Back on Track - the 2023 - Brands Hatch Winter Stages

Report by David Harbey

28 January 2023

Whilst it ain’t the Monte Carlo Rally or even the Manx (the subject of a recent PistonClick report), the Circuit Rally Championship does provide a good opportunity to see rally cars do their thing over the winter months. We reported on the second round at Cadwell Park last November.

Round 3 took place at Brands Hatch on a chilly but bright January day. A good number of spectators had turned out which meant a long queue to get in to my preferred parking spot behind Druids - disappointing personally as I failed in my aim of being there just in time for car 1 at 09.00 but encouraging for the organisers.

It had been good to see lots of information available in the days before the event to allow spectators and snappers alike to plan their day. On this occasion though, aside from being at Druids to start and Clearways to end the day, I had no firm plans.

With temperatures hovering around freezing point at the start of the day’s action, the tarmac was slippery and four wheel drive was a help but not the full answer at Druids which was run “backwards” for the morning stages.

The light though was really good illuminating the faces of the competitors and a number of snappers were able to take advantage of the gap in the fence.

Not everyone got it right … someone’s wondering about their circuit grass damage insurance excess !

One feature of the circuit rally at Brands Hatch is that they use part of the rally school stage accessed via the lower paddock. This entails a jump where most competitors manage an impressive height off the ground.

For the afternoon and noting where the sun was moving round to, I wanted to be at the Clearways end of the circuit. The stages were now using the pitlane in reverse with a hairpin right onto the start / finish straight.

Barriers and cones are an essential element of circuit rallying but can sometimes provide a useful background or, in some case, a target …

Although this was shooting through the fence, the light was well to the right and thus did not adversely impact the image. Swinging round to the left gave a neat shot of the competitors heading towards Paddock Hill Bend.

Walking towards the start line, I experimented with a close up pan through the fence for a different sort of shot.

For the penultimate stage of the day, I walked round to the TV camera slot in the fence at Clark / Clearways. Again, using the circuit in reverse pays dividends as there’s a clean shot of the cars heading round towards Clearways and then the stage finish on the Grand Prix circuit up from Surtees.

The sun was setting fast and I only caught it on the faces on the first car through - it was, though, rally winners John Griffiths and Emma Morrison #3.

Again, it paid to swing right to get a shot of the reverse of the car - albeit this time through the fence including third placed Paul Murro and Callum Cross #12.

For the final stage, I relocated to the small area next to the medical centre at Surtees. This overlooked the final corner of the stage and John Stone and Callum Young #2 on their way to second place were the only crew to offer brake disc glow while I was there.

A good day out with excellent light to play with and, although cold, there was little breeze and no rain. There’s other angles at Brands that are a little different. Here’s the somewhat strangely Martini liveried GT86 emerging from the trees on the way back to the service area.

An alternative view

I said earlier that I had few plans for the day; this was because I was expecting to catch up with friends. Jonathan had parked outside the track and walked in via the service area and used his iPhone to good effect there.

Before the weekend, I’d also offered Jonathan the chance to use the 200-500mm zoom with his Nikon D70s - a DX format camera from the mid-noughties.

The zoom gave him an effective 300-750mm focal length - which was something of a revelation to him; as was the weight of the superzoom after a few minutes ! I did offer him the monopod …

Thanks to Jonathan Nixon for sharing his photos - more joint trips to Brands Hatch are planned this season.

There are more photos on my Flickr feed; should you be interested in this form of rallying, the remaining Circuit Rallies in the Spring of 2023 are: