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Friday, March 19, 2010

Tanner Foust Drifts Mulholland Drive


Tanner Foust Street Drift: Mulholland

Streetfire.net recently posted this video of Tanner Foust drifting his (Toyota) Scion tC over a 2 mile closed section of Los Angeles' famous Mulholland Drive.

Tanner is an accomplished stunt driver and two time Formula D champion, and recently had the opportunity to close one of America's most famous stretches of road for a private drift session. The car in this video is far removed from a normal road going Scion tC, having been converted to rear wheel drive and fitted with a TRD prepared V8 originally built to run in Busch series NASCAR races.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Busy Weekend For Car Lovers in WA

Well, it was a pretty busy weekend for me anyway, although it kicked into gear a little later on Saturday than normal with the running of the second Night Masters round for the WASCC's championship season.

Wanneroo Raceway - Night Masters

I started the day off with one of the longest walks in Western Australian motorsport, down to Kolb Corner. This entails walking around 1.5km on the narrow wall that lines the circuit, interrupted by speaker poles and fences that have started to fall over. The walk to Track 6 at the Perth Motorplex is a breeze by comparison, plus you can often get a lift to Track 6 with a passing race team.

Wanneroo Raceway - Night Masters

The Night Masters presents a number of challenges and opportunities for photographers, and one of those is catching the glowing brake rotors at the main braking points. This shot was taken at the entry to V8Race.com corner (formerly known as a number of things, but I still know it as Shell Corner).

Wanneroo Raceway - Night Masters

Looking from V8Race.com corner down through the Esses and showing Westrac Cat Corner, this is a 30 second exposure showing the light trails from the HQ Holdens as they round Cat Corner and climb the hill to V8Race.com corner.

Cranksters Rod and Custom Pipeline Picnic

Sunday was definitely a day for those with an interest in classic iron, with two events catering to the hot rod and custom fraternity. The Cranksters Rod and Custom Club's annual Pipeline Picnic was held at Mundaring, with hundreds of hot rods, customs and street machines filling the grounds of the Mundaring Hotel and the neighbouring Mundaring Community Sculpture Park.

Cranksters Rod and Custom Pipeline Picnic

Ben Forster's 'Las Drogas', shown below, was built by members of the Cranksters, Goodfellas and a number of other Perth clubs, while the paint on the doors was laid down by signwriter and auto artist Scully, owner of the white three window coupe shown above.

Cranksters Rod and Custom Pipeline Picnic

After leaving Mundaring, I headed down to the Perth Motorplex for their Retro Drags event, these are a great relaxed event where owners of nostalgia type cars can race against similar cars or park up in the pits and check out some racing.

Retro Drags @ Perth Motorplex

Ron Crosby has been a long time supporter of nostalgia racing in Western Australia and was racing today in his Holden 6 powered Front Engined Dragster.

Retro Drags @ Perth Motorplex

Unfortunately, I know nothing more about this 68 Charger than that it was sitting in the pits and I just knew I had to get a photo of it as I was walking.

Retro Drags @ Perth Motorplex

This was the final Retro Drags event for the 2009/2010 season at the Perth Motorplex, so if you want to run at the next Retro Drags event, keep an eye on the Motorplex's website for their 2010/2011 season calendar when it's released. In the meantime, Nostalgia type vehicles have their own bracket at every Fast Friday event.

Over the next couple of days I'll be sorting through the rest of the photos from these three events to upload to High Octane Photos.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Sculpture By The Sea - Cottesloe Beach

'Sculpture By The Sea' is a public art exhibition that visits Perth's Cottesloe Beach every summer. There are also 'Sculpture By The Sea' exhibits in Bondi in New South Wales, and Aarhus in Denmark.

Sculpture By The Sea @ Cottesloe Beach

This piece was constructed entirely out of plastic bottle caps contained in an onion-bag type of mesh.

Sculpture By The Sea @ Cottesloe Beach

Over 60 sculptures have been installed on the beach and on the grassy banks overlooking the ocean at Cottesloe Beach, from artists not only from Australia, but from around the world.

Sculpture By The Sea @ Cottesloe Beach

Last night, myself, my girlfriend Kate and a number of other Perth photographers and car nuts descended on Cottesloe Beach to check out this years exhibit. As we also all enjoy the challenge of night photography, we hit the beach around sunset and kept shooting until just after 10pm, before heading down to Capt'n Munchies in Fremantle for a bite to eat.

Sculpture By The Sea @ Cottesloe Beach

Sculpture By The Sea continues at Cottesloe Beach until the 23rd of March, and is well worth a visit.

Friday, February 26, 2010

One More Sleep Until the Westernationals!

The 2010 Westernationals will get under way at the Perth Motorplex at 11am tomorrow, and I'm thinking back over the Westernationals of the past. For some reason, I have it stuck in my head that the first major drag racing meeting I shot was the 2003 Westernationals, however, I cannot find any of the photos from that meeting, or any drag racing photos from 2004. I can, however, find photos from the 2005 Westernationals, and the other day I went through those photos and picked out a number of shots that caught my attention in some way.
Gary Busch

South Australian Gary Busch drives a Funny Car in SuperCharged Outlaws, but 5 years ago he was behind the wheel of this Altered, also a SuperCharged Outlaw.
Tony Argentino

Tony Argentino is another SuperCharged Outlaw driver who has changed cars since 2005. Tony and wife Gillian purchased "The Hitman" from the USA a few years ago, retiring their 34 Ford coupe to do so.
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Yet another driver making a few changes over the seasons has been Mark Sheehan. As a relatively new photogapher back in 2005, this dragster, running in Competition, didn't grab my attention any where near as much as it did looking back over the photos the other day and spotting a few markings that suggested it belonged to Mark. The first time that I can remember hearing about Mark Sheehan was as a methanol powered Altered driver. Mark has since moved on again from methanol fuel to nitromethane, having run a couple of half track passes in a nitromethane fuelled Altered before switching to a funny car body and joining an elite group of Australian Nitro Funny Car drivers.
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This photo is one that has me wondering what happened to my older photos. While it's always possible that I'm just confused and this was my first Westernationals, I definately remember seeing Steve McGrath racing the Toppolino Altered that he sold to Mark Mackay in order to build this car.
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The Westernationals is a round of the Australian Top Doorslammer championship, and here, Ben Bray is driving the 57 Chevrolet that used to belong to his father, Victor Bray, and is currently being driven by the Northern Territory's Matt Abel.
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Looking forwards to this years event, the official Motorplex pre-Westernationals Test'n'Tune is always a great event that most people probably don't even know is on. Due to the nature of Test'n'Tunes, it's probably best that people who aren't drag racing tragics don't usually know these are on, as there is no set program and it's not uncommon to have long periods where nothing is happening on the track. For the die hards however, the Test'n'Tunes are an opportunity to get a sneak peak at a new car or bike, or perhaps a chance to see a team in action that may not have raced at the Motorplex for a while and want to re-acquaint themselves with the track. It's also a chance for even the regular teams to try something a little different with their setup, which can often make for some interesting viewing.
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I wasn't able to make it to this years Westernationals Test'n'Tune, however Kate Bovell borrowed my camera gear and took a few photos so that I didn't miss out on all the fun.
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Here, Carmello Belladonna guides his father Vince into the staging beams as they attempt to license Vince's shiny new AA/AP Torana. Vince's long term plans for this car include running in Australia's Top Doorslammer category.
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Murray O'Connor's stunning Falcon Top Doorslammer has been repaired after a recent incident and is looking as impressive as ever.
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Over 350 teams have entered for this years Westernationals, including around 60 interstate teams, making it the biggest drag racing event ever held in WA, and the biggest 2 day event in Australia.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Night Masters 1 at Barbagallo Raceway

One of my favourite meetings of the WASCC's Club Racing Season, is the Night Masters. In the past the club have run these events as a 3 event series, as a stand alone event and as a 2 event series. This years format saw the first round of the Night Masters held on the 20th of February. The second round is scheduled for the 13th of March.
Wanneroo Raceway - Night Masters

Ash Barnett curb hopping on the way up through the Esses at Wanneroo.
Wanneroo Raceway - Night Masters

Rex Meechin's UltraSport is a very impressive car, incredibly quick around Wanneroo and a work of art as well.
Wanneroo Raceway - Night Masters

Rob Hagarty had a little off track excursion on the first lap of this race, and was working hard to make up ground, as you can see here.
Wanneroo Raceway - Night Masters

In the Historic Touring Cars, Martyn Piercey got out of shape in his Alfetta GTV and nudged the Alfa of Chris Chang, sending Chang into the sand and leaving a fairly large dent in his drivers door.
Wanneroo Raceway - Night Masters

Of course, the reason this meeting is called the Night Masters, is because a large portion of the racing is under lights. Here, Street Car competitor Ivan Tan is approaching Ford Fastbreak corner in his Subaru WRX.
Wanneroo Raceway - Night Masters

Improved Production racing is growing quickly in WA, with the class now being big enough to be granted their own races at the Night Masters rounds, instead of sharing with the similar Street Car class as has happened in the past.
Wanneroo Raceway - Night Masters

Traditionally, the highlight of the Night Masters program has been the Night Masters races themselves, which featured the quickest cars out of a number of categories on the night, and consisted of 3, 3 lap mini-races with a reverse grid start for each of the mini-races. Unfortunately, in the last couple of years these races haven't been run, but I for one, am still hopeful that we will see them return in future.
Wanneroo Raceway - Night Masters

The next round of the Night Masters series is set for the 13th of March, part of a busy weekend for me, with the annual ACE Ford Club Cruise also on the 13th and the Cranksters Rod and Kustom Club's annual Pipeline Cruise on Sunday the 14th, along with the Perth Motorplex's Retro Drags event.

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