Dirt Diggers Round 2
Scunthorpe Flat Track Winter Series’s round 2
The Eddie Wright Speedway Stadium.
The history of motorcycle racing has many memorable moments, some famous, some not so and some that live on in people's memories forever. For me my memorable moment was the Trans Atlantic Trophy. It was the first time I really started taking notice of who was racing.
Before that race series I had gone along to the track with my friends just because it was somewhere to ride to and better than hanging around the local chip shop. This competition between riders from the USA and UK took part in a series of races during the 70s and 80s.
I went along to a few races over the years mainly to watch the American riders that had started to appear on the Moto Grand Prix grid. The control they had on their bikes was just amazing to a skinny teenager on his Yamaha RD and I did wonder how they learned those skills.
Fast forward a few years and as a spectator photographer I went to watch some Flat Track racing on a cold December day.
So what has 70s and 80s 500cc two stroke MotoGP racing got to do with visiting the Eddie Wright Speedway track in Scunthorpe? All of the Americans back in the day who were taking on the likes of Barry Sheene and Mick Grant had started racing on the North America dirt tracks.
Kenny Roberts was a multi American Motorcyclist Association Flat Track champion and went on to be the first America Motorcycle Grand Prix champion. He was followed into MotoGP by the likes of Freddie Spencer, Eddie Lawson, Wayne Rainey and my personal favorite the lanky Texan Kevin Schwantz.
This was a golden era for American racers who all had one thing in common, dirt track or as it more commonly known Flat Track racing. This form of racing can trace its history to the dawn of the internal combustion engine but really took off after WW2 probably because of all the war surplus Harley Davidsons knocking about.
By the 1950s the American Motorcyclist Association had taken it under its wing and Flat Tracking as sport exploded all over the USA. It continued to grow helped by one of the best motorcycle films “On Any Sunday” co-produced by Steve McQueen, he of jumping over Nazi barbed wire fame, racing cars all over the world and appearing in a few flicks.
Over in the UK we didn’t take to Flat Tracking in a big way. Our thing was speedway which is sort of similar, big engine, no suspension, no brakes, turn left. But in the UK these days Flat Tracking (which allows suspension and a rear brake) in its different guises appears to be surviving and indeed thriving.
When I say different guises, the event I attended had all sorts of bikes going round the oval from mini bikes to motocross, which for a spectator keeps it interesting.
This was the same when I visited the Motorcycle News Festival at the Peterborough Showground and took in the Flat Tracking which was part of the show.
Taking part in the 'Inappropriate Road Bike' class Chris 'The Stalker' Walker the four-time British Superbike championship runner-up was taking his Indian Scout round the 337m shale track.
He was accompanied by four times world superbike champion Carl "Foggy" Fogarty who was doing some demo laps on the CCM machine. Both great racers in their time who also like a bit of dirt action!
But it's not just British riders that hone their motorcycle skills on the dirt ovals. The current MotoGP world champion Marc Márquez is a dirt track rider of high regard, having started at the tender age of 5.
Seen here taking part in the Superprestigio Dirt Track event in Barcelona at the Palau Sant Jordi stadium, Márquez has won this event a number of times, beating some of the best riders in the world.
Back at the Eddie Wright Speedway we got to see loads of different classes with many different riders, some tall some not so, some fast, some not so.
In the two Junior Classes the speed wasn’t there but the desire to win was obvious. These racers of the future might not have been going fast on their tiny bikes but were learning their craft. And most importantly, learning the motorcycle skills to be able to control a race bike on any surface, just like Márquez did when he started and Rainey and Roberts back in the day.
Who knows what the future will hold for these little racers, but one thing is for sure they will have some awesome motorcycle skills in their lockers having started racing on dirt at a young age.
The other classes racing around the dirt oval were the flat track bikes including a vintage class, motocross type bikes which also has a vintage class, Street Trackers, Pit Bikes, Scooters and the anything goes / shouldn’t really be on the track inappropriate class.
There are two seasons a year - the summer and the five race meetings that make up the winter league which runs between November and March. The club also holds a festival during the summer, Dirt Diggers 3, first held in 2018.
Next year it will be run on the 20th June where there could be up to 100 entrants (there were 90 last year). For the event I was watching they had nearly 80 racers out on the track which for a cold December day is impressive.
One racer who did catch our eye was Skye Adams. She seemed to be taking part in just about every race class going, flat track, ladies and mini bikes. She was to end up winning all her races, 15 in total which was an amazing achievement.
Skye didn’t take part in the first round so is placed 7th in the Flat Track winter league after two rounds. Luke Gardner #159 is leading the championship with 57 points.
So what can we conclude from our enjoyable visit to the Eddie Wright stadium and the Scunthorpe Winter Series round 2? If you want to learn how to control a motorcycle and go on to race competitively in a variety of motorcycle sports, you can give yourself a head start by learning your skills taking part in Flat Tracking.
For the spectator photographer you are close to the action, the racing is good and if you place yourself on the corners you can get some nice shots for your personal portfolio.
You will have to shoot through safety fencing which is all around the track, but as you can see from the images this is not a problem. A long lens close to the fence with a wide aperture will make it all but disappear.
There are a few covered and open grandstands which when shooting from the back rows allows you to get a clear shot of the track over the fence if you have a lens with the reach. All the images were taken with a Nikon 3DX matched to a 200-500mm lens.
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