It could be the people, the Marshalls are always good for a bit of banter, the crowds are passionate and knowledgeable, the crews are happy to chat about their cars and the issues they are having.

But ultimately for me it’s the thrill of motorsport and the photography. For this article we are visiting Blyton Park, which is one of those traditional British race tracks that supports grass roots motorsport.  

Club level motorsport doesn't have the pretensions of the "A" list events. There are no VIP areas, no stewards checking your wrist band and if the drivers put on mirror shades and tried to look too cool for school they would be laughed off the park. 

Like so many other tracks across the UK, Blyton Park is a disused World War 2 Airfield and is located in North Lincolnshire. There are a lot of disused and operational airfields in Lincolnshire. I passed four on the way to this event. 

If you are visiting mid week plan your journey past RAF Scampton on the A15, you might get lucky and take in a free airshow. It is the home of the Royal Air Force aerobatic display team, they practice most days above Scampton when the weather is good.

Blyton Park runs many diverse events, from track days to the event I was attending, The Jack Neal Memorial Rally.

Jack Neal was a respected scrutineer from Colne in Lancashire. He covered many events throughout the North and nationally. Unfortunately he died before his time and is greatly missed by the motorsport community.

So what does Blyton Park offer the spectator photographer? Access to the track is via the old taxi way. This beaten up track would have been the same one used by the Polish Aircrew who crewed the Wellington bombers here back in World War 2. 

For this event there was no designated spectator parking so I stopped just short of the paddock which was located on the taxi way. 

Following this road will lead you to the start line with a large hangar on your right. Located here are the various circuit administration offices and the smell of fried onions. There is a mobile catering van and a café, standard for most circuits but good to know.

There is only one viewing area, a raised L shaped bank located next to Ushers corner. Being raised you get good views of most of the track. Although a lot of it is some distance away it's actually better than most circuits for watching the action, if a little exposed.  

The cars do get close to you during the event because the course changes over the duration of the day. There are five Stages each being run twice to make up the ten timed events. Rally Stages are run against the clock so no wheel to wheel action here today. 

With no commentary on the racing it was a bit of a guessing game as to what was going on and who was leading. I have no complaints as this event is not really set up for a large crowd, or any crowd for that matter. There isn't an entry fee to get in so as a free event with some spirited driving to watch it's well worth a visit.

To capture the action as a photographer you will need a bag full of lenses. The close in panning shots were taken with a 17-55mm and 70-200mm with the standard superzoom for the distance shots. Even at 500mm I couldn’t reach the far ends of the track to produce anything usable.

One problem I came across was the wind. All airfields are flat and therefore the wind whistles across them. 

On this occasion it was blowing straight at us. With a long lens with a large hood attached I was getting pushed around quite a bit. This isn't ideal when panning, so the hood came off which helped.

The start line at the beginning of the spectator area was a target rich environment and as in any Rally event the cars were set off at intervals opposed to all together. This means that you get plenty of time to snap them as they que up to take on the track.

The paddock area as always can reap great results, take your time and observe. I spent a fair amount of time in the pits / paddock.

The results for this race and many others can all be found at rallies.info but in short, Steve Simpson and Dave Jackson in the red number 3 Subaru won the event and their class (5). It was a close race going right up to the wire; they took the win by 1 second. 

Simpson and Jackson managed to take 2 seconds out of John Marshal and Scott Crawford in another Subaru on the final stage to win.

Winners in class 6 Chris Grundy and Steve Grundy in a Ford Escort.

Winners in class 4 were Stephen Booth and Catherine Booth in their iconic Ford Escort RS2000

Class 3 winners were Nathan Evans and Josh Evans in a Renault Clio 172 Cup.

Winners in class 2 David Duff and Richard Hill in their Ford Escort.

Class 1 winners Mark Jones and Jemma Outram in the MG ZR.

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