I'm often searching through my photographic library and repeatedly stumble across files from jobs past. Most of the time I just drag them back into the folders, but sometimes they have a little story attached...

Since 2004 I have enjoyed a brilliant working relationship with SEAT UK. Initially it was on the motorsport side, but this soon spread to studio portraits and event coverage. Great people with get-ahead ideas. They're also fabulously collaborative, which is always nice.

So it tickled me a little to come across this image, mainly because it was the very first thing I did, now almost exactly 9 years ago. I recall a perishingly cold Rockingham race track; the brief to shoot car-to-car shots for publicity material to promote the marque's one make championship.

Such shots are truly hair-raising to produce. You are strapped into a people carrier (with the back door wedged open) or, as in this case, put in the boot of a car with an assistant holding the boot lid open. Either way the racing car is under your control, via various graphic gestures. Enough said.

Technically this is hand held at about 1/10th of a sec, which is slower than you'd usually opt for. But it's essential to obtain the feeling of speed so the track feels like it's rushing past - which is kind of is anyway! I chose to shoot this at the end of a January day because it was a lovely sky and the closing light added to the effect.