Photographing motorsport during the winter months is a mixed bag of emotions for this spectator photographer in the UK. The season is all but done, the opportunities to get trackside are getting fewer, the light is just not there and it’s mostly cold and wet.

Not a great combination but there are a few events that I look forward to, most of them are indoors, the shows at the NEC and smaller venues can be fun to attend, especially with friends.

One event that we have covered before that we like and still allows us to practice our art outside this time of the year is the British Supermoto and British Superlite at Cadwell Park. With the Championships for the two race series completed, the Cadwell King of the Mountain races are a last hurrah for the cars and bikes before they are put away for the winter.

I have a friend who competes in the Supermoto Championship so was interested in meeting up and chatting about this niche form of motorsport. However, the need for new tyres and the championship being already decided it was going to be a no show for him.

However I will be catching up with him at one of the tracks we don’t visit often next year to see how he is getting on. This will allow us to dig a little deeper into the British Supermoto Championship.

Combining road racing, flat track and elements of motocross Supermoto is a great action motorsport for the spectator photographer to experience. If the track allows you can get big jumps, close track racing and foot down off road action. First conceived to bring together different two wheel riders into one event, Supermoto is now a motorsport in its own right.

This crossover does still happen with riders from other motorcycle championships entering for one or two rounds to get some much needed practice and training in.

#34 Aaron Silvester, a very competitive rider in the Pirelli National Sportbike Championship was competing in the Adult Mini/Supermini Class. Aaron posted a very creditable 3rd in race 1 and improved for race two and three crossing the finish line in second place behind #19 (91) Jack Bednarek who won all three races. Jack is also the No limits 2024 Pirelli Super Series 1000cc champion and Pirelli National Superstock BSB rider.

Another rider that regularly turns out at the season finale is British Super Bike rider Storm Stacey. This year at Cadwell it looked like he had teamed up with Team Tripz UK and was using one of their spare bikes. Racing in the National Supermoto A Group there seemed to be a fair bit of rivalry going on but that wasn’t the story of the meeting.

79X Storm managed to come off in two of the races he was in that I watched, when I say come off he might have had a bit of help. Being just about dead last in the first race he battled from 18th on lap one to take first on the last lap from #100 Alex Mullaney who had also battled through the pack. 

In the second race he was again off but got back on his bike and was setting much faster lap time than the race leaders. Even with bits of shrubbery hanging from his forks, Storm was so much faster than the rest of the field and the way he was riding was excellent to watch.

Would he cross the line in first place? On the last lap he had made it up to second and entering the final few bends we lost sight of the leaders, the final corner at Cadwell was not visible for me or the vast majority of spectators so we had to rely on the commentator to tell us that Alex Mullaney had held him to take the win.

Mullaney went on to win the final race from Storm Stacey to be crowned Supermoto King of the Mountain.

Nearly as good as the Supermotos at putting on a great race were the Superlights, small space framed cars with motorcycle engines driving the back wheel by a chain and sprocket. A few different classes were out racing, basically they have different sized engines but the same close racing was demonstrated across the classes.

I chose my locations to watch the Superlights from prior knowledge, I knew they would look good in Hall bends, dramatic over the Mountain top and totally test their suspension at the bottom of the mountain.

On of the advantages of submitting reports to the Pistonclick website is you can search quickly for a previous event I and my fellow spectator photographers have attended. This enables me to review and check out what pictures work and the location they were taken from, I can then try and improve on what has been taken before. 

Sometimes this works sometimes not, there are a lot of variables that can influence your trackside photography, the main one is weather.

This is one of the reasons we don’t publish all of our camera settings, an image taken at the same time of day at Hall Bends in July is going to require a different set of camera settings when taken in November. One setting I will point out is the Exposure Compensation button, this is usually represented with a (+/-) on your camera. 

While shooting at Halls, the sun (which made a brief appearance) was very low, the light coming off the track was fooling the camera exposure meter as I use auto ISO.

Rotating my polarising filter helps reduce the horrid silver look to the tarmac and dialling in +3 to +7 Exposure Compensation lightens up the image, helping me to get detail back into the shadows and getting the shot I wanted.

So to summarise the British Supermoto King of the Mountain event is a great way to sign off the track season for the two wheel motorsport spectator photographer.

Close racing, loads of classes and the chance to see riders from different race series keeps the interest levels high. Add into the mix the British Superlites and you have a full day of very competitive racing, keeping you entertained as a spectator, and if you carry a camera you will be able to capture some great action images for your portfolio.