(MBRL)
Bill Pitt aboard the Geordie Anderson owned Jaguar D Type, perhaps during the March 1956 Strathpine, Queensland meeting.
‘XKD526’ is new. It arrived in Australia in December 1955 initially doing quarter-mile sprints at Strathpine in January 1956 and sprints at Leyburn in February on both occasions driven by Anderson. She did better than 120mph and 132.5mph respectively, the latter a state record.
Pitt took the car over from this Strathpine meeting, it was very kind to him over the next few years. Quite why he is contesting a race together with a little ‘Gunterwagen’ is a mystery one of you with the requisite Australian Motor Sports can perhaps solve!?
Click here for features on XKD526 here; https://primotipo.com/2016/03/18/lowood-courier-mail-tt-1957-jaguar-d-type-xkd526-and-bill-pitt/ and here; https://primotipo.com/2019/10/11/bill-pitt-frank-matich-and-xkd526-take-two/
Charlie Whatmore, Lotus 11 Climax ahead of Glyn Scott, Holden Special circa 1958 (MBRL)
Queensland’s Strathpine venue was 25km from Brisbane’s CBD, in the 1930s the area comprised farms and a new wartime airstrip as fears of Japanese invasion grew.
The Queensland Motor Sporting Club used its runways for a sprint meeting in 1938 but the place ‘blossomed’ post-war into a race circuit after local ‘Lawnton Garage’ proprietor and racer Snow Sefton saw its potential.
Local legend has it that after his garage closed for the day Snow ‘borrowed’ the Pine Rivers Shire Council’s road-making equipment to convert the airstrip into a dragstrip. ‘Councillors back then all lived out of town and were completely oblivious to Snow and his mates nicking their machinery and the racket they made turning the dusty airstrip into a bona-fide racetrack.’
Click here for a piece about Snow and his cars; https://primotipo.com/2019/04/30/bill-cuncliffe-ford-v8-spl-lowood-1956/
Snow Sefton, Strathpine Ford V8 Spl out front of his local garage (unattributed)
Initial up-and-back events around 44-gallon drums evolved into a small 1.4 mile circuit when the ‘Southern Loop’ was added in 1953 and a chicane in 1955. It was still pretty basic, haybales marked the turns in addition to the forty-fours in a nod to safety…
Only ever a club circuit because of its size and difficulty of racing on Sundays, 1960 was its last season. Lakeside’s construction close-by at Kurwongbah carried the torch forward.
We will come back to something about the place in future which is a bit more fulsome.
(L Manton)
John Aldis’ ex-Peter Whitehead/Stan Jones Cooper T38 Jaguar amongst the Strathpine grass and trees during May 1956. I’m not sure how he went.
This 1955 Le Mans veteran’s most successful Australian phase was when it was raced by Ron Phillips and prepared by Ern Seeliger. Highlight of that period was victory in the June 1959 Australian Tourist Trophy at Lowood, another Queensland airfield circuit.
The car is still in Australia and ‘still in Queensland’! There is a bit about it here; https://primotipo.com/2019/03/05/mount-tarrengower-hillclimb/
(L Manton)
Etcetera…
Credits…
MBRL- Moreton Bay Region Libraries, Stephen Dalton, Luke Manton Collection, drive.com.au, Terry McGrath
Finito…
primotipo... 