Tandems!
Filmed and Edited: Cooper Macmillan Edited: Courtney McColgan
I know this post is slightly overdue, but the short track series ended with some spectacular driving that can’t go unmentioned. The drivers were out in full force with plenty of amazing entries and extremely close tandems. This series has been one of the best so far in Queensland for the drifting scene, and I definitely hope for it to pick up again. The atmosphere at these events is super friendly and of course with Mez M.C.ing, the night was even better. Flynn Dowling didn’t participate in the tandems as he had, somewhat unwillingly, entered the competition side, rendering him unable to join in on the tandem fun, but he did very well in the comp…
Harry’s Diner Oldschool Reunion Night
Being the start of a long weekend last Friday night was boring, and I was looking for things to do. Much to my joy I found out that the old school night was on at Harry’s diner so I headed out. The turnout was huge with the mention of Street Machine photographers being there and it was definitely a great night. The lighting wasn’t the best in some areas however, and with the limited parking spaces, many cars were forced to leave or went and parked on the other side of the street.
Short Track Round 2
This past Friday, I attended the second round of the short track series, which had to be even bigger than last round. There were a few cars out of action as I turned up due to things breaking and such but the action was still on par. I met even more people this round; I’m starting to get to know a lot of people within the drift scene. I also followed Grant everywhere, like a sidekick, so I used his 5D to get some decent shots of the drifting.
TEASER | Mercury Motorsport Dyno Day
This past weekend Turbosmart held a dyno day at Mercury Motorsport featuring plenty of amazing cars and two girls who were kind enough to clean the cars in their Bikinis! Earlier I had been asked by Adam of 7tune to shoot the event so I borrowed a D3100 to have better low light performance, as opposed to my SX30, and then took my best shot at taking photos. There was plenty of rain during the day, but that didn’t stop the determination of drivers with quite a few cars making it into the higher ranges of power. The highlight for me had to be the 3SGE Cortina with ITBs, had an amazing sound which also left a funny feeling in your ears but also a huge smile across your face. It was the first time I had visited Mercury Motorsport and what a day it was! I met plenty of new faces that I had only previously talked to through Facebook.
- Cooper
Short Track series @ QR!
Last week at Queensland Raceway, a drifting comp was held on the short track; Round 1 of the Queensland Raceway Short Track series. There was a huge turnout with loads of people turning up to watch 16 cars battle it out with 5 more doing trains in between during the down time which were great to watch. The night was good, despite turning up an hour late there was still lots of action to see and plenty of people to meet, two of which being Grant and Josh who I finally met for the first time.
Stadium Drift Round 1 at Queensland Raceway
Round one of Stadium Drift, held at Queensland Raceway, had to be one of the hottest days I’ve experienced out at Willowbank, and I’m sure many others would agree. However, this didn’t stop the show with a great amount of cars up for both the show and shine and general spectating. On the way there, stopping at a petrol station, the fuel pumped stuffed up for while, but not for long, as I headed back out on the way following Daniel Batchelor and his friends, who he seemed to be the only one not in a rush. The car kind of shut down on Champions Way again, so sorry to anyone we held up.
Matsuri 2011
With Misko and Grantt posting up their recaps of Matsuri, I decided I would as well being that it is my favorite set of photos I’ve taken to date. This event was really a learning curve with my photography; I really got into the manual modes, and used them as much as possible. It really helped learn the panning technique, which I’m still learning, but by doing so really improved my photographs. This was a great weekend for both drifters and spectators, and with the 2 days of non-stop drifting I was in for a treat. I arrived near lunch on the Sunday and it wasn’t long before I spotted some awesome cars and drivers pushing the limits.
Weekend Drifts at Archerfield
This weekend was pretty busy for me. First working on my Excel track car before visiting a workshop for a while on Saturday, and then after finding out about the drifting at Archerfield I decided to go out to watch. This weekend I had a different camera though; a borrowed Nikon D3100 which I had good fun playing with. Lots of awesome shots came out from using it at Archie, even though I was restricted to the 18-55 so mostly I was up right next to the track. I met Brett (iBrettowski), a fellow drift photographer who spent a lot of the day talking to Chez (Watts) and I. The track was overflowing with cars as over 50 drivers had entered, which meant other potential entrants had to miss out. This overflow of cars, however, made for some exciting action. Due to the event not being a competition day there was continuous drifting throughout the event with lots of opportunities to shoot cars as they came by. There were quite a few Aussie cars entered too and since it was only the start of the drifting experience for some, this gave good track time for them to learn.
Japanese Classic Day at Banyo
On the weekend I attended the Japanese Classic Car day at Banyo. There were still modern cars attending but the classics were the main focus. I arrived a bit late and many cars were starting to leave. As I first walked in, I was greeted with a Crown wagon and this Corona Mark II. Just a few of many beautiful cars.
New Contributor | Cooper Macmillan
Hey there guys, we have a new contributor on board the team so I thought I would give him the chance to introduce himself to everyone. We have been watching the content that Cooper has been covering for a short time now and he has impressed us on a regular basis. It’s worth mentioning too that, while he covers a wide variety of exciting automotive things, he is only 14! That’s a fairly impressive effort. Anyway, for now I will hand it over to Cooper to introduce himself – Grant
