Photographing the Sywell Classic - Pistons and Props

Report by David and Andrew Harbey

5 December 2023

What is the Sywell Classic ?  I suppose it’s a celebration of things automotive and aeronautical. It happens just north of Northampton on a former Second World War training airfield when it was known as RAF Sywell. As such, it exhibits the classic characteristics of other places beginning with S – Silverstone and Snetterton for two - which are breezy and sometimes decidedly damp venues for British motor sport action.

Whilst I had been to a historic sporting trial in the field opposite the airfield a few years back Sywell Historic Sporting Trial, I’d only previously seen adverts for the Sywell Classic. Whilst I usually tend to avoid non-competitive motorsport, it seemed an interesting day out – not too far from home and not too expensive.

The format was fairly straightforward as groups of bikes, and pairs of cars would set off towards the runway from the pits area. A hairpin turn gave them the full length of the runway to run up and back.

On Sunday morning, when the drag cars were meant to run in pairs, it was too wet, so they restricted themselves to burn-outs and one at a time runs.

On the aeronautical side, the Nuii display team put on an impressive display against leaden grey skies, while the First World War dogfight team put a variety of much earlier machines through their paces. Where we were stood in the main spectator area we could not hear the commentary so apart from the obvious identification of the Fokker Triplane (with it’s three wings) we were left a little in the dark.

The advertising promised much with classic F1 cars (there was a Williams FW06) and a notable range of Historic Sports Car Club cars – from F5000, through F2 to Formula Junior.

Most interesting to me, however, was the two cars fielded by Patrick Morgan and Dawn Treader Performance. Firstly, a Penske PC26 Indycar in road course trim and secondly, be still, my beating heart, the 1985 Le Mans second place Richard Lloyd Racing / GTI Engineering Porsche 962. Two glorious sights in red and white.

Dawn Treader have restored both these cars (and a few other notable ones) and from time to time get to exercise them – and a fine sight they make too. The Penske run was short as the failure of small component stopped it on the first run. The Porsche however got a number of chances to stretch its legs.

Away from the action there was live music, lots of stalls and loads of car clubs. Completely Motorcycles had a large display, including a Panigale road bike that does 185 mph and 0-60 in 2 seconds and a Max Cook – yes, the BSB racer - who did his thing on a Kawasaki.

What did I make of the Sywell Classic ? Well, the wet, windy weather (which did relent mid-afternoon) made it a rather less enjoyable affair than it could been. I’m not sure that I’d return another year. The pre-event publicity was very up-beat, as I suppose it needs to be, but the actual event didn’t seem to quite match up; the weather may have had a hand in that.

Perhaps it’s not really aimed at me, but the lack of “props” on the day was notable. The Grace Spitfire and a number of other WW2 planes are housed at Sywell and would, weather permitting perhaps, have added to the spectacle

On the other hand, Andrew, who shared photography duties for this report, summarised the day as follows – 

“Single seaters, tin tops / GTs, Le Mans racers, motorbikes, super-karts, drag racing, even a Porsche 962 and an IndyCar ? That's the Sywell Classic!

A trip to the far side of Northampton brought an eclectic mix of vehicles on a very windy Sunday, with the chance to see the machinery tearing up and down the runway, seemingly with no limits on how fast they could go.

The viewing area ran behind and partly up the start/finish straight, with close-up photo opportunities, as vehicles set off and arrived. Turn around and there was an almost uninterrupted view of the main runway, where you could see the speed differentials - the acceleration of certain bikes was eye opening when given the context !

The distance meant that you needed either a big zoom lens, or by using the a 70-200mm zoom and teleconverter, you had a big background to set the car or bike against. The zoom was also useful looking down towards the drag cars - anyone stood behind disappeared in a cloud of tyre smoke.”

A final thought; Sywell also has Supercar fest in May – photos of the 2023 event have considerably more blue sky and sunshine than we saw in September!