Let’s take a look back through some photos from 2020! It may not have been the best year for the majority of the world with COVID ruining most people’s plans throughout the year. I managed to start working full-time as a photographer and videographer during the year and attended a fair few events between the lock downs.
Autosport International Show
The year kicked off with the Autosport International Show at the Birmingham NEC, a busy event for me every year networking with other people in the Automotive and Motorsports industries. I mostly spent my time planning the year ahead and also capturing as much of the show as possible including the live action arena, which is always a highlight!
The cars on display can be a bit hit or miss in recent years but seeing the Le Mans 24hr winning Toyota Gazoo Racing TS050 Hybrid piqued my interest with all of its battle scars, tyre dust and rubber splattered all over the car!
British Drift Championship
Three rounds of the British Drift Championship took place in between the restrictions with a season condensed into a little over two months, starting at Driftland, followed by Three Sisters and Teesside.
I spent the short season documenting Max Cotton as tried to prove himself against the best in the country, eventually going on to win the Pro2 championship on his first attempt.
Away from the competition side of drifting I attended 6 or 7 drift days across the year, here is a small selection from those events.
GoJapan!
The GoJapan! show was one of the highlights for drift events in the UK in 2020 with plenty of iconic cars on track at Brands Hatch. Time Attack also provided some incredible machinery to look around too!
CSCC Donington Park
I also managed to fit in a trip to the Classic Sports Car Championship at Donington Park at the start of November. This was mostly because my brother and I noticed the final race of the day looked like there was a chance of it running at Sunset. We hung around watching some interesting cars racing all day but with the light fading we got what we were hoping for!
Goodwood Speedweek
My highlight of the year has to be getting invited to attend the Goodwood Speedweek. The Members Meeting, Festival of Speed and the Revival had all been cancelled due to the COVID restrictions. Goodwood decided to run a behind closed doors event at the Goodwood Circuit that was a little bit of all of the cancelled events. It was livestreamed and the only people in the event were there to run it along with around 20 media, including me!
Masks were mandatory the whole time within the venue so there was little chance of getting photos of the drivers but the car selection on display (and racing) were incredible!
The races were mainly focused around classic and historic cars while the newer supercars and racing machinery took part in a one lap shoot-out of the circuit.
The main reason I was at the event was to document the first Goodwood Driftkhana competition, a combination of speed, style and precision from the drivers would be needed to win. James Deane dominated the competition that also featured the Ford Mach-E 1400 prototype built by RTR.
On the Thursday evening we were asked to either leave the circuit at around 5pm or wait until 8pm as they would be running a Rally around part of the circuit access roads that wouldn’t be possible with a crowd in attendance due to the layout they had chosen. Of course I stayed to capture some of the action!
The 70th anniversary of the Formula 1 Championship saw two groups of machinery take to the track to demonstrate the cars and the evolution over the decades of competition.
Tom Kristensen’s Le Mans victories were also celebrated with a demonstration by a whole host of cars that he has raced across the years. The other demos also showed off a selection of Jaguar XJR cars and another with Group C Porsches into the night. An incredible weekend of motorsport that was a bit surreal to be able to attend. One that I hope never happens again for all of the right reasons, as much as I loved having the access to the cars without the crowds it was also soulless without them!
That sums up 2020 for me, a year of though times but incredible opportunities and a fresh start for myself.
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