Dear Joe:
Thanks for your response. Dennis Tobin told me that Jerry Hansen might have
built the Brainerd raceway, and I have fired off a letter to him there. I am
going to track down some magazines of the period. A good friend of mine out here
was for many years a mechanic on Bruce McLaren's teams, and remembers Hansen
from Can-Am days.
Vintage racing (we call it "historic") is a booming category here. There is an
all-historic meeting at one or other of the three eastern States (New South
Wales, Queensland and Victoria) nearly every month during the year, and I get to
most of them. There are also all-historic races in South Australia and Western
Australia, but they take too much time for me to get to. Some other racing
clubs put on races for historic categories. There is an all-historic national
hill-climb championship.
At the biggest all-historic meetings (Amaroo Park, Sydney, late January/early
February) and Eastern Creek raceway, Sydney, mid-September) we expect a field of
about 250-300 cars, although only a handful will be million-dollar classics.
Our categories are in about five-year intervals, with very strict requirements
on originality. They range from pre-war classes up to the 1970-1977 wings and
slicks classes, racing and sports. There are separate (and very popular)
age-related categories for ex-production sports cars, ie MGs, TRs and the like,
and sedans.
Over the last five years I have been racing a 1969 sports car, which is an
Australian Lotus-Seven-style car (I started racing in England in a Lotus Seven
in 1960), and a 1974 Australian Formula 2 1600cc Birrana (aboriginal for
"spear-thrower"). Both are now for sale, as I hope to pick up the Lola from the
docks tomorrow and get it ready to race at Amaroo. I am also ground-up restoring
a 1959 Lotus Eleven, which was crashed in 1981 and put at the back of a shed in
California.
July-August is our winter, and the only all-historic meeting is at Lakeside
raceway, just north of Brisbane, Queensland. Several of us always go up from
Sydney, as the weather is usually beautiful up there at that time (this year the
Lakeside meeting is July 6-7). It is a great meeting, marvellous relaxed
atmosphere, and a very fast and dangerous track! (Best average lap speed in the
Birrana is about 100 mph.)
I hope that gives you some idea of the picture out here, and hope to see you if
you come.
Regards, Michael.
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