This page contains links to written contributions on the web site. Click on the name in the article description column to be forwarded to the relevant document.
| Article Description | Date |
| 1960s Photographs | Page 1 | 8/7/05 |
| 1960s Photographs | Page 2 | 9/7/05 |
| 1970s Photographs | Page 1 | 18/7/05 |
| New Zealand Gallery | 15/7/05 |
| Nyora Speedway | 15/7/05 |
| Tracey’s Speedway | 15/7/05 |
MEDIA RELEASE
Long Lease Locks in Lakeside
Brisbane, Queensland – Supporters of Queensland’s Lakeside Raceway received an early Christmas present this year with the Pine Rivers Shire Council and Wrexmere Pty Ltd (Queensland Raceway) signing off on a long term lease to operate the historic circuit on Brisbane’s north side.
The agreement for 30 years, with an option for 10 years, obtained State Government Ministerial approval and will insure the facility celebrates its 50th anniversary on 19 March 2011.
Lakeside Motor Racing Enthusiasts president Ian Milton said,
“We’re delighted and relieved by the news, but if we want to get on the track, everyone will have to pitch in and do their part – there’s no more excuses for sitting on the sidelines.”
When asked what the major challenges were to getting club-level motor racing back to Lakeside, John Tetley of Queensland Raceway said,
“We have all the usual major project hassles including red tape, availability of scarce resources, etc.”
Mr Tetley said that an initial $1.2 million has already been secured to invest on rebuilding infrastructure and,
“The rest will depend on how wisely we invest the initial capital input and how many people come and spend their money there.”
“We’re targeting and hoping to re-open the driver training in February or March next year. Racing, maybe June, depending on a lot of variables including re-education of competitors and neighbour management.”
Pine Rivers Shire Councillor Mike Charlton was very excited to declare the situation as “all systems go!” He described the council’s vision for Lakeside as,
“Preservation of an iconic motorsport site embracing historic, commercial and club motorsport activities, combined with life-saving driver and rider education and community events.”
Cr Charlton said that a legal action in the Planning & Environment Court between the PRSC and Mr Ron Curtis is “unlikely to delay” and is confident in their legal advice because it is “tried and tested” law. Last month a local newspaper article revealed that people had been listed as co-applicants without their permission. The action has been adjourned until 23 January, 2008.
Mr Milton pointed out the significance of events,
“An historic moment is occuring for the people of Queensland, and particularly the motorsport community, because I can think of no other example of a motor racing circuit in Australia being brought back from the brink like Lakeside.”
“On behalf of LMRE members, I would like to extend a sincere invitation to anyone who has a passion for motorsport to help us get this deal over the line by registering on-line to help reconstruct Lakeside. You don’t need to be an engineer, just bring the right attitude.
Here is an account of some of Tony Stott’s adventurous times with Terry Allan.
“Terry Allan originally took his mum’s auto EH and got Brian Sampson’s Motor Improvements to give it the works. I remember going round Albert Park in a chase car, while Brian gave it a test run, without bonnet, and with hoses not yet cut to length.
Before Terry took it off the road, we had about a month of “American Graffiti” type antics, as a street Holden capable of 15.0 second quarter miles, and capable of almost 100mph in second gear was something rather special in the mid 60s!. I also remember Terry going to the drags at Fishermen’s Bend airstrip. His first ever pass netted (I think) 15.3 seconds, and the crowd went bananas! We were both awestruck to find ourselves in the middle of a crowd of 200-300, and the commentators quickly changed their tune to “And here comes Terry Allan in his awesome Holden!” He was the second fastest street-registered car there, behind a 289 Cobra powered Zephyr.
His car was painted standard dark EH Holden red, and all he did was get the white roof painted red to match the rest of the car. I cannot recall any other EHs racing at the time other than Muir and Beechey, and Terry definitely raced (and crashed) at Catalina Park.
He went on to race in the Holden class at Hume Weir (his first race meeting), and also Oran Park, Calder and the Easter Bathurst meeting. At the latter, he tried oversized Firestone rubber, (Melinda’s dad Dave Price got a turn driving) but one sidewall wore through on the suspension, causing a spin at McPhillamy Park. No harm to the EH except Midge Bosworth’s immaculate FJ clipped the front of the EH, and then flipped a couple of times, totally destroying what was easily the best prepared racing Holden at the time.
I got my jollies knowing that in later races, my trouser belt was used as a replacement bonnet strap :^) From memory, I think the maximum speed down Conrod was 127mph…. not as quick as Muir’s car, but quick for the time nevertheless. After Terry bought Brian Muir’s S4 (and repainted it Scuderia Veloce orange/red instead of the mid green Brian had it), he then bought a Lotus Cortina from Allan Moffat, and I had the pleasure of a hot lap at Calder in it. The plan was to join Moff in USA in the Pro-Am series. Unfortunately, Moffat cabled soon after to say not to come as there was not enough money to make it viable”. – TONY STOTT. 29/12/03
IAN GEOGHEGAN R.I.P.
Ian “Pete” Geoghegan, multiply Australian Touring Car Champion and Bathurst winner passed away in Sydney’s Royal Prince Alfred Hospital on Saturday 15/11/03. He was 64 years of age.
Australian Tony Stott was a professional motor racing photographer. Some of his work can be found on the “International page” photo page on this web site.
Tony gives an interesting insight into his photography career, below:
“I started race photography in early 1965, by doing soft pencil drawings for drivers such as Peter Manton, Lou Molina etc, and soon discovered that the drivers were more interested in the photos I took to base the drawings on (and it was frankly less work :^).
I built up the market in Victoria to a reasonable level, and at the same time, convinced a mate of mine to go car racing… I had a lot of my work published in Motor Manual, working with a young Peter Robinson, and had a few photos make the back page in the Melbourne dailies.
Terry Allan was a friend of mine. Terry bought Brian Muir’s EH, and then bought Allan Moffat’s Lotus Cortina, and planned to run in the Pro-am series in the States. A last minute call from Moffat caused Terry to change plans, and sell the Cortina, so we both went to England. I resumed race photography over there, while contributing to UK Motoring News, Wheels, Motor Manual and Racing Car News and others.
I attended some 150 race meetings in Europe, including all F1 races in UK, Spa, Monaco, plus Nurburgring 1000, LeMans and others. After a while, I worked with Nigel Snowden and Diana Burnett, but in Monaco 1968, a chat with Eion S Young convinced me that getting married and starting out trying to become a full-time F1 race photographer were not compatible. So I reluctantly hung up my camera.
The real tragedy if it all is that being so young at the time, I did not appreciate the historical value of my work, which was 4 years of intensive race photos in Europe and 2 in Australia, from out on the track, and over the years, most of my negatives have been lost.”
I queried Tony when I noticed that in some of his photos he appeared to be standing on the footpath with no protection between him and the cars! Here is Tony’s response:
“Yes, I was indeed standing on the footpath, and I remember squatting on the apex of the hairpin heading downhill towards the tunnel at Monaco, during practice (I would never interfere with a race!), and having to tuck my elbow in! True story! The same thing crouching behind the Armco outside the TipTop bar after Casino square. Sometimes the drivers would get a little too close while trying to line up the following right hander, and the tyres were no more than a foot away from my left elbow!
At LeMans, I usually walked along the top of the earth banks lining the track, so the cars might be less than 4 feet away laterally, but about 6 feet lower. At Nurburgring, I was jealous of Nigel Snowden, because while we both had photographers’ armbands, his was signed by the Chief of Police, and he could literally stand where he wanted to, able to wave off any approaching policemen by pointing to the signature! Actually, my bigger fear at Nurburgring was due to the student riots happening at the time… it is not easy to sleep in a tent beside the track, when a BMW is torched four cars away :^( Due to the riots, there was no petrol available in France, so we had to return from Monaco via that awesome pass (you know the one, with about 15 consecutive hairpins) up through northern Italy, through the big tunnel, up through Germany and Belgium. A 24 hour drive…
Also, at Silverstone, I used to stand inside a single row of concrete blocks marking the inside line of the track (first corner after the start, forget the name). In one race, John Rhodes in his works Cooper S momentarily backed off mid-corner, and the Mini punched the blocks about 20 feet in front of me. The impact sent him back on line, while the blocks showered around me! Next lap, when he saw I had not been clobbered, he gave me a grin and a huge thumbs up, while his front tyres poured the usual cloud of smoke (they later worked out better ways to drive with LSDs in Minis :^)
The closest I ever came to being clobbered was during a warm-up lap at Brands Hatch. I was talking to another photographer outside the right hander downhill from Druids hairpin. The other guy (stupidly) had his back to the track, when someone lost it. I saw it coming, so I grabbed him aside, but the car ran over his bag, which had been at his feet!” 24/11/03
The Kathy Burban Story.
“I met Allan Moffat thru my father – we not only had an English Ford/MG/Lotus dealership (in Michigan) but we warehoused new sports cars that came over from England and then shipped them on to the rest of the ‘States’ . My father knew I would love to see a car with the steering wheel on the right side….as luck would have it Allan was at the warehouse making sure his ‘baby’ was all ok….geeez it all seems so very long ago….and that’s how a friendship was born I guess.
Sometimes he and Peter Quenet would work on their cars at the dealership on Sunday afternoons and I had to ‘baby-sit’ the place while they were there….sometimes I worked on my car – like take a part of the heater out – I vaguely remember being on the ‘creeper’ under the Cortina and rolling over one of my pigtails with the damn ‘creeper’….they thought it was very funny that I couldn’t move…actually they thought everything I did was funny because I was a ‘girl’ and didn’t ever take me very seriously… until I won 1st place overall trophies race after race that is…
Allan sometimes would help us out by picking up cars up at the docks from where they were 1st dropped off the ships. We would be one long caravan of filthy dirty nasty English cars driving down the streets of Detroit back to warehouse. I never knew new cars could be that disgusting – it always took 3 baths to get all of the filthy, sooty ship dirt off me….he taught me Australian-like ‘bun’ really meant ‘doughnut ( I brought him back a hamburger bun-couldn’t figure out why he would want that first thing in the morning, serviette was napkin, its roof not ruf like a dog sound – we had lots of laughs….. I one race I was successfully holding Allan at bay (and leading the race) and did so thru the whole race until the very end….he passed me on the straight and we came in 1,2 ..he won first overall and I was second overall….didn’t matter because we were in sedan 3 and 4….Allan never would admit to me that I had some skill.. 🙂
I stopped racing for 2 reasons basically. both thru 2 horrific accidents to others that drove home to me (like my mother couldn’t) that you can really get hurt doing this. the first was my racing instructor – he was in an out of Michigan race somewhere so I didn’t see the accident.. he was driving, I believe, a McLaren formula car where the fuel line ran along the inside of the chassis next to him and then up and around the back of his head. You guessed it – the car flipped end over end a few times at a really high speed and sprayed fuel all over his face and parts of his body..his face was pretty well melted.
The second incident was an extremely thrilling race..2 sedans were fighting neck and neck the entire race…lap after lap the lead would switch back and forth between them….the final lap at, a very high speed, one of the drivers’ hood latch failed and the hood blew and bent right straight up over his windshield as they came within 2-3 yards of the checkered flag drop…of course everyone was watching them including one of the flagmen to see what would happen…….the #3 car came around the hairpin turn and into the straight seconds behind them and totally lost control….I had the ‘great luck’ to see him veer off the track and hit the flagman looking in the other direction, knocking him straight up into the air right across from where I was standing….he lucked out and only got a broken leg…(the windshield guy was fine-he had great skill)…but that did it for me….I quit after that season…I finally realized that a person can get hurt doing this kind of thing…” Kathy Burban.