Motorsport News Circuit Rally championship - Round Five

The Snetterton Stages - Part One

23 February 2022

Photographing motorsport in February is never my favourite experience. It’s usually cold, wet and windy. Being true to form it was very cold and in fact it was very windy the day before the Snetterton Stages which is part of the Motorsport News Circuit Rally championship.

The windy weather which was the aftermath of Storm Eunice was evident as I drove east to Snetterton. The toppled trees and a few lorries lying on their sides had been moved to the side of the road so I made good progress, arriving well in time for the first of eight stages.

The weather had cheered up from the previous day, and the with the morning sun due to make a fleeting appearance, I set myself up at the Nelson corner complex to capture the cars with the Snetterton bridge in the background. 

I had studied the stage maps the night before; this is very important when visiting an MSN Circuit Rally as the conventional track layout is thrown in the bin. This means your favourite trackside location might not be available.

Going the wrong way round the track, using the concrete and gravel feeder roads and grassed areas, it pays to work out where you need to be in advance.

The four different stages were run twice to make the eight stages, so I had two bites of the cherry to capture the action at Nelson for stages one and two before the sun was disappeared behind the clouds.

There were only two members of the PistonClick team trackside. This time and I met up with David who had dressed appropriately, if you were attempting a trip to the North Pole, but he did look warm.

We loosely discussed how we were going to tackle the day's shooting, splitting the stage areas between us.

I had a few shots I wanted to capture. Snetterton has some quite harsh corner stones which, when hit at speed in a car, can lift the vehicle wheels off the ground. With this in mind I headed infield to Murray’s as stage three and four were the only time the cars would be head-on to me.



Most of the drivers were preserving their expensive suspension by avoiding the kerb, but I got my shot. With that one in the bag I noticed the cars were ripping up the wet grass to the left of me and churning it into mud, so I headed off. Sometimes you need to change your plan as opportunities arise.

This was more like it. Having run one stage over the grass it was well and truly destroyed, which was great for me to capture some traditional muddy rally pictures. I was looking for a head-on corner capture shot. 

With that in the bag in quick time, I moved further up the line of spectators to get closer as some of the cars were throwing up some quite impressive plumes of dirt.

The rain started to fall at the end of the stage so I headed back to the car for a well deserved cuppa, a snack and some waterproof trousers which turned out to be a very good idea. My next location was back over the bridge to Brundle.

Here, the cars were going the wrong way round the track so would be nice and close. From previous experience, this part of track is great for panning shots. I had changed lenses from my long range Nikon 200-500mm to the Nikon 70 - 200 FL f2.8 using the short end of the focal length.

As it was my first trip trackside for some time and not being “match fit” I erred on the side of safety and shot at 200 - 160th of a second for most of the shots. I did venture down to an 80th and 60th and wish I had done more in hindsight.

By this time the rain, as you can see in the pictures, was coming down like a scene from a disaster movie. All of my gear was protected by a waterproof cover, which normally I will have the back open to review my shots, but not today.

Working by touch to change my settings I continued shooting until the end of the stage and then retired to my car for another hot beverage. I reviewed my shots and was quite pleased with what I had got.

The weather was now very bad. All of the spectators had retired to their cars to watch the remaining stages, so I decided as it didn’t look like there was going to be a break in the weather, I would call it a day.

Part Two of the Snetterton Stages by David Harbey coming soon.

Round six of the Motorsport News Circuit Rally Championship The Northside Truck and Van Donington Rally will be held on the 13th March 2022 at Donington Park, we will see you there.