Birthday Bash

A normal birthday consists of lots of alcohol, maybe a BBQ, and held at some form of bar/restaurant/club. But imagine if you could have your birthday at a race track, with all your closest friends racing all day with the entire track to yourselves. Would be insanely awesome, right? Well that is exactly what I was invited to a few weeks back…a birthday held at Queensland’s best racetrack, Lakeside.

The birthday was for Richard, who is my bud Alex’s best mate Matt’s Dad (now that was a mouthful). I am good friends with Matt as well and when I found out his Dad was having his birthday at Lakeside I was keen as mustard to come check it out and grab some shots of the day for him. Having a racetrack to yourself and your friends is such a cool concept because there isn’t thousands of people wandering around, there’s barely anyone hitting the track so tonnes of time on the asphalt, and no one is a stranger.

The quality of cars that turned out for Richards birthday was also phenomenal. I have been to public days which have less awesome cars than this, and those days probably have double and even triple the attendees. Everything was catered for, from Datsun 510’s to 1 Series BMW hatches.

This little 1600 had the most intense stance to it, I was practically in love. It wasn’t all that quick, but my god did it look the goods. Also those SSR’s on it would be worth an absolute mint.

Totally gangster…

To be honest I am not a fan of the V8 model R8’s. I feel it was a pointless car and they should have started with the V10 model and never made an 8 to begin with. But hey, that is my opinion. In saying that though, shit it looks good.

These little NB MX5s were available for those who don’t have a track car, so they could jump in and thrash them around. Oh so rad.

This 2002 belongs to Richard, the birthday boy. Words can not really describe how awesome this car is. It is his dedicated track car and with those Sportmaxes under the guards it looks (and sounds) so good on full tilt around the track.

This Radical was out there carving up all day. The way the car looks on the track makes it seem so effortless to steer it to lap records. But I do doubt that is anywhere near the truth of driving it.

Richard had his other part time track car out there, his BMW 130i (probably not hard to pick Richard’s favorite manufacturer). This is his daily drive, yet it has a full race cage and semi slicks. What an epic daily.

Some random snaps that I couldn’t think up captions for.

My homie Alex out flying the Honda flag.

Trekking home after a long day. What a sight this is on the road.

All in all the day was heaps of fun; no drama and just a good bunch of people. Thanks to Richard for letting me come out and take shots for the event and also to Matt, Alex, Will and Ben for just hangin’ all day.

Also, mad props to Ben for taking some of the pics.