NW200 Paddock Pics

Last week was Race Week in the Liberties - North West 200 motorbike road racing, back for the first time in 3 years due to you-know-what.  I've talked about the races many times before on this place - here, and here if you need a reminder.  I gave up on taking photographs of the actual racing some years ago, since aging manual focus film cameras aren't really the best option to capture machines hurtling past at a rate of knots.  So I leave the digi boys and girls to do that.  My only option, I decided, was to concentrate on other aspects of the event and my goal this year was to try to emulate some of the Paddock shots that I captured 45-odd years ago and showed not so long ago (here).

Unfortunately the weather was not kind during the week.  It was damp and dreary for Tuesday Practice and full-on rain for Thursday evening's racing.  On Friday it was dry so I decided to go for it and invested ten pounds on a Paddock Pass.  It stayed dry, more or less, but it was overcast and very, very dull.  But all you can do is photograph what's in front of you so I stuck at it, wandered about the Paddock for a couple of hours and shot through a couple of rolls of HP5 in the Leica with a 28mm Elmarit attached.  I wanted to get as close as possible to the people and the bikes, hence the choice of a 28mm.  The Elmarit f/2.8 is a dinky little lens, with a 39mm filter thread (like most of the older Leica lenses) - it's just over an inch long (30mm) and balances perfectly on the M6.

In the Paddock, 2022-style with Oxford Clean Grips and Muc-Off.  HP5+ rated at 250, developed in HC-110 (1:31, 7.45m), printed on Ilford MG Classic fibre paper.

Now this may come as a bit of a shock to you but things have changed in the Paddock since the last time I walked around it, in 1979.  Some of the motorhomes and artic lorries wouldn't look out of place at a F1 race and all, or nearly all the bikes were hidden away inside tents.  Tents with see-through plastic sheeting, but still tents and pretty much a hopeless situation for getting any photographs.  I get why - the weather, for a start, as clearly you can't be stripping an engine in the pouring rain.  Also, given the cost of machinery and tools you don't want any Tom, Dick or Harry getting too close to the gear.   After walking about for a bit I summoned up the courage to ask if I could take a few shots inside one of them - I chose a 'not very big' outfit, as I figured they'd be more accommodating (they were).  Hence the 'insider' shot above.  

As time went on and the rain held off most of the teams 'opened up' the front part of their enclosures, which improved things photographically-speaking.  Marginally, it has to be said as even though there was lighting inside there still wasn't a lot of light around - for some shots I was down to 1/15s so I lost a few frames as a result.

Some of the teams had raised platforms, which made the bikes easier to work on.

I was surprised by the amount of work going on on the Friday.  They had been racing on the Thursday evening and the big race day (Saturday) was still to come, so a lot of the teams were doing a complete strip, clean and re-build of the engines.  This team (below) had the whole engine block in bits, pistons & valves out - the two lads at the back were measuring and cleaning, while their colleague seemed to get the slightly easier task of checking the operation of his stopwatch:

Bike, in bits, getting prepped for Race Day.

On the Saturday the weather was much better, perfect for racing - warm and dry.  I thought about going back to the Paddock Area, since the light was much better, but it would have meant an early start followed by a full day 'locked in' to the Paddock while the racing went on.  I was still tired from the Friday walkabout so I decided it just wasn't do-able.  Maybe next year.