Maximage News 21st July 2007 Happy Birthday Gurston Down and Free Pictures Introduced The 15th July meeting saw Gurston Down reach a somewhat low key 40th birthday. Maybe everyone had been told except Maximage, we felt really bad because we didn't even bring a card! From 1967 to 2007 Gurston Down has brought entertainment, for want of a better word, to a lot of people, drivers and riders of course, the ever present and devoted band of Marshalls (GIT's) without whom organisers wouldn't organise, drivers wouldn't drive, spectators wouldn't spectate and phtotgraphers wouldn't photograph. 40 years of dedicated and loyal support by a whole load of people slipped by with hardly a trumpet being blown. Maybe this should be seen as Gurstons confidence in its position as one of the UK's premiere hillclimb venues, but in our opinion the occassion was worthy of a higher profile celebration. Anyway, many happy returns Gurston Down, may you enjoy many more birthdays, and continue to bring enjoyment to future generations of hillclimb fans. To help celebrate this momentous occassion we at Max have introduced a free picture download category which we hope people will use and enjoy. All you have to do is register on our system and download the picture(s) of your choice. They are of a high enough resolution to produce A3 prints to frame and hang on the wall, or just blue tack 'em up if you are a cheapskate! 25th April 2007 Picture proofing service introduced We work hard at Maximage to make sure that our pictures are of a very high standard. From taking the original picture through to processing, we want our customers and clients to receive an image fit for the purpose for which it was intended. Unfortunately, the internet is not the best way of exhibiting pictures and rarely, if ever, displays an image to its best potential. We take care to make our pictures as "web friendly" as possible, but even our best efforts do not adequately convey their quality to our exacting standards. Sometimes it is very nearly impossible to tell whether the picture you are looking at on screen is actually of a good quality and worth buying or not! For this reason, we are introducing a customer proofing service. Send us an e-mail quoting the image reference number that you would like to see a proof of and we will send you a 72dpi watermarked proof in a zipped folder for you to examine before purchasing. PLEASE NOTE. All of our images are protected by copyright, please see the purchasing information page on the gallery site for usage restrictions or contact us for details. This service will add greatly to our workload and so please allow 48 hours for reply to your proof request. It is up to you to make sure that our reply gets past any spam filters or security systems that you may have in place on your system. Used correctly, this facillity should ensure that you receive an image of the quality you expect, thus avoiding dissapointment. 11th March 2007 Motorsport journalist Simon McBeath joins Maximage Many of the UK hillclimb community will know Simon one way or another. He was a succesful hillclimb competitor for over 25 years, scoring wins on all of the UK mainland hills and was record holder for the upto 2 litre single seat racecar class at Gurston Down driving a Pilbeam MP54. In 2003, he set up his own company, The Wing Shop Ltd. Designing and producing carbon composite racecar wings. Go to our link page for a link to Simons Wing Shop web site, a good source of information for competition drivers interested in improving racecar aerodynamics. When Simon isn't running The Wing Shop he is Press officer for the BARC (South Western Center) designing and producing programmes for the Gurston Down Hillclimb events. He is a regular contributor to Racecar Engineering magazine as well others and has three books to his credit so far. For many years Simon has documented Gurston Down events, attending every meeting rain or shine. He has entrusted us with a large part of his photographic archive, since going digital at least. This covers the years 2001 to 2006. We are working through the archive steadily in reverse order of date starting with September 2006. Sorting and processing the pictures one by one is a huge project and will take some months to complete. Some of the pictures have made their way into magazines illustrating articles written by Simon, others have been seen on web sites, many more have never been seen. Take a step back in Gurston time through the often "up close and personal" lens style of Simon McBeath. Gurston Archive