On the road again – 2,500 miles, 20 border crossings, three iconic racetracks and an art exhibition

Report by David Harbey

27 June 2022

There’s a family tradition that any Harbey holiday needs to have some motorsport content – or perhaps more accurately - I have a tradition which Mrs Harbey graciously accommodates ! Thus, our first European post-pandemic road trip covered events at three iconic race-tracks and had an unexpected automotive artistic bonus.

However, before the trip could begin, there was the small matter of the British GT round at Silverstone, my local circuit. Having tried out the 1.7x teleconverter on the 70-200mm zoom at Prescott, it was time to see how it worked with the 200-500mm superzoom at a circuit notorious for fences and long distances between the track and spectators.

Plans to get out and about on the grand prix layout were thwarted by a dodgy knee, so I stuck to the Luffield area. These shots are at 500mm without the teleconverter through the fence at Luffield.

The next set of shots are at 850mm with the teleconverter. At this focal length, the autofocus can struggle and to my mind the shots have more of that “through the fence” softness. The superzoom is not listed as a fully supported lens for the 1.7x TC by Nikon.

At the Luffield exit end of the terracing, with a step, it is possible to get a clean shot without fencing; these are taken with the TC at 850mm. The teleconverter is proving to be a useful addition to the kit-bag and would be used on the trip.

So, having got my eye in, it was time to head south. With little or no fuss we were on the Shuttle for the first time since 2019 and heading to the South of France.

When we first undertook this journey in the last century we had neither cruise control nor speed limiter – and nor did we have need of them.

Fuel economy wasn’t as good though …. Soon enough, in relaxed air conditioned splendour we were at our accommodation near Menton – first visited in 1986.

This accommodation was booked to coincide with the Monaco Historique Grand Prix – which we had previously been to in 2012 and 2014.

It’s a series of shorter races that cover the cars which raced at Monaco between 1929 and 1985. It’s also significantly cheaper than the F1 race weekend, although 2022 saw a price hike over our previous visits when we had seats at Tabac and the swimming pool.

There’s no walking the track (at least while the racing is on), so it was necessary to choose a grandstand. We decided on Casino Square for Saturday qualifying and Virage Anthony Nogues (the last corner) for Sunday’s races; both had a big screen so we could keep up with the action.

We studied the ticket website and chose back row seats so I could stand to take photographs without annoying the great and the good of Monte Carlo. That worked for Saturday and, whilst the range of shots was somewhat limited, some decent images were captured using the 70-200mm zoom and teleconverter.

Sunday at Anthony Nogues was something of a curate’s egg for the spectator photographer. The olive tree we thought might give some shade, in fact blocked the view to Rascasse, but this was balanced by the cars passing under the feet of the people 8 rows of seats in front.

I found this shot by Ben Miles on Twitter, which shows us on the back row ! Some good images were taken but they were perhaps a little repetitive again.

I also tried a little hand held video with the D850; here’s a short clip of the sportscar race to give a sense of the sight and sound of the cars racing just a few feet away from our seat.

The fences were the similarity with Silverstone, the proximity of the cars the BIG difference !

Where to next ? Where else but Spa for the Spring Classic via a couple of days in Switzerland. I hadn’t appreciated that the event was similar to the Silverstone Classic with the presence of car clubs.

However, Silverstone hasn’t yet risen to offering lapping sessions ( as opposed to first gear crawls) between the races – whether by a sedate looking trio of British Triumph Stags or some very purposeful looking and quick Porsches. It wasn’t free, however.

There was a good selection of races for GTs and sportscars from the 50s to the 2010s. I’d seen the extensive works at Spa on social media and wanted to document these to update the PistonClick Spa Circuit Guide (link at the end of this report). Here’s a selection from the races.

The highlight for me, though, was the Endurance Racing Legends setting off at dusk. We found ourselves on the terrace above the F1 pits where the sight AND sound was superb. A grid that included 2 Panoz, Ferrari 333SP and 550, an Aston Martin and much more was to die for !

I shot this video of the start, again with the D850.

Whilst in France, I had seen a post on social media about the BMW Art Cars. Over a number of years, BMW has sponsored artists to create artworks of their cars. The most famous, in racing circles at least, is the Andy Warhol BMW M1 which raced at Le Mans.

Well, BMW had loaned 9 of the 19 art cars to an exhibition in Esch-sur-Alzette to celebrate the 2022 European City of Culture. Google Maps - where’s Esch sur thingy ? Oh, it’s on the way to Nurburgring if we go via Luxembourg and their cheap fuel.

Done – we registered and turned up at the rendezvous at the appointed hour where a minibus transported us to a large building that was once part of a steel works.

Walking past 1/18th scale models of the full set of art cars, we turned the corner to see the nine cars chosen for display – of which four are among my all-time favourites – the Calder CSL, the Lichtenstein 320i, the Warhol M1 and the Koons M3. It is, perhaps, no coincidence that all raced at Le Mans.

There was fourteen of us that afternoon, just wandering round, taking in the gorgeous cars in front of us and taking many photographs. The exhibition ended in mid-June, so maybe the cars are back in the BMW museum in Munich now.

We had originally booked our accommodation for the Nurburgring 24 Hours in late 2019 for May 2020 … and then deferred to later in 2020 … and then deferred to 2021 … and then re-booked for May 2022 – and we finally got to go ! 

Plans to walk the Nordschleife again (yes, it’s 25 kms) were shelved on the basis of the knee, although we ended up walking 15 km to Aremberg and back on Thursday evening during qualifying – I wanted to get the dusk light and sunset and was really glad we did the walk – my knee probably wasn’t so sure !

Our son, Andrew had joined us for the Nurburgring race weekend and went his own way Thursday evening producing some different results !

We’d not really explored the Grand Prix loop at Nurburgring before, but sunny weather and a desire not to walk too far, meant we spend most of Friday afternoon there for free practice and support races.

Having spent the previous three weekends dodging fences to take photos it was more of the same, although there was free rein to use the photographer’s slots in the fence at the Ford Kurve. Again, the 70-200 and teleconverter were used extensively.

For race day, we watched warm up from the back of the paddock and then moved to the Mercedes Tribune for the start. Lovely in the sunshine – except for the northerly wind blowing straight into our faces; many layers were added as the afternoon rolled on to the 4pm start time. 

To finish the day, I had been told that the sun could catch to driver’s faces at the bottom of the Grand Prix loop – which it did.

Meanwhile, Andrew had explored the paddock and joined the (open to all) grid walk.

One of the features of the N24 is the buses that are laid on for spectators between the main viewing areas (see the PistonClick circuit guide) – so on Sunday morning we decided to leave the cameras at home and be tourists – taking the bus from the start area to Brunnchen (I did have my phone). From there we walked up to Hohe Acht – then back as far as Pflanzgarten, before returning on the next bus to watch the finish with commendable brand loyalty from the BMW MPower grandstand.

Time then to return home - before heading back to Folkestone to catch the Shuttle for the Le Mans 24 Hours 10 days later, but that is another story which may follow soon.

There are Spa and Nurburgring Circuit Guides on the PistonClick website - https://www.pistonclick.com/circuit-guides   

If you have any questions about any of the three events visited, please don’t hesitate to drop us a line.