Bishopscourt Clubmans

Earlier in the week (Thursday afternoon) I took a half days leave from ‘the day job‘ to Photograph a quite unique assignment for the new issue of Irish Racer Magazine (going to the publishers this Thursday).

It was a fun shoot, rounded off with a great Chinese Meal in the Red Panda, Antrim and I can’t wait to see the images in print and read the fun interview with the Three lads. Due to an exclusivity agreement I can’t blog the images from the shoot until after the Magazine is in the Shops.

Today was a return to short circuit racing at Bishopscourt in the latest round of the Irish Clubmans championships which included Two Open National races. I really hadn’t intended to go to todays racing but the big chief Editor asked me to go and shoot a few images of Lisburn’s David Haire for another feature.

I got there just in time for the opening Supersport 600 Race which saw a great battle between Nico Mawhinney and Timothy Elwood with Mawhinney just holding on for the win.

I then shot a few quick portraits of David Haire (head and shoulders, 3/4 length and full length) keeping it simple with basic Nikon gear, one remote Nikon SB800 flash triggered by the Nikon SU800 controller onboard the Camera’s hotshoe.

After that I just shot a couple of Races (Marshall Neill won both National Open Races) and had a good ol chin wag with friends in the paddock before heading home. Me oul Jock mate Derek Wilson was there snapping away and rummaging through the pockets of the Marshal’s to scrounge a free lunch ticket. I dunno the depths that that Man is prepared to sink to just to avoid paying for something himself!

Next Saturday sees the resumption of pure Road racing with the Mid-Antrim 150 Road races. Last year Ryan Farquhar had a Four timer, will the opposition be any closer this year?

Tags: Bishopscourt, David Haire, Irish Clubmans, Irish Racer Magazine, Marshall Neill, Mid-Antrim, Nico Mawhinney, Nikon, Nikon SB800, Nikon SU800, Road racing, Ryan Farquhar, Timothy Elwood

Published in Irish Bike

The August issue of Irish Bike Newspaper is now in the Shops. Whilst down at Kirkistown for the July round of the Irish Superbike championship Races I bumped in to Mark Hamilton the Editor and he asked me to supply him with a few images from the racing as his regular ‘togs’ were absent. I was more than happy to assist Mark despite him being an Evertonian!

Tags: Irish Bike Newspaper, Irish Superbike championships, Kirkistown

Restrictions, Boycotts, Scabs aka Kells 2010

Ask any Road racing fan to name an iconic image of Irish Motorcycle racing and the bets odds are a heck of a lot of them will mention the jumps at the Kells Road races in County Meath. Photographers’ images from these jumps have been used on countless Magazines, Newspapers, Books, Calendars, Race Programmes etc and go a long way to promote the event, attracting sponsors money to the races.

This year the Kells club and Chief Marshal agreed that only Five accredited, insured photographers at any one time could Photograph at either jump, a fair and amicable agreement on the grounds of safety. Then about Ten minutes prior to the start of practice that agreement was over-ruled by the powers that be and we were told that no Photographer could shoot the jumps except from the same areas that the public can shoot from. Needless to say there was uproar with the Photographers association even talking about a mass boycott of publicity for the event. However a boycott would not hurt the right people, nor would it help the sport which is already in a very fragile position.

Whilst supporting the sentiments behind a boycott I could not fully support it as I had pressure on me to deliver images for Adelaide Insurance and Irish Racer Magazine. Adelaide not only sponsor the Kells Road races but they also advertise in Irish Racer and sponsor the Irish Racer Awards dinner.

Why one side of the Road is deemed safe and the other side declared as too dangerous I don’t think I will ever understand that thinking! In my opinion nowhere is safe and I’m personally prepared to photograph anywhere that I myself feel comfortable with. As it was I shot some images from the ‘safe‘ side of the Road.

In this image I used a wide angle Nikon lens to capture Australian racer Cameron Donald is in mid-flight on his Relentless Suzuki by TAS Racing Superbike.

Towards the end of practice the cruel side of the sport reared its ugly head again claiming the life of Stephen Larkin and predictably in this nanny state we live in today there is now yet another call for Road racing to be banned. Should we now also ban driving to work? or ban Horse riding?

On Race day Adelaide insurance had a few PR girls to assist with PR and out on the grid prior to each race. I again used a wide angle Nikon lens and the ever reliable Nikon SB800 flash gun to capture this image.

Race day was blighted by constant light rain, which then turned to heavy rain by mid-day and eventually conditions became too wet for racing to continue. Definitely not a Kells road race to remember, from what is normally an excellent race meeting.

In my Photograph below, TT race winner Adrian Archibald huddles under an umbrella with fellow racers Davy Morgan and Michael Dunlop.

Tags: Adelaide Insurance, Adrian Archibald, Cameron Donald, Davy Morgan, Irish Motorcycle racing, Irish Racer Magazine, Kells, Kells Road races, Michael Dunlop, Nikon, Nikon SB800, Photograph, Relentless Suzuki, Stephen Larkin, TAS

Kirkistown Irish Superbike championships

On Tuesday it was the latest round of the Irish Superbike Championships at Kirkistown Race circuit in County Down. The Weather forecast was for prolonged Rain but luckily it did not arrive until after the racing had been and gone.

Kirkistown is a very small, flat circuit with very few corners which makes it hard not to continually repeat shots that you have captured many times before. With the recent clamp down on Health and Safety at race circuits (fat lot of good its doing with racers still getting killed and spectators still getting hurt) it is getting even harder to capture anything worthwhile at this circuit. But with by utilising large glass and a tele-convertor its still possible to shoot some action.

The dedicated Medical Team do a great job of quickly getting to the scene of an incident and attending to the injured racers, here they can be seen in action attending to Jason Cash who luckily was not badly hurt in this crash. This incident happened quite some distance away from me but a 300mm Nikon lens and 1.7 tele-convertor helped me to zoom in on the scene for an image that the Medical Team were appreciative of.

I was down to a shorter lens and a very slow shutter speed ( 1/80th sec ) to capture some panning images when Scott Lonsdale crashed in front of me, sadly the shutter speed for panning images wasn’t quite fast enough to capture this crash any sharper.

Kirk Jamison and Gerard Kinghan are just Two of the many friends I have made through racing and although they are rivals on track they are also good friends off it, here they are locked in battle at Kirkistown. Sadly Gerard crashed out shortly after this and broke his Collarbone.

But Portadown’s Marshall Neill had one win and a runner-up spot, he would have had Two wins only a commentators cock-up on the number of laps remaining meant that his pit crew displayed the wrong info to him on his signal board allowing David Haire to win the second Superbike race. But Marshall still has a very healthy lead in the championship fight.

Tags: County Down, David Haire, Gerard Kinghan, Irish Superbike Championship, Jason Cash, Kirk Jamison, Kirkistown, Marshall Neill, Medical Team, Nikon, panning, Scott Lonsdale

Walderstown road races 2010

The scheduled Saturday practice session for the 2010 Walderstown Road races was pretty much wiped out due to persistent heavy Rain, thankfully I had not planned on attending practice and by the time Sunday morning dawned the Sky was already looking much clearer.

The old pensioner (Derek Wilson) was again my travelling companion which meant that I’d have to buy my own food or starve as Derek is a Scots Man and they don’t like putting their hands in their pockets too often. We travelled down together with me doing the driving and approximately Two hours later arrived at our destination to be met with a Dry circuit, and clear skies. We made the same journey last year but unfortunately Andrew Neill was to lose his life in a crash and we soon had to return home, but there was no repeat this year (just one Red flag incident) with some great racing.

With Ryan Farquhar away competing at Scarborough (and dominating proceedings) the opportunity was there for someone else to grab a few wins and a slice of the healthy prize fund. The start / finish section of the circuit is the widest section of road and it needs to be with a mass start where a bunch of bikes all have to brake extremely hard at the first road end for the first corner. Here in the images John Burrows machine has the back-end stepping out under braking.

The Supersport race was led from the start by William Dunlop on the CD Racing R6 Yamaha and it looked like he would never be headed.

But half way through the race his brother Michael started to come on strong and was soon right on his back wheel. With a lap to go Michael made his move passing William in mid-air over the jump and managing to get the bike down, and slowed for the peel in point to the next left hander before going on to take the win.

The next event for me is the Irish Superbikes at Kirkistown on Tuesday and then off to Kells for more road racing at the weekend.

Tags: CD Racing, Irish Superbikes, John Burrows, Kells, Kirkistown, Ryan Farquhar, Scarborough, Supersport, Walderstown, William Dunlop

Irish Racer magazine issue #96

Issue #96 (July 2010) of Irish Racer Magazine hit the Shop Shelves this morning. This is the TT review issue and it also features Joey Dunlop on the tenth anniversary of his death. Also inside are features on Aussie David Johnson, Klaus Klaffenbock, Sandra Stamova and Bryan Staring along with all the regular columns from the likes of Guy Martin, Kirk Jamison, Jonathan Rea, Eugene Laverty, John McGuinness and a straight-talking new column from Ireland’s last Grand Prix winner Jeremy McWilliams.

It has been another excellent issue for myself in that I have over twenty of my images published in the magazine this month, including the popular Eye Candy page.

Tags: Bryan Staring, David Johnson, Eugene Laverty, Guy Martin, Irish Racer Magazine, Jeremy McWilliams, Joey Dunlop, John McGuinness, Jonathan Rea, Kirk Jamison, Klaus Klaffenbock, Sandra Stamova

Kildare Championship Round Two

This past weekend also saw the second round of the new Kildare championship at Mondello Park.

Having been in the Dublin area to Photograph the Skerries road races, myself and fellow Photographer Derek Wilson decided to share a room in a cheap Hotel, rather than drive back home only to return back up again the next morning. Suitably refreshed with a cooked breakfast (much better quality and much much much much cheaper than the Dick Turpin prices at Skerries!) we set off for Mondello Park.

It was raining when we got there so I just left the big glass in Derek’s car, grabbed a Nikon Camera, a short lens and a Nikon SB800 flashgun and decided to just Photograph around the paddock, pit garages and podium presentations. The Weather turned out hot and sunny a little over an hour later but still I left the big glass in his car.

For the above image of Tim Stott preparing a 125 Honda for race action I used very shallow depth of field to isolate him from the background.

Grid Girls are a welcome new feature to Motorcycle racing at Mondello Park this year. Katya Slavashevkaya (3rd right in image above) has recently contacted me to arrange a shoot for her modelling agency portfolio, hopefully we can find a suitable date and time soon.

Glenn Irwin whom I have blogged about a few times was in sensational form on the day setting a new lap record as he destroyed the opposition to win both Supersport 600 races.

Tags: Dublin, Glenn Irwin, Grid Girls, Katya Slavashevkaya, Kildare, Kildare Championship, Mondello Park, Photograph, Skerries, Tim Stott

2010 Skerries Road races

The first Saturday of July is the traditional date for the Skerries Motorcycle Road races, one of the most popular events on the Irish calendar which always attracts large crowds of spectators, and usually gets good Weather too.

The sport of Motorbike racing is very popular in the Skerries area with lots of die-hard road racing fans and it attracts its fair share of competitors from the region too. In this first image of mine from this years racing at Skerries, Andy Farrell exits the Sam’s tunnel / shady lane section of the circuit hard on the gas with the front wheel of his Yamaha R1 pointing skyward.

Rotating my camera to a portrait format gives a different look to this same shot, this time of Michael Pearson.

Further back down the road is the appropriately named ‘Shady lane’. This section of the circuit is lined with Trees on both sides of the road (with a heavy canopy of leaves which block out the light making the Photographers job more difficult) and as you can see, hundreds of race fans cram in to every vantage point possible just feet away from the action. Getting up close to the Irish road racing is what makes it special, smelling the bikes, feeling the blast of wind as the machines pass by at high speed. Kill this atmosphere in the name of Health and safety and I suspect the buzz of going to a road race will not be the same.

Here Lee Hill hammers through shady lane giving chase to John Ella and Myles Byrne, sadly Myles was to lose his life in a crash later-on that same day.

Here William Dunlop (Honda RS125) is about to get over-taken by the wily Ryan Farquhar (Kawasaki KX450) on the brakes in to the hairpin at Skerries.

The ‘Scaries’ Supersport 600 race was an absolute belter between Ryan Farquhar and Keith Amor, with Michael Dunlop and William Dunlop 3rd and 4th throughout. Farquhar led the race for quite a few laps but he pushed a bit hard one lap and the front wheel tucked on a bump leaving a big dark line on the tarmac but luckily fortune was on his side and he did not crash, however this gave Amor the incentive who found a way through to take the lead and go on to win.

Tags: Andy Farrell, John Ella, Keith Amor, Lee Hill, Michael Dunlop, Michael Pearson, Motorcycle, Myles Byrne, Ryan Farquhar, Skerries, William Dunlop, Yamaha R1

Downpatrick Motocross, Dust, Dirt, Stones and Sun

With no ‘proper’ bike racing on this weekend in Ireland, and no personal shoots booked I could have sat at home and watched some of the World Cup on the telly, or went to Kirkistown for Kart racing, or Rasharkin for a Hill climb. In the end I plumped to risk the Camera gear at yet another Motocross racing event, this time in Downpatrick.

Setting off from home it was dull and starting to Rain and the forecast was also for Rain but it never came to anything and it actually turned out another warm sunny day.

Motocross differs from tarmac based Motorcycle racing in that the layout of the bikes at the start of the race are not staggered down the length of the grid. In Motocross racing all the bikes are arranged in a line with the front wheels up against a starting gate which drops at the start of the race.

It is then a hectic, mad dash to get through the first corner before everyone else with mud, dust, and stones kicked up everywhere, the first corner of the opening lap of the race is fraut with danger but usually they all make it through safely.

All the soft mud gets pushed to the outside of the corners and forms what is known as a berm, the fast riders can really attack the berms and carry a lot of speed through the corner the rear wheels of their bikes kicking up more mud, more dust, more stones. With all the stones flying about its all too easy to get hit by one of them, I lost count of the amount of stones that struck my body today.

Motocross racing just wouldn’t be Motocross without a few big jumps.

So next weekend its back to Photographing pure road racing at the Skerries road races near Ballbriggan in County Dublin. You can be sure there will be a few shouts of “Oiii ya can’t stand there” not something you hear at the more relaxed Motocross scene. I could get used to shooting Motocross……………if it wasn’t for the mud, the dust, and the stones!

Tags: Downpatrick, Motocross, Motorcycle, Motorcycle racing

Kirk Jamison Photo Shoot

Yesterday evening I travelled down to Greyabbey and Kirkcubbin to shoot some PR photographs for Kirk Jamison. Kirk and I had a very successful shoot last year and Kirk was wanting more images this year to give to sponsors etc.

We unloaded his Race bike (a Honda Fireblade) from the Van he was driving and wheeled it down on to the rocky shore of Strangford Lough on the Portaferry road. By this time It was approximately 7.30pm and ideally we would have just sat and waited for at least another hour or more for the Sun to get lower in the Sky.

Waiting longer would have meant the ambient light levels would have been lower and we could have shot with lower powered flashes, but we didn’t choose that option instead I setup the shots in such a way that the Sun could be used as a rim light and then I used my 400WS Elinchrom portable studio light as fill (from Camera left).

Whilst shooting the above images we were joined by Paul Lindsay Editor of Irish Racer Magazine who then asked us to shoot an image of Kirk, back at his father’s garage in Kirkcubbin, working on the bike for Kirk’s monthly column in the new issue of Irish Racer which goes to the publishers in just over a weeks time.

Tags: Elinchrom, Fireblade, Greyabbey, Honda, Irish Racer Magazine, Kirk Jamison, Kirkcubbin, Portaferry, Strangford Lough