Some will know that I have been unwell recently, to the extent that various hospital stays have interfered with my photography activites. I have (fingers Crossed) one more operation to finalise things and thus I decided in the break between “ops” to get some practice in.

New Camera

Not being able to spend money recently I decided that perhaps a new “mirrorless camera” would be a good idea. My trusty Canon 1DX Mkiii is still a great piece of kit but apart from anything else I’m interested in technology so having been given some advice by Gary Harman, I treated myself to a new Canon R3 with an adaptor to use with my EF lenses.

Which event for my return?

In September things historic are limited. I missed Castle Combe due to timing, so I selected the MSV Club Championship event at Brands Hatch GP. The race card was a mix of GT Cup, Focus Championship, 7 Championship, Bernie’s V8s and some Equipe Historic races.

I only attended the first day of this two day event, because I’m still getting used to the results of the various operations. Up until this event, I had not walked further than 7k steps in a day, that would change!

The races:

Having signed on I wandered the paddock, where the teams were just waking up. Some prep was going on as well as breakfast. So I had my usual double esspreso and headed to trackside for some practices and qualifying.

Ford Focus Championship

First up was 15 mins practice 1 for the Ford Focus Championship. 18 cars entered in two classes; petrol 2.0 (300BHP) turbo; and Diesel. The latter were somewhat smokey under accelleration. This is an “arrive and drive” championship although many do the full season, it does cater for one-off entries.

Later in the morning, there would be 15mins qualifying followed by race 1 in the afternoon. Races two and three were scheduled for Sunday’s action.

Due to unfortunate circumstances in the Equipe Historic GT and Sportscar race, there was a delay of approximately 2hrs, resulting in the loss of the Bernie’s V8 race and shortened races for the GT Cup (race 2) and race 1 one of the Focus Championship.

7 Racing – 420R, 310R & 270R

Next up was practice one (of two) for the 7 Racing Championship. Lots of these diminuitive sleds took to the track. Being practice, action was limited. Also due to the aforementioned circumstances qualifying, scheduled to close the day, was cancelled.

GT Cup

And so we moved on the three 15min sessions for the GT Cup. The first two were pracice sessions for groups one and two. These were followed by qualifying for both groups.

Race 1 was close affair but was somewhat truncated due to an accident on lap 2, hence the winning BMW M4 only covered 6 laps. Race two would also suffer reduced time from 50 to 40 mins. Races 3 and 4 would take place on the Sunday.

Bernie’s V8s

The GT Cup was followed by qualifying for Bernie’s V8s a series that sadly was unable to race later in the day due to timing constraints. Qualifying at least gave us the opportunity to see some great thundering V8s wearing out the tarmac.

Equipe Historic TC, GT and Sports Car Championship

The Historic TC, GT and Sports Car Championship race was cut short, the winner only covered 2 laps of a 50 mins race.

So, the camera appears to be working well with the EF lenses, and I manged 15k steps! I’ll miss most of October due to the next proceedure but should get out for the Walter Hayes on 31st Oct/1st Nov. Watch this space.