The unusual world of Scandinavian super street drag racing

Hail­ing from Argenti­na, Tomas Hein first became inter­est­ed in pho­tog­ra­phy after get­ting a dig­i­tal cam­era in 2003 at age 17. After high school, he set off for Aus­tralia on a surf­ing trip and quick­ly became mes­mer­ized by the pos­si­bil­i­ties of photography.

“It’s no coin­ci­dence that I was drawn to pho­tog­ra­phy. My father is a chemist and my moth­er a painter, so I guess I land­ed right in between art and sci­ence,” says Hein.

With the demands of his career in fash­ion and adver­tis­ing, Hein began to yearn for a per­son­al project that could reignite the pas­sion of his youth. After mov­ing to Copen­hagen in 2020, he was final­ly able to slow down and recharge.

“When life opened up again I yearned for con­nec­tion,” says Hein. ​“Copen­hagen can be very homo­ge­neous and closed out to for­eign­ers, so the cam­era is always a good tool to explore what is behind the veil. Peo­ple open up, even the cold­est Scan­di­na­vians. It’s magic.”

While walk­ing the streets, Hein noticed a pro­lif­er­a­tion of SUVs and Amer­i­can mus­cle cars. Think­ing of the envi­ron­men­tal impact, Hein fol­lowed a lead that brought him to father and son mechan­ics John­ny and Jamie Rah­bek, who wel­comed him to their speedshop.

Hein took it all in, pho­tograph­ing the peo­ple he encoun­tered and learn­ing their sto­ries, which brought him to Malmö Race­way in 2021. Fas­ci­nat­ed by life at the track, Hein began chron­i­cling its mot­ley assort­ment of char­ac­ters for his new book, Malmö Race­way.

“I found a lot of con­tra­dic­tions at the race­way: wel­com­ing xeno­phobes, kind ex-gang mem­bers, con­spir­a­cy the­o­rists, elder­ly care­tak­ers and teenage girls rac­ing in a testos­terone fuelled envi­ron­ment,” says Hein.

Hein typ­i­cal­ly spends eight hours on a shoot, get­ting a front row view of the action as it unfolds. Adopt­ing an intu­itive approach, he works across var­i­ous cam­era for­mats to cap­ture the live ener­gy and curiosi­ties of race­way life. ​“It’s exhil­a­rat­ing! You can feel the explo­sions in your core,” Hein says.

“There’s also a sense of calm and focus in the dri­vers while they’re wait­ing to race, and deter­mi­na­tion and sweat at the work­shops while doing the final adjust­ments” he adds. ​“There’s no room for error. They spend months prepar­ing the cars for a race, which lasts between 5 to 10 sec­onds. It’s all about hon­our and fun. It’s admirable. The atten­tion to detail in some of the cars both tech­ni­cal­ly and aes­thet­i­cal­ly is immense, and to me the peo­ple work­ing on them are artists.”

One day he arrived at the track and a group of pre-teen girls were get­ting ready to race top-fuel drag­sters. He pho­tographed them in their cars one by one. Then he met Hol­ley [who is fea­tured in the main image for this piece]. ​“She wouldn’t look at me; she had a fierce and focused look, and it sur­prised me. Here is some­one spe­cial, I thought to myself,” says Hein.

“After her race I spoke to her par­ents and they explained that Hol­ley is autis­tic. When she was nine, she tried rac­ing and it helped her immense­ly, so they nev­er looked back.”

Malmö Race­way by Tomas Hein is avail­able now.

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