Can you remember?

[Aarrgh8]

This is sounding like the four Yorkshiremen. Still, here's my bit.. (cracked cup an' all)

Mount Druitt, 1953. I was a little boy, but I just loved the cars racing past me. I was equally interested in the other kids collecting bottle-tops, then using the cork inside the cap to make a badge on their jumpers. S & G and Shelleys were highly prized, as I recall.

Seeing an FJ cark it front of us, then to see the driver pull a bottle of soft-drink from somewhere inside his car, then crack it open, using the FJ's bumper-bar as an opener was another highlight.

By the time Norm Beechey and Ian Geoghegan came along, I was feeling quite old.

[Aarrgh8]

Oh, drinkalot. I was a flag marshall for the NSW Super Modified Association during the sixties. Westmead on Sunday afternoons. Turn 1 flag marshall was me. Sid Hopping used to start in his ex-Marshall Seargent beast just past me. I remember him calling me to use the stick on my flag to get some of the Stromberg 97s on his Corvette to stop sticking.

Long time ago. Sid has been a good friend of mine ever since. I think I've shut out of my mind flag-marshalling the Stockrods that followed the Super Modified feature, but I'm still here.

[Falcadore]

LIke a fairly large number of people here my first TV race was Bathurst 1977. I was five. Next day I'd picked my two fave matchbox sedans and crayoned a 1 & 2 on them. Moffat was a Dodge Challenger and Bond a Lincoln I think :P

[rdmdog]

How is this, Brock, Johnson and Bartlett at Coppins Crossing in 1983 maybe 82, taking part in a rallysprint, in their respective Group C cars!!

I was only 9 at the time, so they may not have been their actual race cars, but looked a hell of a lot like it!!

Crikey, that was over 20 Years ago!!!!

[Falcadore]

Originally Posted by Falcadore

LIke a fairly large number of people here my first TV race was Bathurst 1977. I was five. Next day I'd picked my two fave matchbox sedans and crayoned a 1 & 2 on them. Moffat was a Dodge Challenger and Bond a Lincoln I think :P

My first attended race was a year later at Surfers Paradise (strangely not the geographically much closer Lakeside) when Dick Johnson broke the lap record in his XC.

Dad used to take me to the Ekka every saturday night for a while, but I couldn;t understand the Sprintcars and midgets of the era. Once Dad got sick of trying to bond with his troublesome son that work took too much time from I stopped attending racing until I started going myself in late high school in the late 80's to Lakeside to see the Shell Redbacks of Johnson and Bowe at their peak.

In 1997 I started the Road to Bathurst e-mail newsletter, and a year later started getting commissions in both webzines and print. Had my first photograph published in 1999. Commentated my first race meeting at Lakeside in about 2001 and made me television debut last year at the 24.

[Aarrgh8]

Grimace, Norm Beechey first raced the Chev Nova in 1966. It was replaced by a Chev Camaro in 1968, which was replaced by his first Holden Monaro in 1969. If your photos are of it in Neptune blue with two narrow white stripes, it was '66. By '67, it was black with a red stripe outlined with two yellow bands ('Shell Tridents' team). A bit hard to pick in a small black and white photo.

The Nova had 36 race wins, and a heap of seconds to Geoghegan's Mustang. Probably its best effort was a DNF at Lakeside. Norm was leading the ATCC easily with a big straight-line advantage, and was pulling away from Geoghegan, when the Chev blew a left rear with a few laps to go.

[coln72]

First race I remember attending was the World Touring Car round at Calder in 1987?

Prior to that I remember going to a number of local rallies with my old man.

[team drinkalot]

Originally Posted by Aarrgh8

Oh, drinkalot. I was a flag marshall for the NSW Super Modified Association during the sixties. Westmead on Sunday afternoons. Turn 1 flag marshall was me. Sid Hopping used to start in his ex-Marshall Seargent beast just past me. I remember him calling me to use the stick on my flag to get some of the Stromberg 97s on his Corvette to stop sticking.

Long time ago. Sid has been a good friend of mine ever since. I think I've shut out of my mind flag-marshalling the Stockrods that followed the Super Modified feature, but I'm still here.

How good was the side show alley outside the track at Westmead. Some much fun for the kids, how times have changed, and how much we have to spend on our kids for them to have a good time.

[Beejay17]

Originally Posted by Aarrgh8

By the time Norm Beechey and Ian Geoghegan came along, I was feeling quite old.

My first race meeting was Bathurst one Easter (1969?). Pete Geoghegan out in front and then being caught and passed by Norm.

Most spectacular part was the side cars through McPhillamy. I thought those passenger guys were mad...

[pete55]

I wanna know how a team that drinksalot remembersalot.

[retro]

I can't remember if I have posted in this thread yet. :-)

[sizzle]

First race meeting I went to was at Calder, about all I can remember where Beechey (Nova), McKeown (Porsche) and Peter Manton in his Mini. They were the Neptune racing team in those days. I do remember seeing Warwick Farm on the TV when I was even littler. I saw Brock debut the original SLR-5000 (before the L34) and blow in the biggest cloud of smoke I have ever seen. Can even remember that awesome EH Ron Harrop used to race. There was nothing better though than sitting at the old globe corner (before they remodelled the drag strip and the wall was the fence) and watching the F5000's understeer through there.

[Henry]

First one was Mountainview hillclimb 1985 at 13 y.o (late bloomer)... went to Bathurst in 94, don't remember a great deal about it though....

[Bimmerhead]

My dad took my brother and I to Roley Park speedway during a holiday to Adelaide in 1962. We spent most of the night collecting soft dronk bottles that people threw away and taking them back for the deposit!! Loved speedway ever since! My dad was a big speedway fan having helped out on a 1000cc V-twin JAP powered speedcar driven by one Jack Brabham in the 1950's. I have a great b&w photo somewhere of the crew and JB proudly standing around the car. Magic.......

First time I went to a road racing track was Oran Park in 1977 to attend a sprint meeting in my RX2.

[cavvy]

Caversham 1957 AGP - described by Ray Bell as the low point of AGP competition yet I was hooked. Lex Davison was 1st, Stan Jones 2nd, Jack Brabham 3rd. Bill Patterson, Derek Jolly, Syd Negus, Fred Coxon (famous because he gave me a ride in his Holden open wheeler (on his knee) in not too suburban Scarborough). Must be the only time Ray was off the mark.
The 1968 London- Sydney as a control official on the first very competitive Lake King stage - still got some great photos.

[team drinkalot]

Originally Posted by pete55

I wanna know how a team that drinksalot remembersalot.

I don't remember too much but some things just stick in my head and they need a jump start to fire them out.

[team drinkalot]

What about when they turned Liverpool speedway to bitumen.....what a shocker!

[275 GTB-4]

Originally Posted by team drinkalot

Watching Bill Warner giving his competitors 1 lap head start at Westmead Speedway (now Weastmead Hospital), and then catch them and kick their bottoms. Maybe late 60's.

Yeah...Bill Warner...unbeatable when on song!!

[Growling Ferret]

I don't remember my first race meeting, as Mum and Dad decided that a trip to Sydney to watch the speedway at Liverpool Speedway then the races at Warwick Farm the next day was the right way to bring up a child that was 6 weeks old...

I know we always went to Oran Park every year and regularly went to Amaroo, and Dad crewed for rally teams, but Fraser Park Speedway (aka Tralee/Pepsi Powerdome) in Canberra was a Saturday night ritual... I remember the cars from the stickers on my old bunk bed, but the highlight was getting sugar coated hot doughnuts from the caravan at the back of the control tower....

Now this is a long shot - I remember going to a meeting, somewhere outside of Canberra, and George Fury was rallying (I think a Bluebird)

Anyone? What was that? Were there ever short staged rallysprints in the early 80's?

[rdmdog]

Growler, If you have a look at my earlier post on this topic, I would think that George Fury would have been there too (Coppins Crossing), but as Fury was a rally ace firstly, then he would have been to Canberra for thru the trees in the suburbs, numerous times. If I look hard enough then I might even find the program for the event!!

I was lucky enough to ride my treadily to the rallys at the Cotter, and stop at Maccas at Weston for the service perv.

[Falcadore]

Fury would have been a Datsun, yes, but not a Bluebird. More likely a Stanza. Bluebird was a bitumen only program for Nissan.

[rdmdog]

He may have been at the rally sprint with Brock Johnson and Bartlett in their Group C cars as I described earlier. I do however remember the program having a picture of a Nissan Silvia (GroupB ??) Rally car that I have never seen in Aus.

[Camaroz]

The Nisan Silvia was bought into the country by the Thompsons (Doug/Pud) of Shepparton. I remember Fury in a Bluebird but it may have been a Drummond car.