I have a love-hate relationship with PCoTY. I love being around so many performance cars, but when it comes to getting all the shots you see in CAR Magazine, PCoTY is quite frankly my worst nightmare.
This year was probably our bigger ever PCoTY, thanks to Ben Pulman going overboard on the logistics front. And the weather wasn’t on our side – we spent nearly a week in Wales, and while the pictures might not show it, it rained most of the time. Car shoots? Glamorous? You must be kidding.
It gets worse. You see, before each shoot we try and plan a few main shots so we can turn up on the day and get some great photos in the bag. But while the photographers and I make our livings from the stunning imagery you see in CAR, at PCoTY there are also a bunch of journalists who ‘need’ to drive all the cars. Even if they’re not writing about them.
Every time you need a car, another journo has taken it off round the track. Or if you’re doing a group shot, three cars are here and the other is off in Snowdonia being ‘assessed’.
But I can’t always pull my weight and get the cars where I need them, because I also know that really, I just want to be doing exactly the same thing, and I can’t begrudge the guys that. I think, on balance, I love PCoTY.
Click here to read more of CAR’s 2008 PCoTY blogs
