Essence of Pom – photographing the 2023 VSCC Pomeroy Trophy

Report and images by David and Andrew Harbey

4 March 2023

Mid-February at Silverstone doesn’t necessarily fill photographers with glee – whether accredited or not. The forecast was cold and breezy so not for the first time at the former WW2 airfield, it was lots of layers. However, there was a good turnout – I’ve not seen quite so many purple bibs in one place for a while.

The VSCC Pomeroy Trophy is a quintessentially British event. First run in 1952, it is a series of tests in the morning and 40 minutes lapping the Grand Prix track in the afternoon – all to determine the best touring car. Unlike most VSCC meetings, “moderns” are allowed and none more modern than a Toyota Yaris GR driven by former GT and Le Mans racer Martin Short.

The full regs can be found on the VSCC website but for Andrew and I this was our first visit to the Pom despite living half an hour away for many years. Arriving mid-morning, we decided to go and look through the pits and paddock (fully open, of course).

With cars ranging from Edwardian monsters – the Vauxhall Viper has a 11.8 litre engine - to the state of the art Yaris via anything from an Impreza, a Bentley GTC and another Vauxhall, this time a 1999 Zafira.

With a chill wind and the paddock café closed for refurbishment, we were out in the open for lunch, but there was some warming sunshine for a while. Having access to the full Grand Prix circuit and relatively few spectators meant we had free rein to drive to where we wanted to shoot from.

For the first set of cars, Andrew and I started at the Loop – that’s C and D on the PistonClick Silverstone guide. Andrew had the 500mm prime with the D610 while I was using the 70-200 zoom with the D850 for panning shots; then we swapped.

Later in that session we moved on to Village, B on the guide.

For the second set of cars, we moved round to Vale (U). By then Andrew was back with the 500mm prime and I’d switched to the 300mm prime with 1.7TC giving us both roughly the same focal length. Vale is a clean shot as cars brake and then negotiate the tight left and right corners.

Moving to Club (W), we were shooting through the fence with the characteristic slight softness to the images. It had briefly started spitting with rain but with the breeze had gone as quickly as it came. This is a great spot as, unlike Vale, you are standing at the same level as the cars.

For the final set of cars, we drove back round to Luffield (H). There’s range of shots around what is effectively a large hairpin. Again, some images are through the fence. For the shots back to Brooklands and the BRDC suite, I needed the step to clear the first of two sets of fencing … Silverfence, eh, what are you like?

The Pom is not a race, it’s a series of tests to determine the best touring car. Some might observe that some competitors’ cars were perhaps rather more suited to touring than others – although the owner of the McLaren M1B apparently said he was planning to road register it to use to drive down to the pub. It’s clearly a great chance for the VSCC and likeminded folk to get together early in the season and have some fun. Oh, and it was free to get in.

Favourite cars … those who know me well will know that I can’t look much further than a BMW CSL (E9 in Beemer parlance) – the already perfect sight of the Jägermeister example pedalled very quickly by Patrick Blakeney-Edwards could only be enhanced by the iconic BMW works colours. I saw the Romano at Prescott last year – a lovely example of Edwardian machinery – and who can deny that the Brera is the prettiest Alfa Romeo for many years.

Andrew’s views are slightly different … but then who can resist a GT40 ? As a fellow member of the Alfa Romeo Owners Club, he went for the GT Coupe and then agreed with me – the CSL.

Who had the best touring car, you ask – who knows ? The results are still awaited at the time of writing, but Facebook posts suggest that it was the Subaru Impreza. Will we return next year – I think we will.

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