primotipo…

(R Thorncraft)

Allan Moffat chases Pete Geoghegan out of Creek Corner at Warwick Farm in September 1970…

Goodness knows how many dices these fellas had over the two short years the race histories of the cars converged- Geoghegan’s car was locally built in Sydney by John Sheppard and was continually developed from the time of its debut in 1967, Al Pal’s was a factory KarKraft machine which arrived in Australia in early 1969.

Russell Thorncraft’s photo has drama too- all the dust and shite being thrown up by the cars using all of the road and then some. The meeting is dated by Pete’s ‘rear spoiler’ too- remember him trying a jacked open boot lid either ‘for real’ as downforce or as a ruse!

Etcetera…

(L Hemer)

Lynton Hemer’s shot of Pete at the end of practice at Oran Park above on 9 August 1969 shows some aero experimentation- note the boot strut support.

Lynton recalls ‘These are a couple of overexposed, grainy photos of Pete…Note the strut under the boot lid. If my memory serves me right, I remember him running the car with the boot up in some type of Colin Chapman like experiment with downforce.’

‘Whether he raced the car that way, I can’t recall, but it only happened this once that I know of’- we can now see he did race this way at the ‘farm in 1970.

‘Whether the scrutineers frowned upon it, or it just didn’t work who knows? The car was unbeatable at Oran Park that year (1969) and most of the next, so why he tried it is a mystery’ Hemer concluded.

The photo below shows him deploying his secret weapon as he hunts down Alan Hamilton’s Porsche 911 R/T at Oran Park in 1969- same OP meeting Lynton refers to as above?

(R Thorncraft)

Credits…

Russell Thorncraft, Lynton Hemer

Tailpiece…

(R Thorncraft)

Finito…