Former race car driver revisits lost track hidden in Aussie bushland

The Canberra Times

Special thanks to Dave Moore and the ‘Old Motor Racing Photographs Australia’ Facebook Page for assistance with this video. A forgotten section of highway once used as a high-speed race track has resurfaced in a nature reserve east of Canberra. Tim the Yowie Man turns back the odometer on an old Aussie gem.

Transcript

00:00So Gary, we've walked a couple of hundred metres through the Brooks Hill Reserve

00:04and you've spotted something up here. What have you spotted?

00:07Oh, the bitumen. It's just my hump. It's just to be able to see a bitumen.

00:11And to know that we've come a long way.

00:14This access was so short driving in before and always exciting

00:20because the cars were going to be up ahead of the hill climb

00:23and now I've got here and there's the bitumen.

00:25So you're really, you're genuinely excited.

00:28Look at the green fruit.

00:30We haven't got a car here with us, but we've got to keep, let's go up to the,

00:35do you call it the starting, what do you call it? The starting?

00:37Or starting pad or starting pad.

00:39Yeah, yeah. It's a concrete pad that we parked on and then took off from there.

00:44Let's go find this concrete case.

00:45We've reached the starting pad, this concrete pad.

00:48Is it how you remember it?

00:50Not at all.

00:51Yeah?

00:51I just surprised when it came upon it.

00:54But the fact that we used to be able to drive onto it

00:58and we'd be there aiming up the hill,

01:02the fellow with the static device would be put it under our front foot,

01:07the front tyre,

01:09and then as soon as we took off.

01:12We've got some letters here.

01:14C, S, C.

01:16What's that thing for?

01:17Canada Sporting Car Club.

01:18Yep.

01:19Lake Veering.

01:19Yep.

01:20Which is the name of the track.

01:21Which is the name of the track, yeah.

01:22So there's some rubber over here.

01:24Not mine.

01:25Is that yours?

01:26How do you know it's not yours?

01:28That would be there since the city.

01:29Hang on, I'll just test it.

01:30No, it would have been something if it's later on come here

01:35and just try it out, I'd say.

01:37Okay.

01:38On the old track.

01:39But it's just amazing to see it here.

01:42After how long?

01:4250 years or more?

01:44Oh, it would have been here.

01:45It was sealed in the early 60s.

01:46Early 60s, yeah.

01:48Early 60s.

01:49So you love the fact it's still here?

01:50Oh, yeah.

01:51It's good.

01:52Well, it's good for me because I'm an old roper.

01:54I can come to stand on it.

01:55And that's going to excite me every time I come out here.

01:58How long since you last stood on this pad?

02:00Oh, gee, it would have been back in the 70s, mid-70s, I think, some time.

02:06Right.

02:07Yeah, it was a long time ago.

02:09When you were here, it was just that still, that moment all of a sudden,

02:13and then suddenly it was bang for 35.

02:15Checking all your gauges, making sure the rev count is up to the right number of ribs,

02:19you're in gear and you're ready to go.

02:21So, Gary, as we walk along here today, 50 or so years since you last raced the track,

02:26nature's taking over the track.

02:30Yeah.

02:30What do you feel about that?

02:31Well, it's terrific.

02:33I mean, the memories are still here.

02:34That's the whole thing.

02:36The fact that the bitchmen are still here is great.

02:41The memories are still here.

02:42I'm reliving the time that I was on the track before, but to see nature taking it over,

02:49it's just natural progression.

02:51And it's just beautiful to be here.

02:54I just like the idea of if I was here by myself, I'd just stand in the odd spot quietly

03:03and just be able to forget about the chaos of the world and everything.

03:08It'd be just wonderful.

03:09Is this how you remember the track?

03:11Oh, I'm seeing more of it than I remember.

03:14My fastest time up here was 32.8 seconds.

03:18Yeah.

03:20And we're taking a bit longer than that.

03:22We're taking a lot longer than that.

03:24And so you're sitting up around 80 miles an hour.

03:28I said 120 kilometers an hour or something.

03:33Well, you think about that as we stand here looking at the trees, the foliage around,

03:40coming through there at 120 kilometers an hour.

03:45And I'm seeing bits of the track that I can't remember.

03:48I didn't remember before.

03:50In 1966, on this left-hand bend, you crashed.

03:55Yeah.

03:55What happened?

03:56Well, I'd come up from the starting pad, and it's a longer straight than I expected,

04:03but I was doing about 80 miles an hour by the time I got to 20 meters back from here.

04:08And by this point, I'd well and truly lost it.

04:12Right.

04:12And I could see that by correcting it, which I did, I started to correct the skid,

04:17but all I was doing was aiming for the big tree that's just behind us.

04:21Okay.

04:22And so...

04:22And I saw the leg.

04:23Hang on.

04:24I don't want to hit that tree.

04:26So then I spun the wheel the other way so that I'd make it a worse spin.

04:31Yeah.

04:31And I went onto the inside of the track.

04:34And just behind us is where I came off.

04:37On that bank?

04:38On that bank.

04:39Went onto my side, flipped and hit part of the bank like that so that I was...

04:47You know, if I hadn't ducked my head, I would have been crushed.

04:50Did you have a helmet on?

04:51Yeah.

04:52What were you thinking?

04:53Did your life flash before you like it happens to some people in those moments?

04:57What I did think about was that I'd told my girlfriend at the time that if we got into

05:03a crash like this to lean across me, because we had three-point belts on, and I'd lean across

05:09her.

05:10And, well, she wasn't there, so I just leaned across into the passenger seat.

05:14The car went up, hit into the bank, and I just sat there for a moment.

05:23So you were conscious?

05:23Oh, absolutely.

05:25I was conscious, but I thought, I'm dead.

05:27Right.

05:29And I thought, well, no, I'm not.

05:31I'm okay.

05:32And so I started to climb out of the car.

05:34So you could move, no broken bones?

05:35No broken bones, no.

05:36By the time that I'd started to pull myself out of the car, somebody ran up and said,

05:42don't move, don't move, because they thought I would have broken bones.

05:45Yes.

05:46And so I lay there while they gently got me out of the car.

05:50Right.

05:50The ambulance was up here by that time.

05:52I'd come down from the top, actually.

05:54Yeah.

05:55And they got me onto a gurney.

05:57Yeah.

05:58And were putting me in the back of the ambulance, but one of the fellows was pulling a sheet up

06:04as I was being put into the back of the ambulance.

06:07My best friend of all my life, 18 years or so, was coming up the road and he saw the sheet

06:16going up and thought they were covering up.

06:18I thought I was dead.

06:20But you weren't?

06:21No, I had a blood blister on that finger and a blood blister on that finger.

06:24That's it?

06:25Two blood blisters and you walked away from it?

06:27Yeah.

06:27It was a bit exciting at the time.

06:31I bet.

06:34So, Gary, we're at the finish line.

06:36There's a white line across the bitumen here.

06:40Do you have any memories of flying past the finish line?

06:43Flying past?

06:44Well, one time it was literal.

06:47I came up over the hump that I, I thought the finish line was right on the hump, not just

06:52after it.

06:53But I came over one time and I didn't set the timer off.

06:57And the timer was on the ground.

06:58Yeah, it was a rubber tube and you had to mechanically hit that to cause the time to

07:06go off.

07:07But I'd gone over it in such a way that I didn't put enough force on the rubber.

07:12Well, I set the timer off.

07:14Is that because you were airborne?

07:15I think I was airborne.

07:18As I've said, Tim, I didn't really touch the brake at all.

07:22Once I started, it was just accelerator and gears.

07:27And I would have been at least in second, most likely in second because the Morgan had pulled

07:3350 miles an hour in second.

07:35And just flat strap coming up over here.

07:39And the other time, for us actually, I did it.

07:42I came over the finish line backwards.

07:44So I spun out.

07:46So it came through here backwards.

07:47Did you still set the timer off?

07:49I don't know.

07:49I forgot about that because I jumped out of the car and the spectators were just nearby,

07:55near the fence.

07:55And I said, did you get a photo of it?

07:58And everybody's just standing there with their jaws.

08:00And nobody had taken the photograph of it.

08:02But the social media time was yet to come.

08:06And if that had been around when I was there, there would have been 100.

08:09Yeah, but you always had to do it.

08:11I was having to do it.

08:11Brilliant.

08:12Yeah.

08:13Well, Gary, thank you so much for taking a drive or walk, maybe a walk today, down Nemory

08:19Lane and reliving what it was like to be driving up the Lakeview hill climb.

08:24It's been an absolute pleasure.

08:25It was the opportunity.

08:26It was great.

Category

Transcript

Recommended