Luddenham Raceway

A brand spanking new racetrack opened up in Sydney just recently, much to my surprise actually. In this day and age we live in such a crowded city as Sydney is, with ever increasing housing estates on ever decreasing land sizes and noise and congestion at all time highs another race track was the last thing I expected.

I had a sunday arvo free and whilst the girls attended church I thought I would attend my ahem...church of sorts and take my camera along for some practice.

Photo from https://luddenhamraceway.com/about-us/

The track is a little off the beaten path but arriving I noticed they had a go-kart circuit and paint ball facility to go along with the new 1.4km undulating circuit. The track itself is situated on the side of a hill and has 22m of elevation change.

The track is fenced off from the public with a gate with electronic swipe card access. Damn it, I'll have to attend reception to see if I can enter. So off I go with camera in hand and I have to sign in for a pass/swipe card, fluro vest and $5 lighter in the hip pocket for spectating. Once inside the circuit it was time to scout out some photo locations. There is a rather small spectator area with seating but it sit's right behind a huge mesh fence, not very conducive of photography.

I had to laugh as Maria the receptionist radioed through to one of the track marshall's to show the 'photographer' through. If only they knew.....

Today's event was a Bernie Hatton Top Rider school. Bernie pictured below.

Shawn Giles - Aussie Superbike champion

Whilst standing at the end of the straight taking these last few photos I got a stinging pain in the back of my leg. Looking down I'd been shot with a paintball pellet which was now laying next to my camera bag. Whilst this was quite annoying, what really annoyed me more was that I could see paint balls laying on the track on turn 1, the fastest turn in point of the track. This is incredibly dangerous and they really need to look at this before something bad happens. What if a rider is hit in the visor at speed or goes down on a slippery paintball. I've sent Maria an email and am awaiting a response.

The circuit looks quite interesting and challenging with its various curves up and down over the hills although it does look a little short, but I bet its still a hoot to ride.


Here is a collage of photo's I put together of ex Aussie Superbike Champion Shawn Giles sliding the new GSXR thou out onto the main straight then into a wheelie, youtube has compressed it so it's not as sharp as the photos I took.