My name’s Luke Van Aurich and I’m a photographer in my mid-twenties currently residing in Melbourne, Australia. After researching for a different project, I stumbled across a couple of lo-fi videos on Youtube.. I did a little more digging and found there was very little in the way of contemporary documentation of the Nagambie Speedway.

Originally I had planned to travel overseas to work on the other project but I’d had an accident and spent a few weeks bed-bound in hospital. After finally getting out but with my air travel suspended, I found myself coming down with a serious case of cabin fever. I booked a car and was off the following weekend.

Nagambie’s a rural town in Victoria, Australia a little over an hour from Melbourne. Due to the geographical proximity I did little to no preparation beyond picking up a packet of trail mix and a couple of coffees. After the first event I found that the speedway had a little Facebook page, and I was able to follow the calendar for a few more races before the season wrapped up. The speedway mostly features races of modified production sedans & standard saloons across several different race formats including ‘Crash & Bash’ and the coveted ’55 Lap Gold Rush’. The Gold Rush was the one to watch – it had been a weekend of heats, and all fifty odd vehicles had taken to the track from which the eventual winner would take way a solid $1K.

My personal interest in the speedway stemmed from growing up watching my mothers boyfriend constantly repairing his ramshackle car, a green ’79 VB commodore station wagon. I was entranced in the psychology of his revolving door of frustration and gratification. This has always stuck with me hence why I jumped at an opportunity to document a group of comparable enthusiasts.

After watching the first race I was sucked in. I thoroughly enjoyed the pageantry of the whole event, the people, the location, the cars and this overwhelming sense I had taken a leap back in time to a simpler life. The speedway itself acts as a focal point for enthusiasts, mainly your typical ocker country types, with a large majority being young families who travel from all over Victoria to camp out track side over the weekend.

While I worked on this piece over Autumn it was a cool 20 – 24 degrees Celsius with clean and crisp blue skies. The track transitioned from being drenched in the smell of smouldering camp fires into plumes of ochre dust as engines thundered through out the morning and into the early evening.

I was amazed by the age on some of these blokes with limps and canes, hopping in cars and bashing away seemingly with no regard for their physical welfare. Firing away as they would have in their youth. I met a few folks; one guy in particular, Ed took a liking to me and we had a good yarn. He pulled out his portfolio from his car-trailer-caravan combo he was living out of, and showed me some of his work from over the years; machiner in the army – essentially he created chassis for bombs and barrels for guns during the 80s – race car driver and a ceramicist. Things then got a bit weird when he started complaining about his ex-wife for the next while…

Overall what I witnessed helped shape my opinion of this community, an Australia gone-by but continuing to exist on the fringe of present-day society. It’s my hope that the young fellas who grow up here continue the racing traditions, but broaden their horizons, releasing themselves from  some of the stereotypes that have accumulated like dust in the veins of the older folk.

I produced a 3 colour risograph publication on the project which you can find here. (http://www.lukevanaurich.com/store/goldrush)

Words and images by Luke van Aurich