I love the smell of trackbite in the morning
Last weekend saw the 8th annual Scandinavian Callook Classic held at Gardermoen Raceway in Norway. Strictly for the classic air-cooled Volkswagens SCC has been growing bigger and better each year, and people now travel from all over Europe to attend. This year even had visitors all the way from California!
Although I’m more of a water-cooled Volkswagen guy and despite the fact that I only managed to squeeze in a short visit on Sunday, I have no trouble seeing why over 2000 people chose to attend. This show is probably one of the most laid back and welcoming I’ve ever attended, and holds a great mix of untouched original cars, true show&shine winners, serious race cars and everything in between. Around 1000 classic beetles, buses, ghias and whatnot were either on display in the Club area, the Vintage Village or battled it out on the raceway.
Some of the highlights in the show area was the Ghia below, a drivable Samba that just last year sat at the bottom of a lake where it had resided for several decades and rather large collection of Karmann Cabriolet’s .
The raceway saw broken drive shafts, blown engines, cracked transmissions and two new world records. Team Skinne and their beetle did a jaw dropping 8,60 – 272km/h. run thus being the worlds fastest VW pan streetcar and the Team CSP clocked in at 8.855/250.00km/h making their Ghia the worlds fastest car with a VW engine case.
The SCC also reports a huge number of rookies on the drag strip this year. World records they may not have set, but with SCC beeing the friendly and welcoming show it is, racing what you bring is encouraged, and a total of 500 passes were made this year with everything from stock cars to the all out racers.
Congratulations to the SCC crew on yet another great show, See you next year as well!
Also, Click on any of the images to get to the album where even more pictures are to be seen!
First Signs of Spring
At this time of year everything once again begins its tilt towards the Sun. The changing of the season is easily observed everywhere. Some find joy in the awakening flowers, the birds returning back from their southern refugees ,or just seeing people outdoors once again. I for one find joy in the snow melting and the roads slowly, but surely drying up. For me and thousand of other car enthusiasts this means it’s time for taking our cars back out from winter storage and enjoying driving them again.
Ida is one of these enthusiasts and today she took her ’59 Volkswagen Beetle out for a spin. With brand new BRM wheels on the car we did a quick shoot with it. Far from my best work, the pictures are more snapshots than real photo shoot pictures. But hey, take them for what they are. For me they are a sure sign that both the spring and the car season is finally here!
The rolling pictures were of course taken with natural light only and the still just got a little fill flash from a camera mounted 430 EX.
Bug(s)
So, it’s been a while since my last post, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy. After the making of the event posters I’ve made some layout/design suggestions for a magazine i write articles for now and then. Personally I think the layouts came out great and I’m exited to see if they’ll ever make it into the magazine. I’ve also had a couple of shoots lately but I’m not at liberty to post the images here.
Other then that I’m enjoying the summer and the fantastic weather. With the temperatures being high and the sun shining I’m really looking forward to my vacation next week. I’ve wanted to practice my strobist skills lately, but the sun doesn’t set until after 22:00 and even when it does, it really never gets dark outside. But, after I had washed my girlfriends 59 Volkswagen Beetle I decided it was dark enough and brought out the flashes and their stands. I had hoped to catch some more of the setting sun, but my China triggers has some kind of bug and does not want to cooperate. So by the time I had them dialed in, the sun had disappeared over the horizon. Still, I like how the shot came out.
Clicking the picture will take you to the flickr-page where a higher resolution version is available.
I also decided it is time I invest in some Elinchrome Skyports and will be doing so shortly. Also, I know that my pictures appear a bit dark on some screens so I’ll finally be getting my monitor recalibrated within a short while.
The Love Bug
At last weeks BugRun, held at Mantorp park in Sweden, one of the highlighs for both drivers and spectators was the traditional drag racing. Old or new, fast or slow the cars race each other for a quarter mile. Now, the most die hard aircooled Volkswagen fans out there probably think about old Cal look legends like the “Inch Pincher” or the “Dyno-Soar” when racing and Beetles is mentioned. But more known to the rest of us is probably Herbie, the white bug featured in several Disney motion pictures starting with the 1969 film The Love Bug.
Herbie is distinguished by red, white and blue racing stripes from front to back bumper and a racing-style number “53″ on the front hood, doors, and engine lid. So was this one cute little bug hurtling down the drag strip at Mantorp.
I felt like giving the picture a vintage look and although it could have been a bit brighter i feel it very much reminds me of the old Herbie movies I watched with great enthusiasm when I grew up.
And while we are on the subject of Cal look, beetles and drag racing – Be sure to check out the good folks at Scandinavian Cal Look Classic. Great guys, great event. Be there!