Author Archives: Lewis

Ma5da Racing – Brands Hatch

Posted on by

Ma5da Racing got their 2010 season off to a great start, with 62 cars and 6 exciting races on a sunny Brands Hatch Indy circuit. The new race day format spliting the drivers into 4 groups, with each race consiting of 2 different groups, there was plety of action and overtaking.

Race 1 featured Tom Roche and Jonathan Greensmith’s groups, so we were treated to a classic Roche vs Greensmith battle, as we have seen so often over the 2 years that Ma5da Racing has existed, Tom won this time, but as ever it was a good close race. Further down the field there was plenty of close racing, with a lot of new cars and new drivers.

Race 2 I moved round from Druids to Paddock Hill bend and it was only Scott Leach that ended up in the gravel (as usual ending up infront of where I was standing on the previous lap) at the top of the field Rob Boston lead the race, after starting 2nd next to his team mate Dave Connor, and built up a massive, by Ma5da standards, lead of 9s. Charles Plumley was in second place, with new driver Matt Davies (albeit in Steve Greensmith’s old car) had a great debut in 3rd place.

For the afternoon I moved round to Clearways, luckily unlike the launch day the sun stayed out and the track stayed dry for an afternoon of close racing.

Race 3 was the Blendini Motorsport show, with the green liveried cars of Tom Roche and Charles Plumley leading from start to finish, although Chris Dawkins and Dave Connor were never far behind, but locked in their own battle.

Race 4, the last of Saturday’s races, looked like it was going to be a re run of the last race of the 2009 season, with Rob Boston up against Jonathan Greensmith at the front of the field, however, by the time the cars had got round to me, Rob had slipped down the field, but had made it back to second, albeit with a large gap, by the time the safety car came out for an incident at Paddock Hill bend. After the safety car came in Rob was able to overtake Jonathan and stay in front for the rest of the race.

Further down the field there was a great 4 way battle for third place with Chris Woodger, Ben Robinson, Mark Pierpoint and Martin Stevinson (finishing in that order). This race Scott Leach made up for putting it in the gravel a lap too late for me, by running over the gravel trap right in front of me, also this time he was able to continue with the race.

Race 5 came after two races which had been red flagged on the first lap (the second one also got red flagged on the restart), so there were a lot of people waiting anxiously for the Ma5das to get round the first lap, all in one piece, they managed Paddock Hill Bend and Druids without any problem, but David Neville span off on the exit of Graham Hill Bend/the Cooper Straight, hitting the armco fairly heavily, causing the safety car and then the red flag to be used. Then all track activity had to stop, for the Kent Air Ambulance to pick up a casualty (not related to any of the on track action). With the amount of delays, it was decided to shorten the afternoons 15 minute races to 10 minutes.

From the restart it was Jonathan Greensmith who led the pack away and won the race, although Charles Plumley was challenging hard for most the race, even taking the lead from Greensmith up the inside at Clearways, only for Greensmith to win the position back and then Plumley to lose a few more positions with a mistake at Paddock Hill Bend. This promoted Adam Gore, on his first race weekend, to the second step of the podium and the driver of the day award.

Race 6 was the one I’d been looking forward to, Tom Roche and Rob Boston each had two wins each from the Saturday and would be going head to head. The first lap passed without too much incident, only Ben Robinson ending up in the gravel trap at Druids, second time round Gary Hufford and Andy Coombs ended up nose to nose right infront of me, but managed to escape and rejoin the pack, which was now behind the safety car, after Martin Tolley and Kevin Taylor collected eachother at Paddock Hill Bend.

When the marshalls had cleared up, there was only time for a few laps of the shortened race, which provided an excellent dash to the line, both times Tom and Rob came past me they were side by side, which continued to the finishing line as they were only separated by 1/1000th of a second, with the yellow and black car of Rob Boston just infront.

A full gallery of images from the weekends racing can be found on my website.

Ma5da Racing 2010 Championship Launch

Posted on by

The clocks had only just gone forward for British Summer Time and it was time to get back to Brands Hatch, after what seemed like only a few weeks since the Ma5da Racing Winter trophy 2009. The format for the day was simple, an open pitlane trackday with the championship launch briefing during the lunch break, a good chance to catch up with everyone before the season starts.

The track started out damp, but dried out through the morning session. There were lots of new cars on he track, but without race numbers (I’d not been to the pits at this stage) it was hard to see who was in a new car and who was new to the championship.

After the championship launch briefing, and a quick look round the pits at who was driving what, it was time to head round to Clearways for the afternoon session, but when I got there, the rain was bucketing down, with only a few cars out on track it was an easy decision to stay in the car until it had died down a bit. The spray made for some interesting pictures as did Rob Boston’s oversteering, luckily Rob has a tinted visor, so I was able to spot him in his new car.

My favourite shot of the day however, was when Jonathan Blake was out in the new mk3 race car, set to make it’s debut at Snetterton later this month, I saw the picture on the back of the camera and knew it was the shot of the day.

Arbroath

Posted on by

I’m back up in Scotland, which means, more landscape photography.

This morning we decided to head to Forfar to get some bridies for lunch and seeing as it was such a nice morning we decided to continue over to Arbroath to get some smokies for dinner.

Arbroath Harbour:

Dad at Arbroath Harbour:

The only downside to the trip was that it was perfect sports car weather, driving on perfect sports car roads, but both the sports cars are back down in the shire. Now it’s time to eat the smokies…

Perth by night

Posted on by

I’m now back in Rugby, after a nightmare journey down from Perth, featuring a closed airport and lack of customer service from the airline, luckily for my next trip I will be driving.

I hadn’t actually planned to shoot anything on Wednesday, I’d been snowboarding up at Glenshee, without the camera gear, it was another perfect blue sky day of Scottish snowboarding. After getting back into town, we went to the Shake Bar for a Scottish tablet milkshake, which everyone should experience in their life. We enjoyed the milkshakes overlooking the Tay as the sun was setting and for some reason, the Tay was flat clam making the reflections of lights from the bridges really vivid. So we rushed back to grab the cameras and these are the resulting images:

Kinnoull Hill

Posted on by

After a couple of days with rubbish light, we were able to get out with the cameras again, we decided to keep it fairly local and walked to Kinnoull Hill on the outskirts of Perth. I’d remembered about a pond, that was used for the sport of curling in the olden days, from a previous trip, so we took a detour to find it again. The pond was frozen and the ice was pretty thick, certainly enough to take my weight. (Don’t play around on frozen lakes etc, it isn’t big or clever)

The real reason for choosing Kinnoull Hill, was Kinnoull Tower, a derelict tower perched on the edge of a cliff, probably a look out post to spot people coming up the Tay from the North Sea/Dundee. Its well positioned to catch the evening sun and with the Tay weaving away in the background. This afternoon the Tay was fairly full, with hardly a ripple and I really like the way this image has come out.

Also in Kinnoull Woods there are a series of wooden sculptures by Pete Bowsher (aka Chainsaw Pete), this bird of prey (looks like an eagle, but buzzard sized) was up near Kinnoull Tower.

Perthshire Landscapes

Posted on by

Seeing as I’m up in Scotland, amongst some stunning scenery it would be silly not to make the most of it, so along with my Dad we are trying to get out to take photographs each evening, when the light is good.

Our first evening we headed north up the A9, past Dunkeld and then left the car and headed up the hill towards a loch that we thought would catch the evening sun. After a few wrong turnings we came out of the woods into a meadow, where we should have stopped, due to the sun almost having disappeared behind the mountains, but instead we carried on for the loch, by the time we reached in the sun had already dropped. This was a great shame, as the loch was frozen and there was a pretty green cottage on the bank. I’m pretty pleased with the image below, but can’t help wondering how much better it would have been 20 minutes before.

A Busy Start To The Year

Posted on by

Wow! Where has January gone? It doesn’t seem that long ago that I was up in Scotland for Xmas, I’m going back next week.

Towards the middle of January I had a very busy weekend, spending the Saturday at the SWPP convention in London with my Dad and some of his class mates from his photography course, the main thing I took away from the show was the motivation to try new options for displaying my images, especially printing to and stretching canvas and acrylics.

The Autosport show was great, it is always good to meet up with familiar faces, see all the cars and generally get excited for the 2010 season. The highlight for me was seeing the Ma5da Racing cars in the Live Action Arena, the live show itself was good, but seeing the MX-5s on track, entertaining the crowd, along with the likes of drift cars, Aston Martins, Jaguars and Jenson Button, even though the result, a win for Jonathan Blake in the mk3 was somewhat predictable!

I’ve finally got my wide angle lens, the Canon 17-40f4L, back from Fixation who were servicing it after it sacrificed itself to stop me getting a ski in the face at the Wham Bam Swad Jam last year and am looking forward to using it in Scotland next week.

That is pretty much all the photography news from me, the year has got off to a slow start, but I am looking forward to the rest of 2010 being very busy!

Bedford Photowalk

Posted on by

This was me well and truly out of my comfort zone, no motorsport, or pre planned landscape shots, just a post lunch wander along the river with the cameras, which is a nice way to spend a sunny January afternoon with an old friend.

With the sun being quite low and directional getting the sun in the right position was crucial, I liked this image of the two swans, with the light coming in from the front right and semi back lighting the swans, although I’m less than happy that I cropped off the tail of the nearest swan.

I also liked this footbridge for portraits, my portrait style is heading very much towards straight lines heading off into the background drawing the viewers eyes into the subject at the centre of the frame, I need to try a few with off camera flash too, but for the meantime, here is a shot of Elaine on the bridge.

2010

Posted on by

Even though I didn’t post it on the 1st January, the image below was taken on my way home from a new years party.

Being of Scottish/French descent a St George’s Cross isn’t something I’d normally take a picture of, but I thought the light on it was great. I was taking the scenic route home from my parent’s place and stopped at Fairfax’s viewpoint, just outside Naseby, hoping to capture the vista that Fairfax would have seen prior to the Battle of Naseby, minus all the armies etc obviously, but a farmer had dropped a huge pile of manure in the foreground of the shot, so a flag is what I took.

As I’ve already hinted at, 2010 is going to be a busy year, the motorsport season is going to start for me on the 14th February, with some rallycross at Mallory Park (being single on valentines day does have some benefits), with the Ma5da Racing season kicking off towards the end of March. As per 2008 & 2009 I will be covering all rounds of the Ma5da Racing Championship, including their add on series for the Mk3 MX-5s. When I have got more reliable dates for the events I am covering I will put a post on the blog, this should be in a few weeks after the Autosport International show.

My aims for 2010 photography wise are to get published in Autosport magazine again, get my website 100% finished and most importantly to take more photos for myself. In my personal life I’m aiming to snowboard more than I did in 2009, which shouldn’t be too tricky and to get my flat sorted out, before the 2 year anniversary of moving in. I will also make sure that I update this blog (and my development blog) more often.

I’ll leave you with a bonus picture from my new years eve celebrations, regular readers may recognise Simon, my little brother, who threw a nations themed fancy dress party to bring in 2010, any guesses as to which nation he is?