I imagine the colour of the underwear of the photographer was changing at this moment, protected only by a layer of Armco as he was. Still, if the worst happened he could decamp into the dam behind…Shots from this spot at Sandown, outside Peters/Torana Corner are rare after about this time as the spot was made Verboten!
Norm Beechey, Holden Monaro HT GTS 350 from the Pete Geoghegan (left) and Bob Jane Mustang 302s, with a smidge of Jim McKeown’s Porsche 911S behind Pete, and then most of Brian Foley’s, and the rest. 1970 Australian Touring Car Championship, round three, April 19.
While Allan Moffat started from pole (where is he in this shot!?), Stormin’ Norm had a great day at the office, leading from start to finish and setting a lap record. He took his second 1970 ATCC round win of the season, victorious from Geoghegan and Moffat (Mustang Trans-Am 302) on the way to an immensely popular series win in his big, booming, Shell-yellow Monaro GTS 350; the first time an Oz built car had won the title.
These two shots are of man and machine at Symmons Plains circa-1970, not sure of the meeting date, the number doesn’t work for the ATCC round.
Ray Barfield races his ex-works/David McKay Aston Martin DB3S, chassis 9, at Caversham in 1959, meeting date folks?
The second placed car at Le Mans in 1956 (Stirling Moss/Peter Collins) was initially raced in Australia by McKay with success, before passing briefly through Stan Jones’ hands and into Barfield’s, where, I believe, it remains. More about the car in this article: https://primotipo.com/2017/09/28/david-mckays-aston-martin-db3ss/
Gary Russell-Brown very kindly sent in these shots of the Barfield/DB3S combination at Caversham during the June 6, 1960 Six Hour Le Mans. Ray was a DNF after completing 60 laps, the winner, Jack Ayres/Lionel Beattie did 178.
John Harvey under brakes on the entry to Creek Corner, Warwick Farm 1972. His mount is the brilliant – small, variable rate suspension, side-radiator, edgy-wedge – work of John Joyce, the Bob Jane owned Bowin P8 Repco-Holden F5000
P8-118-72 was completed at Bowin’s, Brookvale, Sydney factory in August 1972 to Bob Jane’s order, fitted with a Repco Holden V8 for John Harvey.
It practiced at the Surfers Aug 27 Gold Star round but didn’t start with fuel problems. Harvey then raced in a non-championship event at Warwick Farm a week later (above), where he was fifth in the first heat but collided with Kevin Bartlett at the start of second.
At that point, major team sponsor, Castrol, directed Jane to put most of the team’s energies into racing their touring cars: the Camaro, Monaro and Torana’s, while the Bowin and McLaren M6B Repco V8 sportscar were largely set aside.
In mid-1974 the car, less engine and gearbox, was sold to John Leffler to replace his damaged ANF2 Bowin P8 Hart-Ford #P8-136-74. Leffler pranged his new Bowin on its debut at Amaroo Park.
Converted to ANF2 specification – fitted with a Hart-Ford 416B 1.6-litre engine, Hewland FT200 gearbox etc – he raced P8-118-72 in the Australian F2 Championship and in Gold Star events. Once sorted, the car was a jet, winning the Phillip Island F2 round late in the year.
Sue Ransom leased and raced it at Calder and Wanneroo Park in 1975. The car remained in Western Australia, perhaps owned by Rod Housego and Ian Wookey, before reappearing at Wanneroo in Rob Richards hands between 1980-82 in Formula Pacific – Ford BDA engined – specification.
Perth Bowin fan Matthew Lloyd did a superb job restoring the car to ANF2 spec, but he died in 2008 just as it was being finished. Bought by Dean Saunders in 2009, I believe it is being slowly re-restored to Repco-Holden F5000 spec, do get in touch if you have more recent information. .
I just like this pair of posters to promote brand new Surfers Paradise International Raceway in 1966.
While it was a fabulous circuit, and at the time built in the-sticks, the incredible growth of the Gold Coast made it irresistible to developers, which was its fate circa August 1987.
See here for a bit about one of these early meetings: https://primotipo.com/2015/02/13/jackie-stewart-at-surfers-paradise-speed-week-1966-brabham-bt11a-climax-and-ferrari-250lm/
John Harvey’s Brabham BT23E Repco 740 in the foreground, while Niel Allen jumps aboard his McLaren M10B Chev at Bathurst during the Easter 1970 weekend.
He set the longtime – 32 years – lap record of 2:09.7 sec at that meeting, see here: https://primotipo.com/2018/11/26/bathurst-lap-record/
In the shot below Niel jumps off the line, it’s Leo Geoghegan’s Lotus 39 Repco on the far side.
Ain’t she sweet…John Harvey’s Bob Jane Racing Jane Repco 830 2.5 V8 at rest in the Warwick Farm paddock during the Gold Star round on September 6.
Harves was out with fuel pump failure, Leo Geoghegan won the race, and ultimately the title aboard his Lotus 59B Waggott TC-4V 2-litre.
This car was built on Bob Britton’s (Rennmax Engineering) Brabham BT23 jig to replace Jane’s ageing BT23E with many mods but notably changes in suspension geometry to suit the latest generation of ever-widening tyres. It exists in a West Australian museum.
See here for a piece on the 1970 Gold Star: https://primotipo.com/2019/07/05/oran-park-diamond-trophy-gold-star-1970/
Wal Donnelly racing his Turner Mk2 Ford at Warwick Farm in 1965. He did well with it, leaving for Europe not long after for some F3 racing.
This car had a very successful record in the hands of Donnelly, Paul Hamilton and others, see more here: http://www.turnersportscars.co.uk/articles/racing_car_news_aug_1971/racing_car_news_aug_1971.html
I love Graham Ruckert’s superb shot of John French on the limit in Pete Geoghegan’s recalcitrant but very powerful Ford Super Falcon in front of Brian Foley’s superb in every respect Alfa Romeo GTAm at Lakeside on July 25, 1971.
It was Lakeside’s Australian Touring Car Championship round that weekend. Pete gave the car a gallop in a support race but elected to race his trusty Mustang in the championship event, having French – a Ford factory racer – drive the Big Henry.
Frenchie stood in, similarly, in Moffat’s car at Surfers Pardise, making him the only man to race both these somewhat maligned Group C/Improved Touring Ford Falcon GTHO 351 racers. See here for more about the car: https://primotipo.com/2015/10/15/greatest-ever-australian-touring-car-championship-race-bathurst-easter-1972/
It seems right to show you furriners what a standard Ford Falcon GTHO looks like…here it’s Allan Moffat easing his beast – an XW Phase 1 GTHO – out of Peters Corner at Sandown during his victorious Sandown 3-Hour win on September 14, 1969.
Moffat/John French won from two other similar cars crewed by Tom Roddy/Murray Carter and Fred Gibson/Barry Seton.
Jim Clark, Lotus 49 Ford DFW ahead of Chris Amon, Ferrari Dino 246T at Dandenong Road, Sandown during their epic dice for the lead of the 1968 Australian Grand Prix in February 1968.
See here for more about that race: https://primotipo.com/2021/03/06/1968-australian-gp-sandown-2/
Geoff Brabham – 1975 Australian F2 Champion – raced his Birrana 274 Hart-Ford 416-B 1.6 ANF2 car twice at Calder in May and August 1975.
While Brian Sampson’s Cheetah Mk5 Toyota ANF3 car behind makes sense the Alan Gissing Holden sporty does not, so I guess it’s a practice session. Geoff won three of the seven rounds, and the ’75 title, with Alf Costanzo second and Andrew Miedecke third. See here: https://primotipo.com/2018/09/20/brabs-gets-the-jump/
Then he was off to Europe, racing an F3 Ralt RT1 Toyota in 1976, fame and fortune followed for the elder of the Brabham sons: https://primotipo.com/2015/03/31/geoff-and-jack-brabham-monza-1966/
Leo Geoghegan’s Lotus 39 Repco V8 is pushed onto the grid of the Mallala Gold Star round on October 13, 1969, not sure who that is alongside.
If the car looks a bit odd it’s coz it’s pregnant. Geoghegan contested the JAF Grand Prix (Japanese GP), on May 3 and won it, but he needed bigger tanks than the ones fitted designed for 100 mike Tasman races, see here: https://primotipo.com/2015/03/02/leo-geoghegan-australian-driving-champion-rip/
Garrie Cooper won that day at Mallala – GC’s only Gold Star victory – in his superb Elfin 600C Repco 830 V8 from Geoghegan and Max Stewart’s Mildren Waggott TC-4V 1.6.
Kevin Bartlett won the Gold Star that year aboard the Mildren Yellow Submarine which was powered by Alfa Romeo T33 2.5 V8s until the final round when he won the Hordern Trophy at Warwick Farm armed with the first of Merv Waggott’s 2-litre TC-4Vs.
Paul Radisich (above and below) tips his Holden Special Vehicles Commodore VE into Shell Corner during the Sandown 500, the ninth round of the 2007 Australian V8 Supercar Championship on September 14-16.
He shared the car with Rick Kelly to second place, the following machine is the Will Davison/Steve Johnson Ford Falcon BF. The race was won by Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowndes’ Triple Eight Falcon BF.
Garth Tander (HSV Commodore VE) won the 2007 drivers title – by two points from Whincup – and HSV the team championship.
All antipodean front row at the start of the 1969 Selangor Grand Prix. Roly Levis’ Brabham BT23C Ford on pole, then Graeme Lawrence’s McLaren M4A Ford FVA in the middle, and Garrie Cooper’s Elfin 600C Repco 830 V8 2.5 on the right.
Lawrence, surely with John McDonald the ‘winningest’ of drivers in South East Asia in the period, won the race from Levis and Australian, Tony Maw, Elfin 600 Ford.
Ron Marks and Graham Gillies aboard Marks’ Lancia Stratos HF in the Samford Forest on the press day before the start of the 1976 Lutwyche Village Warana Rally, the final round of six in the Australian Rally Championship that year.
The pair finished fourth, first was Murray Coote and Brian Marsden in a Datsun 1600. The ARC was won by Ross Dunkerton and Jeff Beaumont aboard a Datsun 240Z; four wins and one second placing.
Ex-water-skiing champion, Marks’ other rally credits included starts in the 1976 Holden Dealers, SEV Marchal and Southern Cross, and 1978 Southern Cross and the Castrol International rallies.
The shot above shows the car out front of the Annand & Thompson Lancia and Fiat dealership in Newstead, Brisbane, before the ’76 Warana Rally.
Graham Ruckert, “I was selling Fiat/Lancia cars for the dealership at the time, they provided some sponsorship for the event and we got to display the car during the week before the event…I had a short run in the passenger seat with Ron Marks on the Press Day at Samford which was pretty memorable!”
And above demonstrating the style for which the Stratos was famous during the October 1976 Holden Dealers International Rally held in the forests around Moe and Traralgon. Those large chimneys in the background belong to one of the coal fired power stations in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley.
MG TC Specials to the fore at the start of the Lobethal 50, a support race for the 1948 South Australian 100, held at Lobethal on New Years Day, January 1. #32 is Ron Edgerton, #29 is Harold Clisby, #31 is WJ Mentz, while car #34 further back is raced by AK Eadie.
The 100 mile, 12 lap, handicap feature race was run in front of 10,000 spectators in cool conditions and was won by Jim Gullan’s Ballot Oldsmobile from Granton Harrison in the Phillips Ford V8 Special, then Edgerton’s TC.
Speaking of the great Harold Clisby, here he is a few years later at left with the equally talented Phil Irving at Sandown on March 2, 1962.
Harold would have been up to his armpits designing his F1 Clisby 1.5-litre engine, while Phil’s Repco Brabham RB620 2.5/3-litre is still a couple of years away…Mind you, Jack Brabham took more than a passing glance of the aluminium 3.9-litre Buick V8 fitted in the back of Chuck Daigh’s Scarab RE only yards away.
The F85 Oldsmobile V8 that Jack pitched successfully to the Repco Board as the basis of his new Tasman 2.5 litre engine was the Buick’s brother, different only in the number of head retention studs. See here: https://primotipo.com/2016/01/27/chucks-t-bird/
See here: https://primotipo.com/2018/10/18/clisby-douglas-spl-and-clisby-f1-1-5-litre-v6/ and here: https://primotipo.com/2014/08/07/rb620-v8-building-the-1966-world-championship-winning-engine-rodways-repco-recollections-episode-2/
Derek Kneller has just finished assembling Bob Muir’s – Bob and Marj Brown owned – Chevron B35 Ford BDX 2-litre F2 car in Chevron’s Bolton factory in early 1977.
Muir gave the cream of the factory F2 crop something to think about that year, especially at Mugello, see here: https://primotipo.com/2023/02/13/bob-muir-r-i-p/
Barry Randall’s Ex-Doug MacArthur Rennmax Repco 2.5 V8 blasting out of MG Corner at Phillip Island as a car in the background makes the downhill plunge into it.
Car then raced for many years in Victoria by the Gibson family out of Benalla, and for many years owned by Jay Bondini.
Mark Webber on his way to winning the 2010 Monaco Grand Prix in his Red Bull RB6 Renault. That’s Seb Vettel and Robert Kubica behind. See here for more: https://primotipo.com/2014/08/28/mark-webber-red-bull-rb6-renault-singapore-grand-prix-2010/ The nuances of the RB6 rear diffuser are shown during the 2010 Hungarian GP weekend below.
Battle of the ‘1.6-litre Four Valvers’ during the May 3, 1969 J.A.F. Grand Prix aka the Japanese GP.
Sohei Kato’s third-placed Mitsubishi Colt F2C R39B ahead of Glyn Scott’s fourth placed Bowin P3 Waggott TC-4V at Fuji International. Up the front, Leo Geoghegan won in his venerable ex-Jim Clark Lotus 39 Repco 830 2.5 V8 from Roly Levis’ Brabham BT23C Ford FVA. More here: https://primotipo.com/2015/03/02/leo-geoghegan-australian-driving-champion-rip/
A random internet find, a decent drawing of the Alec Mildren Brabham BT23D Alfa Romeo T33 2.5 V8 raced throughout 1968-69 by Frank Gardner and Kevin Bartlett.
KB is shown below in grand style by Dick Simpson at Bathurst during Easter 1968. Kevin was the quickest man on the mountain that weekend but was ousted with a broken rear upright, Phil West won his only Gold Star round aboard the Scuderia Veloce Brabham BT23A Repco V8. See here for more: https://primotipo.com/2021/07/06/mellow-yellow/
Credits…
Peter D’Abbs, Greg Feltham, Gary Russell-Brown, Jock Alexander, Lance Ruting, Graham Ruckert, David Blanch-autopics.com.au, Repco, MotorSport Images, Eli Solomon Archive, Bruce Keys, Tony Parkinson Collection, Derek Kneller, Kevin Drage, Graham Ruckert, Bob Dickson, Dick Simpson-oldracephotos.com
Tailpiece…
Marks and Gillies again in the Warana Rally.
Does anyone know the history of this car before it came to Australia? My Stratos owning friend, Phil Allen tells me he thinks there are only two Stratos resident in Australia at present and this isn’t the other one…
Finito…
primotipo... 