Saturday was hot..really hot. Not ‘surface of the sun’ kind of Western Australian hot, but a nice sweaty humid ‘the more I walk the greasier my ballbags’ kind of hot.

Our intrepid No H2O leader Simon/Humpty had flown across from Perth to attend the days racing so I picked him up from his hotel carpark full of early morning drunks and crack whores, and we proceeded to get totally lost on the way to the track. Well I should say it was me who got lost, and I have no excuse as the hotel was next to the track. My job was to go from Point A to Point B and back to Point A again and I managed to screw that up. So after a good 45 minutes of driving in circles I gave up my rights as a man and resorted to using electronic devices to find our way back.

The WSID carpark was pretty full of every type of vw. bugs, splits, notches, water coolers, the works. It was a pretty awesome turnout and some serious machinery and money spent. It was nice to be able to relax and grab some photos and video of the day and not be pushed to publishers deadlines or shot lists for a change.The only thing missing was a couple of cold beers.

There’s a whole photo album of images here and also a pretty dodgy video I threw together on YouTube located here.

Racing was interesting. The WSID people were certainly a lot more straight and narrow than their Western counterparts at Motorplex. One explained that the strictness co-incides with the amount of people looking for an excuse for a lawsuit on the east coast as compared to the west. The venue brought out more photographers than competitors as well. Where were they all for the Victorian and Queensland rounds? Sydney lacks a sense of friendliness there. The competitive natures and the lack of a simple g’day to strangers goes against the entire philosophy of vw ownership. It didn’t sit right with me so I was kind of glad to leave.

I packed up from the hotel mid afternoon and my next stop was Bathurst, about three hours up through the Blue Mountains. The Kombi made mince meat of the hills, being light and with an average size motor. It’s a great drive up there despite the roadworks and procession of caravans. It’s a windy drive but reasonably scenic in spots with some great old stone buildings and open plains leading out to giant rugged clifftops. My destination was Rocklea to crash at a mate’s place and meet up with our other Circlework photographer, Jeff, who had been in town a couple of days already. I’d forgotten that Rocklea had zero phone reception unless by satellite so it was interesting to just relax for a couple of drinks at the local pub and not be tempted by phone calls, internet or facebook updates.

We had a pretty early night as we’d planned a 4am start to drive back to Mount Panorama for the Bathurst 12 Hour production race on Sunday…