Petrol Heads

As a young and impressionable male I had the motor racing fever just the same as all my friends but where i lived there was no circuit so the aim of every petrol head was to go to Mount Panorama Racing circuit at Bathurst, New South Wales Australia. A mere one hundred miles away, more or less. Just down the road a bit. For a potential petrol head with no vehicle and no money it may well have been on Mars.1

Ingenuity will not be denied and a way was found as a pillion passenger on a motor bike. No sir, you cannot do that as there are three bikes going and nine young lads. A small Morris utility vehicle, borrowed from a Dad for the long weekend solved that problem and we set forth with yours truly riding in the open back with the camping gear, the food and the spare parts for the bikes.2

For those overseas who don't know what a utility vehicle is, I think it's called a pick-up in the US. Ours was very small.3

The Easter week end was chosen as there would be motor cycle races on Saturday and cars on Sunday. Heaven for rev-heads. Friday we started out and made our first overnight stop at Dunkeld Bridge where there was water and a flat place to camp. What we did not know was that it was as cold as charity and the old wooden bridge rattled with every vehicle that went across. The road was the main highway linking the eastern seaboard with the inland. Needless to say we slept little, if at all that night. We could easily have gone the last six miles into the Mount camping ground, but chose the Bridge because it was free. We were not mean in any way, just broke.4

Saturday and we moved to the Mount and selected our spot where we could watch the bikes and cars whizz down Conrod straight at incredible speeds before braking hard at Devils Corner and along Pit Straight. We would see each vehicle for approximately thirty seconds each lap. Wow! How absolutely exhilarating. Actually I found it boring, absolutely boring. After the first two or three cars came by in a race I knew exactly what they were going to do and when. I wandered off up the mountain to where the cars weaved their way across the top and through a series of bends before entering the downhill straight. This was more to my liking,some action and a good look at a fairly tricky section of the racing circuit. Very exciting until one driver lost traction and came straight at me at an emormous rate of knots. I ran and hid in some trees. The car shot through where i had been, down the hill a bit a rolled about five times to finish on its wheels. 5

Now that was some action. Wow! whoopee! and all that. the edge of my pleasure and excitement was blunted when one of those chaps in a blue uniform carted me off 'for questioning'. It came about that I had, inadvertantly of course, placed myself in a restricted area. Restricted because it was a dangerous place to be.Looking back, I must agree, it was dangerous. I was returned to my friends embarrassed but unharmed.6

We left the mount due to the lack of interest in the racing program and ventured on to Jenolen Caves where we were amazed at the limestone formations in the one cave we could afford to enter, and after another freezing night camping we made back home in time to have a really good nights sleep in our own beds before resuming normality when we all went to work Tuesday morning.7

I was a maniac motor bike rider and a crazy car driver, but I never ventured back to a race track. Old age has slowed me down to a staid safe driver now, and I enjoy my racing on the tele only occasionally.