Darlington and District Motor Club 

Cadwell Park

25 July 2021

A day’s photography at the track with a few friends and no COVID-19 restrictions is something we have been looking forward to for an absolute age.

So it came to pass at the combined Darlington and District Motor Club and Classic and Modern Motorsport Club meeting at Cadwell Park, is this the beginning of the end of masking up and keeping your distance?

Well I for one had my mask and kept my distance from my fellow motorsports fans, which was easy at this meeting as there wasn’t a big crowd.

The infection rates are through the roof in this part of Lincolnshire so COVID hasn't gone away but more people are getting the vaccine so there are less people falling seriously ill.

I got the impression people were still being careful which is a sensible course of action for the time being.

The main difference at this meeting now that the government has lifted public event restrictions was that the areas previously out of bounds are now accessible, well most of them are.

The paddock, cafe and Hall Bends were a welcome change for the Cadwell Park spectator photographer but the grandstands were still locked up, although I’m sure they will be open for the big meetings in the future.

So let’s take a look at this meeting. It was a proper mixed bag of four wheeled motorsports action with the races being predominantly mixed Saloon and Sports cars, including the modified Ford Series and a huge grid of Karts.

This was only a one day event so the modified Ford racers only came out twice, but it was Dave Cockell in the Escort Cosworth who was the one to beat on both occasions.

In the first race #95 Cockell led from the front and was closely followed by Dave Matthias in the Sapphire Cosworth and Ashley Shelswell in the XR4i. #87Matthias and #3 Shelswell swapped places in the second race, with Cockell taking the top spot again. 

Slightly smaller than the fire spitting Ford Cosworths were the Superkarts, which was handy, as it was a properly packed grid.

Rolling starts was the order of the day for all the races so we got a good look at the race cars as they followed the safety car for their green flag lap.

This was working well until a red flag came out just after the start of the Superkarts warm up lap. Confusion reigned at the bottom of the mountain as the marshals waved red flags directing the karts back to the paddock.

Some missed the turn off and stalled on the mountain, others on the slip road, which caused the rest of the field to back up with more karts stalling. It was all hands to the pumps to clear the track.

The media lady at the bottom of the mountain even dumped her camera gear to help out. 

It took some time to get the racing going again, and I found out later that it was an incident with a spectator requiring medical attention that brought out the red flag.

This allowed the race doctor to take to the track and get to the emergency in the quickest possible time. Take a bow all of the safety teams, especially after the recent tragic event at Brands Hatch - heroes one and all.

A little bigger than the Superkarts, but not by much, were the 500 Owners Association race cars. This race series is for 500cc single seat racing cars which were built between 1946 to 1960.

Looking round the paddock at these great little machines they appeared to have motorcycle engines fitted and were immaculately turned out.

#60 Tom WATERFIELD in the Cooper-Norton Mk9 was first past the post in both races.

The Inter Mark Silhouettes were great to watch. These are space frame cars that have had the chassis heavily modified but keep the same silhouette as the original production car.

It was easy to recognize the Mercedes SLKs, Vauxhall Tigras and Audis as they zipped past but on closer inspection the abundance of scaffolding inside was evident.

The circuit announcer said that numbers entering the silhouette race were down on the day probably due the pingdemic and school holidays. 

Photographic post Script

As a spectator photographer and motorsports fan, this meeting had a good variety of race cars and plenty of action. The Fords spitting flames always makes a great photo and who doesn’t like flames, I know I do. 

The Karts were excellent just to watch with mind boggling speeds through the corners and some close racing. The standard cornering technique of slow in fast out didn’t apply to the Karts as it was fast in, faster out, making them challenging to photograph! 

I will put this one in the diary for next year.

Thanks got out to RPW Photography for helping out on this report which you can share on Social Media by using these links.