The Photography of Dr. Jeff Harper

Bangsaen, Thailand is a sleepy little seaside resort town about two hours drive from Bangkok.

Normally people come to Bangsaen to sit under the parasols to eat sea food and maybe frolic in the water.

Beach chairs and a view of the Gulf of Siam.  Nice.

Bangsae is organized to receive many, many seasiders.

Perhaps take a dip before . . . .

. . . . before having a snack of fried grasshoppers or grub worms, maybe even some . . . . . .

. . . . or even a "five foot stick" (although it looks shorter then that).  It's great to be at the beach.

But two week-ends a year the streets of central Bangsaen are closed off and barriers are erected to hold the Bangsaen Speed Festival. It was a cloudy day, not perfect for photography, but I did the best I could.

The race draws a wide variety of race cars from throughout Thailand and a few from Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and a "V8 Supercar" from New Zealand.  The locally modified KE Toyota and Chevy race truck are fine examples of the race cars present.

Many of the race cars would be right at home on any race track in the world.  The workmanship and preparation of this EVO was outstanding.

There are many classes for racers to participate in.  My friend, Khun Mac (MacTec), qualified this car number one on the grid for his class - and won the race . . . but was DQed for being underweight.  Oops.

There is seemingly a class for everyone.  This bubble hooded EVO-powered Mini from Hong Kong was a little work of art.  It looks like a '57 Chevy pick-up front end.  Nice.

Some of the cars had very big budgets, but most were locally made using a lot of used engines with a few racing upgrades, like this Toyota.

The pit area was quite large, and always full of action.

One of the most popular classes is the "One Make Class," where identical Toyotas or Hondas race together, under a set of rules that govern the extent of modifications.  The racing is very close in these classes.

Another One Make Toyota Class pit.

The bucks up teams looked very professional.  This is the Toyota tent.

A lot of ingenuity went into this home-built SuperCar class racer, although I had to be concerned about some of the safety features . . . . that went missing.

What would a car race be without the race girls?

The Big Cola race girls were particularly noteworthy.

Walking through the pits I spotted this model . . . and she looked familiar.  I remembered her as one of the Volvo models in the beautiful big wolven hats I photographed at the Bangkok Mortor Show. She couldn't believe I remembered her! Her name is Alita.

Like at races everywhere, there were features between the races, like the parade of classic cars.  This 1958  Fiat was immaculate . . .

. . . . as was this classic Toyota pick-up.

But tight class racing is what Bansaen is all about! This is from a "Modified Vintage" class race.

A nicely prepped Toyota KE 4-door.

Some drivers were better than others.  A sideways Toyota.

My friend Peter and I scouted the best photo angles and locations.  I got lucky with this wheel up Rothman's Mini.

I even managed some accidental art.

The One Make Toyota race was tightly contested.

We had a good location to shoot the cars going around a double apex curve that gave a lot of the drivers problems.

As over 50% of all motor vehicles in Thailand are pick-up trucks, it only figures that there would be road racing trucks at Bangsaen. The pits and track were still wet from an earlier sudden splash-and-dash thunderstorm.

There are three classes of racing trucks: vintage, standard, and modified. These Modified Truck Class racers were very fast and agile through the twisty bits.

There was a fair amount of bumping, nudging, and pushing between the race trucks.

 A race truck at speed.  Very cool. The race trucks are all turbo diesels.

After a long day we headed home . . . but fortunately NOT in this local Bangsaen bus with the big stereo!