A few weeks ago I joined Team Harrison at Donnington Park for one of the opening rounds of the Monoposto Championships. The team has expanded since my last visit. For this season the Harrison stable has grown with the addition of Mark’s Vauxhall powered F397. I’d arrived with bread & bacon ready for the traditional bacon sandwich in the Minnie Winnie (Nick’s Chevy based Winnebago), before gearing up to shoot the team’s prep.
rocking up on sunday
The Saturday had been eventful. The previous day had seen the first round of the season in which Mark had broken down whilst leading from pole. Neil had spun his Toyota propelled F302 in qualifying and had then managed to make up 8 places to finish second. By the time I arrived both cars had had their oil-pressure issues looked over and the mission was to balance the brakes on Mark’s car.
neighbours
While the work on the f397 went on I went next door. Russ Giles was quartered beside us running an f398, also Vauxhall powered. It was exhibiting one of those whack-a-mole mechanical issues that isn’t any of the first twelve things you think of. After opening it up a few times and running the diagnostics it eventually fixed itself, or rather, whatever was wrong with it got fixed during one the cycles of assembly and dissasembly.
qualifying
When the time came for qualifying I made my way out to the inside of Redagte Corner. I wanted a shot of both Neil and Mark running, along with Russ’ car. I wasn’t too worried about capturing the action on the track as my plan had been to focus on the story in the paddock. With only a short race to get my eye in, I focused on getting the shots I wanted of the cars lapping before heading back.
Neil’s car had been down on Mark’s, with some investigation confirming that the nearside front bearing had been damaged in his accident the day before. He’d slid laterally into the barrier after spinning cold Pirellis in qualifying. The mission was now to replace this bearing before the race.
downtime
The Sunday saw a 15 minute qualifying session at around noon, followed by a 15 minute race at four pm. Even with major surgeries like swapping out a bearing, with general tinkering, and drinking copious amounts of tea, there is a definite feeling of waiting around. This is heightened by the urgency that then does come, when you have to make for the grid.
This tension exists because a whole weekend is devoted to what might be an hour of track time per car. The cars are often between 15 and 20 years old, somewhat temperamental and one mistake, one unfinished task can put you on a trailer home with no track time.
race
Photography isn’t allowed from the pit lane. Which is both a shame and probably a good idea. Given this restriction I’ve never watched a race from the pit lane even though I’m able to as part (a hanger-on) of Team Harrison. Given my confidence that I had shots of both cars running, and not fancying the hurried schlep to find an unobstructed view of the track, I opted to just watch the race.
This is not something I’ve done before, or even something I do often in any part of my life. It was breathtaking watching the cars come past at race speed, craning through the openings in the pit wall chainlink.
After lapping together, Neil’s car lost oil pressure and dropped a few places. Mark managed to hang on to first position even under constant pressure from the chap in second.
The joke in the paddock is that there is one race they never lose, the packing and getting gone race. Once the presentation was over the cars were loaded into trailers and the team decamped to headquarters.
Here are a few images from the day –
