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After arriving by ferry, late on Monday evening, my TT began tonight at Quarterbridge. Following on from Monday night’s perfect conditions, the course was once again bathed in glorious sunlight, which provides a challenge in itself to achieve the ideal exposure on your images.

Quarterbridge is situated just beyond the first milestone and provides the first “real” corner of the Mountain course, after the iconic (and flat-out) Bray Hill and Ago’s Leap sections. Riders approach the corner while braking downhill, before attempting to hit the apex and carry some decent speed as they get back on the throttle to head towards Braddan Bridge.

Other than listening to the loudspeakers erected around the circuit, the only hint of approaching bikes is the distant screaming of a redlining engine shortly followed by numerous downshifts. If you’re lucky, you can catch the flash of a rider’s helmet through the dense foliage on the inside of the turn’s approach. For the TT, this is more than the usual notice, especially when compared to faster sections, some of which have a non-existent lead time to take your shot.

The fading sunlight provided a dramatic backdrop later on in the solo sessions, but left the sidecars looking a little dull once the sun had dipped beneath the surrounding tree line, but that’s merely one of the many challenges you face when shooting this legendary circuit.

After a delay of 48 hours due to adverse weather, practice for 2014 Isle of Man TT finally got under way in perfect conditions on Monday evening.

I decided to go the end of the Lambfell section where the riders crest a rise and wheelie onto the the Cronk-y-Voddy straight. I’m not sure of the speed they are doing at this point but it must be in the region of 140mph.

Standing on the hedge this is a relatively straight forward shot, despite the speed as you can see the bikes approaching and the camera can track them.

Sitting on the hedge to lower the angle, which is my preference, is more challenging as you don’t see the riders until the last minute. I ended up with more pictures in the bin than I would have liked, but that’s the challenge of photographing the TT.

I’m not sure what the weather has in store for us this evening so a decision on where to go will most likely be made at the last minute.

Having only had three days at home in the four weeks between Qatar and Austin meant it was nice to get back and recharge the batteries prior to going to Jerez.

The bags were soon packed, and I was ready and looking forward to Jerez, but the fickle Manx weather had other ideas. When I arrived at the airport in the Isle of Man it was a beautiful sunny day: an hour and half later and a thick blanket of fog had settled over the airport.

The plane due to fly me to London was unable to land and my flight was cancelled, meaning I was not able to make my connecting flight to Malaga. I got straight on the phone to EasyJet who kindly changed all my flights and a few more hasty calls to sorted the car hire a hotel at Gatwick for the night.

My rescheduled flight off the Island was not looking good either but the fog magically lifted at the perfect moment and I finally made it away at 6 o’clock in the evening.

My original plan was to spend an evening in Malaga, giving me Wednesday to drive to Jerez, find my digs and stock the fridge with supplies for the weekend.

This all went out the window, thanks to the Manx weather and I ended up arriving at Malaga at 10pm which meant that that my first foray onto the Spanish roads was in the pitch black!

Around two and a half hours later I managed to find my apartment in what appeared to be a field in the middle of nowhere, but in the sunlight the following day it proved to be quite close to a little town.

Beautiful, blistering sunshine welcomed me to Jerez on Thursday morning and I made my way to the track to pick up my credentials.

The first lap of the French GP worked out very well for MotoGP fans. First, Andrea Dovizioso accelerated past Marc Marquez, putting the pole sitter and race favorite into second position. Moments later Stefan Bradl passed Marquez on the outside, Marquez into third.

As the pack entered the Dunlop Chicane, Pol Espargaro passed Marquez, putting 93 into 4th. Valentino Rossi passed Marquez at La Chapelle, 93 now in 5th. Jorge Lorenzo pushed past at Garage Vert, and Marquez went off track to rejoin in 10th place.

Not a good start for the Championship leader, but a wonderful half first lap for fans. Instead of Marquez riding off into the distance, yawn, he had to work his way up from tenth place.

Normally our “Trackside Tuesday” series features something from the MotoGP paddock, since that is where the A&R photographers spend most of their time swinging lenses. But, I thought we would change it up a bit today, especially since the marketing machine for the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb is well underway for next month’s race.

I have a love-hate relationship with Pikes Peak. The racing is unlike anything else you will see in America, and it survives by what seems like tradition alone. Set on one of Colorado’s famous 14er peaks, Pikes Peak is 14,115 feet of undulating road, which starts fast and sweeping, tightens to slow and technical, and then finally relents to some degree near the summit.

It is not a race for the timid, as many of the turns feature an extreme of terrain: granite walls or sheer drops. At one turn, called The Bottomless Pit, the joke is that if you crash there (and don’t break every bone in your body on the two foot tall wall at the tarmac’s end), you will starve to death before you reach terra firma. It’s a bit of hyperbole for sure, but it still isn’t a turn where I would want to go down, if I was a racer.

It amazes me then that the hill climb is in its 92nd season, as the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb is really just one good lawsuit away from being sacked; and to be frank, it’s not like the race has done much in the past to mitigate its exposure. So, it is refreshing to see some professionalism being brought to this iconic race, and 2014 will see some spectator guidelines being imposed on the PPIHC.

There will of course be a few misinformed people that will call this the death of Pikes Peak, but the honest truth is that the race, if left unchanged, would have been the death of itself — and it’s not like the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb isn’t still without its dangers.

That might be the reason that Guy Martin has finally decided to make the journey over from across the pond, and give the local teams and riders a run for their money. The Isle of Man TT star will be riding on a custom turbocharged cafe racer, which with the added boost of nitrous, is said to put down near 500hp.

The whole thing is a ridiculous entry, which has its sights squarely on the outright motorcycle record at Pikes Peak, much like Sebastien Loeb’s run last year was an assault on the four-wheeled record.