Posted by Cleggy on Jul 5, 2010 in
Bike Racing
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
Posted by Cleggy on Jun 26, 2010 in
Motocross
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
Posted by Cleggy on May 26, 2010 in
Bike Racing
This past weekend saw the opening round of the Kildare championship (a new championship for 2010) held at Mondello Park, which included the high profile Leinster 100 Trophy race.
Mondello Park struck lucky with the warmest weekend of the Year so far which resulted in a larger than usual turnout of spectators, despite a relatively poor entry from the racers who obviously deemed it not worth entering due to it not carrying Irish championship status. Or is the economic downturn still hitting hard?
As well as introducing this new championship for the 2010 season, Mondello are trying hard to raise the PR profile of Motorcycle racing at Mondello with various initiatives including grid interviews with the racers, podium presentations for the main race events and the Mondello Park grid Girl search where Girls can apply to be a grid Girl for a Race weekend, all the grid Girls face a public vote and at the end of the season the winner gets a luxury Holiday as a prize.
Marshall Neill on the grid at Mondello Park with one of the grid Girls
The front row of the grid for the high profile Leinster 100 Race saw Waterford’s Brian McCormack on pole and alongside him were Marshall Neill, Glenn Irwin and Derek Shiels. Young Glenn Irwin qualified on the front row on a 600cc machine against his rivals 1000cc Superbike/Superstock machines, quite an achievement.
Front row of the grid at Mondello Park for the Leinster 100
Brian McCormack the 2008 Irish Superbike champion took the early lead and despite the best efforts of Marshall Neill who was glued to his rear Wheel all race long, McCormack secured the win and the Cheque for 1,500 Euros. Glenn Irwin rode very hard to secure the last podium position.
Brian McCormack at Mondello Park
A happy Brian McCormack will now set off to make his Isle of Man TT debut. Good luck Brian, enjoy the experience and see you over there next week!
Brian McCormack won the Leinster 100 race at Mondello Park
Tags: Brian McCormack, Derek Shiels, Glenn Irwin, Irish Championship, Isle of Man TT, Kildare, Leinster, Marshall Neill, Mondello Park, Motorcycle, Superbike, Superstock, Waterford
Posted by Cleggy on May 6, 2010 in
Bike Racing,
PR
Ryan Farquhar surpassed the late great Joey Dunlop’s victory record at Killalane in 2009 to become the most successful Irish national Road racer ever. For a man that has won almost everything there is to win in the high risk sport of Motorcycle Road Racing, Ryan has his feet firmly on the ground.
Working out of a small garage workshop at the side of his Two up, Two down Killyman home he burns the midnight oil meticulously preparing his own race bikes, putting in long hours behind the scenes that the majority of race fans just don’t realise. Every nut and bolt is inspected, tightened and checked and double checked to ensure that come the weekend and the next race that nothing has been left to chance.
Tonight Ryan invited me round to look at and Photograph the MSS Kawasaki Superbike that he has the use of for his assault on the dream of a Superbike victory at one of the big three International Road Races. If the bike is as good as it looks then Ryan will be in with a fighting chance, despite the high calibre of opposition he will be up against.
Despite this being a bike prepared by MSS Colchester Kawasaki under the supervision of Nick Morgan, Ryan still stripped the bike down to see what brackets etc needed strengthening to survive the rigours of Road racing. If Ryan doesn’t get a win or Two on this bike, you can be sure it won’t be his own fault.
Ryan, best of luck for the racing, and keep it safe out there.
Tags: Joey Dunlop, Kawasaki, Killalane, Killyman, Motorcycle, MSS, Nick Morgan, Photograph, Road racing, Ryan Farquhar, Superbike
Posted by Cleggy on Apr 17, 2010 in
Motocross
Stephen McDonald is the proprietor of Smokin Slicks who specialises in Motorcycle Tyre sales. Supplying Tyres, removing and refitting balanced wheels at your door taking the inconvenience out of Tyre replacement.
A good while back Stevie asked me to design him a website and to also meet up with him and his mates some day to capture some Photographs of them ‘mucking about’ on their Motocross bikes.
Today was the first mutually suitable date we could find and we travelled the short distance to Tullylish Motocross track just outside Gilford. Tullylish is a small track that is only used as a practice circuit these days, I brought along my Nikon 70-200mm and a 300mm but ended up shooting everything with the 70-200mm zoom (mostly in around 135mm).
For this first image I shot from an elevated position and quite a distance away so that I could capture the general scene and allow time for the dust kicked up from the bikes to become a key element of the image.
1/800th f7.1
I then opened up my Aperture to f5 to gain a slightly faster shutter speed to stop the action in this image of Stevie getting airbourne over one of the numerous Motocross jumps.
In this photograph the strong Sun from the left hand side casts a strong shadow to help the viewer realise that the Motocross bike is actually off the ground.
Another bike has just passed by which has kicked up a lot of dust but my Nikon Camera had no trouble locking and tracking the focus of the following bike in this image.
Tags: Aperture, focus, Gilford, Motocross, Motorcycle, Nikon, Smokin Slicks, Stephen McDonald, Tullylish
Posted by Cleggy on Feb 27, 2010 in
Bike Racing,
PR
Bushmill’s CCTV Engineer Coyles Wright sounded me out a few months ago about doing a few Photographs of the new Race Team that he was putting together to contest the Irish Motorcycle racing championships. All the pieces of the jigsaw fell in to place and a date was set to do the shoot.
The evening before the shoot (last night) Coyles sent me a text message panicking about the heavy Snow that was falling up his part of the Country but we agreed to go ahead with the shoot and luckily the next morning (today) dawned without a major fall of Snow. With the forecast for a bright afternoon I was confident the shoot would go ahead as planned.
Coyles choice of location for the shoot was the famous ‘Dark Trees’ near Armoy which have been Photographed my numerous Photographers over the years. I immediately started thinking about the location and whether to try and shoot it all available ambient light or to introduce some flash light to the Photographs and whether or not everyday traffic would be an issue. If using flash I knew I would need to be able to hide the flashes and light stands so that they did not intrude in to the scene.
Coyles assured me it was a quiet Road with very little traffic, but on the day we were constantly having to push the bikes to one side to allow the free flow of traffic. I initially fired off a few frames using just the available light, but I soon realised that it was not illuminating both race bikes and riders evenly which was then my cue to extend the light stands and power up the Nikon SB800 flashes.
1/250th f5.6 AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G IF-ED
The addition of some artificial flash light and a tighter composition made for a much stronger image.
Because these images were shot specifically for a press release to be sent to the Biking press I knew that a ‘mugshot’ of each racer would also be required.
Coyles Wright
Michael McKinley
Below is a lighting diagram explaining how these images were created.
Tags: AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G IF-ED, Armoy, Bushmills, Coleraine, Coyles Wright, Irish, Michael McKinley, Motorcycle, Motorcycle racing, Nikon, Photographs, SB800
Posted by Cleggy on Jan 10, 2010 in
Announcements A selection of my Photographs from yesterdays Motorcycle Enduro at Crossgar are now available to purchase in a variety of sizes, Acrylics, Canvases, Gifts etc.
Tags: Crossgar, Enduro, Motorcycle