The Bennetts British Superbike (BSB) Championship returned to Lincolnshire kicking off with a riders meet and greet in the City of Lincoln.

The riders and their bikes were met by fans and some bemused onlookers in the city square. I was asked a few times by joe public what was going on. Handing out BSB posters and signing autographs the riders were happy having selfies taken and a few lucky people got to sit on the bikes. 

This event is a good test of any photographer's paparazzi skills. A tele zoom lens is the weapon of choice for these gatherings, standing back and shooting through the crowd gives you candid pictures that look natural. The event only lasted an hour and as the crowd thinned it was relatively easy to get some shots of the bikes.

The BSB party in the park at Cadwell is broken down into three days. Friday is practice for all competitors and has two sessions for the BSB riders. Unlike last year, this year there were a lot of people in attendance on the Friday, even more on Saturday and it was packed on Sunday.

Usually you can choose your spot and shoot to your heart's content at Cadwell, but at this year's BSB event, people were camping out in the best locations to get that shot. The most popular place was the mountain grandstand. 

I understand that people want that picture of the riders jumping the mountain, but I don’t get people taking 2000 pictures of the same thing.

I arrived early to get a good spot, took a few shots but didn’t stay long as the light was terrible, and left the pack of photographers to it. I returned for the afternoon session which was much better, fewer people and better light. Once I had a good picture I was off to shoot something different. 

Last year I used a 300mm prime f2.8 and got some great shots. This year I've been using a 200-500mm f5.6 for all my long range sniping and have been happy with the results.

With two grandstands you can get a slightly different angle on the jumps. This shot is from the grandstand nearest the bottom of the mountain and gives you more of side on view.

The other classic shot is from the base of the mountain.

There is plenty of room to move around, so try a few different angles. Shooting from the top of the banking opposite the mountain puts the trees in your field of view and combined with a large aperture can give pleasing results.

The first corner into the mountain is a hot spot for riders to loose it. Glenn Irwin in practice and Danny Buchan on race day both came a cropper here. 

Over the whole weekend there were quite a few crashes, the worst being Charlie Atkins. The young rider hit a bike that was lying in the track after another incident. The marshals and doctors were on the scene quickly and he was air lifted to hospital to be checked out and although bruised he was ok. However, his season could be over unless he gets some sponsorship. His story can be found here.

Its not just the BSB racing over the weekend - there is a comprehensive support race package. The noisiest are surprisingly the smallest bikes, the British Talent Cup Honda NSF250R Moto3™ . The 23 riders, aged between 12 and 17, have all been through a selection process to find the next generation of UK Moto GP riders.

Tommy Philip on the Draper Racing Yamaha putting on the style through Hall bends in the Dickies British Supersport Championship. This is a middleweight class for 600cc or 675cc three cylinder engines to a technical specification very similar to Stock 600.

Josh Owens on the Kalex - RS Racing on his way to third place in the Dickies British Supersport Championship Race.

Jack Kennedy on the number 4 machine currently leads the championship. 

Annabel Mae Thomas on the Four Angels Racing Honda competing in the HEL Performance British Motostar Championship which consists of two classes; Moto3 GP and Moto3. This race series is for the UK's and European emerging talent.

13 Rob Guiver Ducati Romford / Hyside Racing lined up in pole and went on to win the the Ducati TriOptions Cup in Race 2. This is a Ducati one-make series of eight rounds held at UK circuits and Assen, the challenging circuit in the Netherlands.

Competing in the Hyundai Heavy Industries Construction Equipment British Sidecar Championships the F1 Sidecars kept us entertained swapping quite a bit of paint on the way into the mountain. 

Lee JACKSON was the winner in the Pirelli National Superstock 1000 Championship beating Billy McConnell on the Buildbase Suzuki.

The spectacular weekend of racing was capped off with a brace of wins for Leon Haslam on the JG Speedfit Kawasaki who looks to have the championship in the bag.

Jake Dixon on the RAF Regular & Reserves Kawasaki put in a fastest lap of 1:26.514 in race 11 of the series.

Bradley Ray and Jake Dixon also made the podium for both races.

BSB at Cadwell is a target rich environment for the amateur and profesional photographer.

A few other shots you can try are through the trees at Hall bends, spot metering the track and turning the auto focus off here can help a lot.

I hope you have enjoyed this write up and photographs of the BSB at Cadwell Park. As always, I don’t claim to be an expert on this subject, it's just my observations of a day out with some friends carrying a camera and hopefully I will inspire some of you to get out there and take some great images. 

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