One of the main aspects of going to a car show with your car being on a stand is that it is literally on show. You can't turn up with a dirty car, it's just not done. You are probably like me and the rest of the country. I have a garage but park my pride and joy out in the elements on the drive, keeping my £20 BBQ dry and safe in the garage next to my old rusty lawn mower.  

I'm not into detailing my car but I do like to keep it clean. Therefore it doesn’t take long to bring it up to standard and always having a good coat of wax, it looks good after a bit of snow foam and jet wash action. The only problem is the weather. It was great the week before so I had been out on the bike and neglected the car.

The day before Silverstone it was raining again but the car needed doing and needed doing badly. The starlings are nesting in our loft and as part of the take off procedure it seems they need to lighten the load. Most of that load finds its way onto my car - nice.

It's fortunate that I have good neighbours that I know well and they know me, or they would have been ringing the men in white coats who put you in those jackets that are a little too tight. Washing the car in the rain can be seen as a little odd outside of the car culture circle. The rain did stop later so out with the drying towels and all was good for a 4am start for Silverstone.

Silverstone done and onto the next one, Modified Live at Cadwell which we will look at now. The weather had held off so the car was fine for the club stand, so no mad man washing required. A much later start than the previous day and meeting at our local McD set me up for the day. At Silverstone I had been on a one make stand. The clubs stands at Modified Live Cadwell were an eclectic mix of cars and mirrored our stand. 

We had a handful of fast new and old school Nissans a Ferrari 348, some German metal a few Fords, a Toyota, a Mini and of course a Scooby, there is always a Scooby. The Ferrari didn’t stay long on our stand, the Modified Live organisers whisked it away to the show and shine stand where it went on to win the Punters' Choice, the public vote for best car. Well done David!

Looking round the other stands is quite enjoyable at these types of shows as it turns into a bit of a grown up Easter egg hunt. There were a few gems hidden away for you to find so you can pass an hour or more looking round the cars. There were no problems getting unobstructed pictures as most of the crowd had moved trackside by this time as this is what Modified Live is all about.

Their strap line is "From the street to the track" and they had put on a full race programme to keep everyone entertained.

We joined the rest of the crowd for the warmup laps of the Time Attack series. Time Attack is all about getting the quickest lap-time on circuit. The first ones out were the "run what you brung". This is a new class and replaces the public track time that has held between the racing for the last few years. It lets you run your road car in a competition without the costs of regular motorsport. Competing in this class were 20 cars ranging from a Citroen Saxo to a R35 GTR.

Up next were the Drifters. These were the same guys, The Drift Kings, that were at Silverstone the day before. Check out our Japfest reports to see some great pictures of them in action. Not to say that these pictures are bad they are far from it but it’s a different experience live when a car is taking a corner sideways at over 100mph smoking their tyres. You get a very different picture when they smoke the tyres from a standing start.

The drift cars don’t use all of the circuit when doing their displays. They come out of the pit lane and use the connecting road before the bridge at Coppice to access the bottom of the Mountain. From here they start laying some rubber down, smoking the tyres up the mountain and into Hall Bends Down to the Hairpin. 

From the Hairpin to Barn and back to the pit lane there is no public access so the only place you can watch is from the Mountain to Hall Bends and up to the Hairpin. The view from these areas is excellent. You are right on top of the cars and only need short lens; a 17-55mm for the start at the mountain and a 70-200mm for the rest of the track was used for these pictures.

Up next were the full on Time Attack competitors starting with the Clubman Class. These are road and track day cars that have had minimal modifications and use road going tyres. 

The Pocket Rockets were up next and do exactly what it says on the tin. Hot hatches, most of which are front wheel drive but some RWD. As a motorsports photographer I like these cars as they will always tip up onto three wheels when diving into a corner and even when they don’t, the trailing wheel will start to smoke as it skims the tarmac locking onto the corner.

The other classes in Time Attack are Club 2WD and Club 4WD - self explanatory really. Club Pro for highly tuned cars on road tyres and Pro Extreme highly tuned and modified cars running on slicks. There are Classes within Classes but that will give you enough ammo to look like you know what you are talking about down the pub. 

That will take you up to lunch but don’t leave the track just yet. In previous years there have been various demos that have been worth watching, and this year was no exception. In the programme it advertised a Formula 1 demo from yester year. A Benetton B190 driven by Nelson Piquet in the 1990 season and a few other F1 cars would be making an appearance.

However, the weather had other plans and the rain started to fall. The F1 cars needed to be set up for the rain, so running with slick tyres being pushed by a 3.5 - litre V8 Cosworth round the narrow Cadwell track is not a great idea in the wet. They did do a short slow lap, and for me these 1990 cars are all about the sound so I was happy. To keep the crowd happy they were parked up next to the Cadwell café and everyone got a chance to get up close to the cars.

The afternoon sessions are a repeat of the morning so if you missed that great photo opportunity in the morning you can have another go in the afternoon. The F1 cars made another appearance as well, wearing wet weather tyres but by then a lot of the crowd had departed as the weather didn’t pick up and it was wet for the rest of the day.

I wasn’t long behind them, even with my massive appetite for all thing petrol driven, after two days of lugging heavy camera kit around two shows I decided to head home and put my feet up.  

Thanks to West Lincs Photography and Graeme Taylor Images for the great pictures and helping out on this project.