Posted by Cleggy on Jul 15, 2010 in
Bike Racing
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
Posted by Cleggy on Apr 7, 2010 in
Bike Racing
The Irish championship short circuit racing action moved along the County Down Coast to the Kirkistown race circuit for the second round of the Irish Superbike Championships. The early on-track action was held in cold and wet conditions, but as the day progressed it got drier, and a heck of a lot windier and the Sun even put in an appearance.
I started off where I left off at Bishopscourt by using a slow shutter speed for some panning shots. With so many Motorhomes and other background distractions at race circuits these days, panning motion blur can be used to blur a distracting background.
Cameron Donald – 300mm 1/125th
Cameron Donald – 500mm 1/320th
There was some nice light late in the afternoon to shoot the second superbike race of the day, but a very strong sidewind made it very tricky to hold the Camera and lens (with teleconvertor) steady. To minimise the effect of the wind I used the sheltered side of some Tyres and grass banking, a monopod and a low position to help me capture this image of best friends Gerard Kinghan and Kirk Jamison battling it out wheel-to-wheel at Kirkistown’s hairpin.
Tags: Bishopscourt, Bruce Anstey, Cameron Donald, County Down, Gerard Kinghan, Irish Championship, Irish Superbike Championship, Kirk Jamison, Kirkistown, panning
Posted by Cleggy on Apr 4, 2010 in
Bike Racing
Friday and Saturday saw the start of the Irish Superbike Championship season at Bishopscourt. With Northern Ireland currently only having Two race circuits of a suitable standard for Championship racing it is hard to shoot some original images. For this weekend I decided to concentrate on panning images using a slow shutter speed.
Long, Large, heavy Glass on a monopod is hard to hold steady at the best of times, but when a gusting Wind is catching it, it becomes doubly hard.
Bruce Anstey – 500mm 1/250th sec
James Dickson – 500mm 1/200th sec
With the Wind came heavy Rain showers, lots of surface Water and race Bikes using Wet weather Tyres means lots of spray getting thrown up and this can give the auto-focus motors on Cameras/Lenses a hard time.
In this Photograph Cameron Donald on the Relentless Suzuki sits up and brakes to scrub off some speed for a chicane and you can graphically see just how wet it was!
Cameron Donald – 500mm 1/320th sec
Cameron Donald – 500mm 1/160th sec
Road racing specialist Ryan Farquhar went to Bishopscourt for some track time to help him shake off the Winter rustiness and get his 450 single and 650 Twin bikes dialled in for the season ahead. Ryan took a couple of race wins in the Super Twins class whilst also showing the potential off the ‘wee thumper’ Kawasaki KX450F single.
Ryan Farquhar, Kawasaki ER650F – 500mm 1/100th sec
But the weekend belonged to one of Ireland’s most under-rated racers, Portadown’s Marshall Neill who won all Three Irish Championship Superbike races on a Superstock Suzuki GSXR1000.
Marshall Neill – 500mm 1/200th sec
Marshall also became the 2010 winner of the long running Enkalon Trophy.
Tags: Bishopscourt, Bruce Anstey, Cameron Donald, Enkalon Trophy, Irish Championship, James Dickson, Kawasaki, KX450F, Marshall Neill, monopod, panning, Portadown, Relentless, Ryan Farquhar, Superbike, Superbike Championship, Suzuki, TAS
Posted by Cleggy on Dec 26, 2009 in
Bike Racing Following on from my ‘Best of 2009 – Candids’ and ‘Best of 2009 – Road racing’ blog posts, this post contains a selection of my favourite photographs from the Irish short circuit racing season just finished. Selecting your own personal favourites is never easy, and your choice varies each time you attempt it (well mine does anyway), but I’ve had a go at it and here they are (in no particular order).
Hot n heavy action as David Haire, BJ Toal and Ian Lowry battle for the same strip of Tarmac, the Grass and Dirt is thrown up in to the air from BJ’s Knee slider.
1/1000th f9 300mm f2.8 VR
Gerard Kinghan powers out of Dunlop corner at Mondello Park, front Wheel up in the air and the rear Tyre struggling to maintain its grip on the Tarmac as Gerard keeps the Throttle pinned.
1/1000th f5.6 300mm f2.8 VR
Glenn Irwin was just too eager to get on the power at turn two at Mondello Park and the power of the MAR-Train Suzuki was too much for a relatively cold Tyre at the start of the race. Before Glenn knew anything about it he was spat of the bike and looking for his landing spot.
1/1250th f8 300mm f2.8 VR
A nice slow shutter speed emphasises the sense of speed as Drew Jamison negotiates Debtors dip at Kirkistown.
1/160th f20 300mm f2.8 VR
Again a nice slow shutter speed and panning was used here to emphasise the sense of speed as Gary Johnson scrubs up some speed to enter Colonials at Kirkistown.
1/160th f14 300mm f2.8 VR
A 300mm lens and a 1.7x tele-convertor were called in to action for this tight shot of Wayne Kirwan at Bishopscourt.
1/800th f6.3 300mm f2.8 VR and TC17 tele convertor
Damien Mulleady, John Walsh, Robbie Lanigan and Ronan Shanahan in formation at Mondello Park.
1/800th f8 300mm f2.8 VR
Rubbing is racing! Marshall Neill makes contact with Ian Lowry during a cold, wet finale to the 2009 Irish Superbike championship at Bishopscourt. The contact was that heavy that Ian had to ’sit up’ and run wide on to the Grass to avoid crashing.
1/800th f7.1 300mm f2.8 VR
As always you can purchase from a selection of my vast Photographic Library by selecting from my online galleries.
Tags: 300mm f2.8 VR, Bishopscourt, BJ Toal, Damien Mulleady, David Haire, Drew Jamison, Gary Johnson, Gerard Kinghan, Glenn Irwin, Ian Lowry, John Walsh, Kirkistown, MAR-Train, Marshall Neill, Mondello Park, panning, Robbie Lanigan, slow shutter speed, Wayne Kirwan