Vintage or classic motorcycle racing is a strange beast. Standing next to the track watching the racing at Cadwell in the autumnal sunshine I saw a BSA Bantam being overtaken by what looked like a full race prepared Honda of a much more modern age.

Billed as a vintage racing event this started a discussion on what is the difference between a vintage and a classic bike. 

Many of the events I attend will have different classes running during the same race. With those races you are going to get vehicles of a similar build and performance specifications. Not so in the Vintage classes.

The age and variety of vehicles is huge. A bike from the 1940s could be on the grid next to a two stroke Yamaha from the 1970s.

Not necessarily racing each other as they will be in different classes but still on the track at the same time.

What does this mean to the photographer next to the track? If you are putting out a photojournalist report it makes life difficult working out who to concentrate on when taking your pictures. 

You don’t want to be snapping all the starters on the grid for every race or you will be editing / deleting a lot of photos.  

First – third, possibly the racer who put in the fastest lap during qualifying and any interesting / vehicles, that’s all you need for a report.

To help you out most tracks have a live timing app for your phone which is useful. If this is not available buy a programme, get a pen and listen to the race commentator. This will also work, if a bit old school.

However, if you are just doing this for fun just snap away. From a personal point of view the variety of kit coming past makes this type of racing enjoyable if demanding.

The demanding element of this type of racing is the speed. Speed is our friend. As a motorsports photographer, speed with the associated blurred background makes our pictures interesting and dynamic.

Mike Smith who came second in race two on the BSA Rocket 3.

If you are photographing British Super Bikes they will be traveling at around the same speed. This makes life easy. As soon as you have the right shutter speed you can then concentrate on framing the subject and looking for interesting angles and backgrounds.

The standard setting for starting off in motorsports photography is shutter priority. Usually marked as S (shutter) or tv (time value) on the main mode dial.

With a vintage meeting a BSA going past at 50mph compared to a Norton at 100mph requires a different shutter speed setting to get the same background blur. 

So you need to get busy with that shutter dial in-between passes. Moving the control dial left is slower, right is a faster shutter speed. 

To get that crystal clear panning shot you will need to fire off a few test shots in S mode as the bike come past on the first few laps.

Oliver Binham took his Yamaha SR500 to first place in in race 2.

As you are waiting for the leaders to come back round review your images.

Pin sharp bike and background means your shutter speed is too high, all blurred to slow. Adjust your shutter speed and track the subject to keep it sharp and blur the background. 

In the paddock there was a relaxed atmosphere and community sprit; one of the aspects I like about this type of event. 

Helping each other out in the pits, sharing bacon butties and crewing on the side cars seems to be part of the deal.

The sidecars were great to watch. It appeared to me that some of the teams had their wives or girlfriends working the sidecar. 

I can just imagine the conversations about not putting the bike, or them, into the Cadwell shrubbery and if they did there would be a serious reduction of dinner availability / sexytime.

Mixed in with the side cars were the Morgan three wheelers. 

The scooters were also out in force for this meeting. I love the smell of two stroke first thing in the morning, it smells of freedom. 

I think this is Mike Bonett putting on the style on the Scootopia Racing Team Lambretta competing in the Production Class. He was a consistent second in Saturday and Sunday races. However, the identifying number has fallen off his scooter.

This is one of the most moving pictures I have taken at a race track. I'm sure this was announced, but missed by me and the others around me. When the side car came past it was obvious what was happening and the crowd became silent. 

That concludes our coverage of the VMCC event at Cadwell. In summary the paddock had the most interesting display of Racing Bikes I had seen in sometime. Out on track the variety of bikes, scooters and side cars will keep you interested all day.