectator side of Paddock Corner. This gives you a great photo-journalist shot of the riders preparing for the race; the tension, nervous laughter and then the concentration as they wait for the flag to drop.
Moving towards the finish line you can shoot back into Paddock Corner. As it’s a big sweeping corner the riders take it at speed and will be banked over, so it’s a great place to get those action shots.
It’s also a great location to watch the race as there is a large screen showing the places and lap times, and for the end of the race as the riders make that last move before the finish line.
Our last location is the Chicane. It’s not much of one, but the riders can get it wrong and go grass tracking but those occasions are few and far between.
The best place is further up the track looking into the Chicane, as the riders accelerate out some will pop a wheelie - a great head on action shot.
That concludes our look around the track. The last place off track is the paddock area which is just past race control, the food outlets and the Darley Moor shop that sell hats, t-shirts, badges, snacks and the like.
The paddock is open and well worth your time for those candid shots of the racers and the machines being prepared for the next race.
Previous PistonClick reports from Darley Moor
Stars of Darley 2019
13 October 2019
Darley Moor Road Races Round 6
10th October 2020
Stars of Darley 2021
10 October 2021
Stars of Darley 2023
8 October 2022
Stars of Darley Moor 2023
13 October 2023
Thanks go
out to RPW Photography, David Gowshall and David Harbey for helping out with this guide, you can see more of David Harbey and David Gowshall photographs by following the links below.
You can see more of David Gowshalls work here.
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