British Racing and Sports Car Club (BRSCC)

Caldwell Park

20th - 21st August 2022

Last weekend's racing at Cadwell Park was a back to basics grass roots level meeting of the British Racing and Sports Car Club (BRSCC) and could have been a bit of a come down after the previous PistonClick photojournalist reports of the MotoGP and British Superbikes round.

I’m glad to say it wasn’t much of a let down, watching Jack Miller riding a pristine motorcycle in the MotoGP at Silverstone is a little special and is hard to beat. It’s also fair to say that the motor vehicles on display at Cadwell were not of international race livery standards.

Most were decked out in the usual club racing livery of duck tape, tie wraps and local trade sponsors, although some did look fresh and shiny during the Saturday morning qualifying but most didn’t stay that way. 

So why is does this BRSCC meeting keep dragging me back to photograph the on-track action? There are a number of reasons, some obvious some not so for a spectator photographer like me. The first one is the various Mazda MX5, Fiesta and BMW races - doesn’t sound that interesting but let’s dig a little deeper into those one make race series.

Having one type of car competing in a race series, with strict regulations on racing upgrades, means that the skill of the drivers is the overall deciding factor on where they will finish the race not the size of their wallet.

This equates to close racing that is great to watch and photograph, and as a spectator this weekend, the tactics used by a lot of the racers appeared to be trying to out brake each other, we like a bit of last second braking action.

So the smell of burning rubber hung heavily in the air all weekend and the screeching tyres were a great announcement that two cars were trying to squeeze into a one car space, great stuff! Did I mention the duck tape and tie wraps? These are essential supplies in a one make race series.

The BMW E36 318Ti taking park in the Nankank Tyre Compact Cup were much the same as the MX5S, being restricted on tuning, suspension and tyres. This like the demure Mazdas meant the BMWs were racing bumper to bumper and reminded me of the British Touring cars.

I did a bit of digging during the lunch break, and found that and the well known racers in the BTCC did in fact come through the ranks of the BRSCC. Starting out in the various versions of the Ford Fiesta classes and progressing through to the faster Fords, then on to the national touring cars race series that we see on our TVs at the weekend.

This is the second reason I like to come and watch the BRSCC, the young people chucking their tin top Ford Fiestas into Hall bends might just be the next Ash Sutton or Colin Turkington, and if they are to rise to the top of their profession I was there to capture them at the start.

The final reason I had turned out to watch this event was that previously I had seen the Modified Fords and was impressed by the diversity, rarity and overall performance of this small but very important part of the weekend's racing. 

I have photographed the Modified Fords before and captured some half decent pictures of Dave Cockell in his Escort Cosworth spitting flames at Charlie’s, and wanted to see if I could do better. I was with a few friends on the Sunday when they were racing and we chatted about where to watch the Fast Fords. They opted for the Gooseneck and I headed for Charlie’s.

It didn’t quite pan out for me, Dave started at the back of the grid dead last, it looked like he wasn’t racing on Saturday so had to fight his way through the whole pack because he didn't post a qualifying time?

This meant my quest for that flaming picture was thwarted by the need for Dave to throttle off just before going around Charlie’s after catching the other Fords on the start/finish straight. 

However, he did make it through the whole pack with one of the drives of the weekend, taking the win, but only flamed a few times in front of me.

From my chosen location at the highest spot at Caldwell I could see my shooting buddies snapping Dave’s Escort shooting some impressive flames exciting the Gooseneck, oh well there is always next year!