Oliver’s Mount Gold Cup
Oliver's Mount
Gold Cup 2019
Photographing the Road Racing at Oliver's Mount has been on my radar for some time but, as with a lot of photographic motorsports opportunities, I never got round to it.
There has been no racing here for a few years after a bad accident but it has now returned to Scarborough after some great work by a group of volunteers and enthusiasts.
The track has been slightly modified with extra safety features to comply with its racing license but the layout has been left basically unchanged since the first races back in 1946. 243 Road Racing Association, promoted by Mick Grant and Eddie Roberts, have taken over from the previous organisers of the road races at Oliver's Mount, the Auto 66 Club.
This year they have delivered two race weekends, the Barry Sheene Classic and the races we went along to see - The Gold Cup.
Run over two days, we opted for the Saturday with three shooters out to cover the event. My side kick for this event is a regular at Oliver's Mount having first visited over 30 years ago, so knows the best locations to get "that" picture.
On the trip up North we chatted about where to shoot and what I, as a first time visitor could expect.
As this is England's only road race circuit I was expecting a mini Isle of Man TT style course, with closed roads and limited opportunities to get good shots. I was wrong on both counts.
Oliver's Mount is a public park that has a 2.43 mile ring road, part of which is closed for the road racing.
What this means for the spectator photographer is that you have great access to the action around most of the track. We bumped into Steve, one of the IOM TT photographers we got to know this year, who was at the Mere Hair Pin.
On discussions around why we had not gone for media accreditation, he fully admitted that the paying public had almost the same access as a media bib wearer. Steve was three feet closer to the action than us at Mere Hairpin.
This great access to the track for the photographer is much the same around all of the track. There is a stout wooden fence that you can easily shoot over and under around all of the track, so your views of the action are great. The only limitation on your view are the crowds.
There were a lot of visitors out enjoying the unexpected sunshine. Weather forecasters, you only have one job. Try and get it right occasionally! We nearly didn’t go because of the doom and gloom weather report.
To be fair, the weather forecasters did get it partially right. It was very wet first thing but dried up later. The early morning rain made it very slippery under foot. As the park is very steep I recommend sturdy footwear if you are thinking of attending next year.
And if you are one of the many men who took their sons and/or daughters to the meeting, good luck with explaining to your partners the state of your children when you got them home. Watching the kids getting very muddy rolling down the hill at the start line was hilarious!
My Oliver's Mount resident expert said it was the largest, if slightly muddy crowd he had seen in years. This is great news for keeping this historic track alive for future generations. After the incident in 2017 it could have easily slipped away to one of those tracks confined to history.
The racing also contributes to the local economy to the tune of an estimated 1.4 million pounds so is an important event for the town of Scarborough and it was great to see it supported well.
Equipment
So let's take a look at the equipment you will need to capture some great pictures here. We started off with short focal length lenses; I was using a 35 - 70mm f2.8. These walk round lenses are fine for most of the track as you are only s few feet from the track, but you will be at the long end of the lens most of the time.
A telephoto lens is recommended. The standard motorsports 70-200mm will work fine in all but one location. More on that later. The three hairpins - Drury's, Mountain and Mere are all within the limits of this lens.
The examples below at Mere were all shot at a focal length of 105mm. On the day the ISO at Mere Hairpin was between 800 and 1800 due to the bend being in shadow due to thick foliage from the sounding trees. Auto ISO works a dream here.
Along the straight around the start/finish line a superzoom would be the better lens, but the 70 - 200mm will work. These examples are of the parade lap with the riders of yester year taking some historic bikes round the equally historic track.
Steve Parish, Dean Harrison and John McGuinness who is definitely not a rider of yester year were amongst the stars putting on a show. All Images were taken with a Nikon 200 - 500mm mounted on a Nikon D4
The Jeffries Jump is where you will need a superzoom to get the best results. Use the reach of the lens to track the motorcycles to where you want to take the picture. Use the back button with continuous auto focus and then gently press the shutter release.
You can get closer and use a shorter lens, but the angle will not be as pleasing and you will be rushed taking your picture as they appear over the rise, resulting in the auto focus working over time to lock on.
The Racing
The racing we watched was excellent and well organised with the races coming thick and fast. The road racing community is a close knit one with a lot of the riders coming from the Emerald Isle. The Irish riders have dominated road racing for years with the likes of the Dunlop and Laverty families.
However, Lee Johnston on his Ashcourt Racing Yamaha R6 is only the third Northern Irish rider to win the Steve Henshaw International Gold Cup, the main event at the meeting.
Dean Harrison who has won the Gold Cup for the last three years, setting a new circuit lap record in the process, is one of the English riders making a dent in the Irish dominance. Unable to compete this year due to injury, he was resigned to doing a few demo laps and watching Lee Johnston take the Cup.
Also at the event, but not competing, was Peter Hickman, officially the fastest road racer in the world. He was there to check out the meeting and did say while being interviewed by the track commentator he is interested in taking part, but maybe later in his career.
The races are broken down into six classes, 600cc Supersport, 125/400/Moto3, Sidecars, Lightweight, Classic Superbikes and the Gold Cup for 600cc machines.
The 58 riders in the Supersport has three groups classified by the qualifying times, A,B and C with Group A being the fastest.
No surprise Lee Johnstone was the fastest on Saturday but didn’t race Sundays Supersport, probably concentrating on the Gold Cup. #26 Mike Norbury and #156 David Jackson were the other front runners.
In the 125/400/Moto3 class which run together, it was Phil Harvey on the Honda RS 250 who just beat Rad Hughes on the Kawasaki ZXR 400 on Saturday, with #22 Mark Purslow also on a Kawasaki ZXR 400 taking the win on Sunday, #35 Daniel Ingham second and #49 Andy Jackson taking the last podium.
In the Sidecar races it was #17 Team ARC John Lowther and Tom Christie who to took the Ian Bell Trophy as they did in 2017. It was not all plain sailing for the pair.
Mechanical failure forced them to stop on the track in race one, which brought out the red flag. After a quick fix they were able to join the restart and never looked back, taking both Sidecar race wins over the weekend.
In the light weight class most of the riders are using the Kawasaki or Suzuki 650 bikes, but a few like Ian Lougher were on hybrid bikes. Ian was first in the light weight class, riding the Italian-built Paton S1-R which uses the Kawasaki engine in a bespoke chassis. Michael Dunlop took a Paton to race wins at this and lasts years' IOM TT.
Last but not least, David Bell won the two Classic superbike races on a true classic race inspired bike, the 30 year old Yamaha OW-01. Revving up to 14,000rpm, these machines were the bike to have back in the day if you could afford the eye watering (for the time) £12000.
The cost put a lot of people off owning this motorcycle as it was more than twice as expensive as the Yamaha FZR1000 of the same time. Only 88 were registered on the road in the UK and 500 world wide, so it was a treat seeing this example out on the track.
The dates for next year's racing have already been released and have been added to the PistonClick Calendar. We will be going along to cover as many races as possible at the Mount next year. The venue, racing, atmosphere and crowds make this one of the must do events for 2020.
April 25-26 – Spring Cup August 1-2 – Barry Sheene Classic
June 20-21 – Cock o’ the North Festival September 12-13 – Gold Cup
In closing I would like to thank RW Photography and Brian Blackett Photography for helping out with this report from Oliver's Mount. You can see more of Brians work in the Pistonclick Photographers section.
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