Sampson and de-licence
Brian chose his famous #78 simply because he had a collection of 78rpm swing music records, and the story going around in 2013 was that he had nally achieved his ambition of racing until he too turned 78.
That story was a furphy. He did stop racing in 2013, but not by choice. Having beaten prostate cancer, he was floored by epilepsy; what he calls his “cruel fate”.
He had rst experienced it ve years earlier at Phillip Island: “I raced alright, but I pulled up feeling a bit funny. I went to the medical centre and asked them to check me because I didn’t want to have an accident and hurt anyone else. They whizzed me off to Wonthaggi Hospital and I don’t even remember getting there. They gave me some medication, but it just wasn’t right...”
Sandown in July 2013 turned into a bit of a celebration as family and friends gathered to celebrate Brian’s numerically signi cant 78th birthday. Sampson had no intention of retiring, but that cruel fate stepped soon after when he blacked out driving to work and smashed into a tree. He suffered severe injuries, was unconscious for six days and spent 17 days in intensive care.
Sampson recovered and does physio or tennis training ve days a week, drives on the road, and goes into Speco Thomas about every second day. He reckons he’s well enough and now – the required ve years after an epileptic episode to get his CAMS licence back – he wants to race again.
“I was on the wrong medication before, and there’s nothing wrong now. I’m going to see if I can get my licence again. Medically I’m right, eyesight I’m right, everything like that, so it’s up to CAMS, but they don’t have a medical assessment. The form says it has to be ve years after any epileptic episode, and it’s been ve years. I’ve got to send in the application and to be quite honest I don’t want them to say no…”
So why does he want to race again at 83, and not just settle for track days or regularity trials? “I think I’m still competitive, I want to prove to myself that I can still drive good, and I’ve got a couple of very nice cars I’d like to race again.”
Sampson has a collection of cars and wants to race his Elva-BMW sports car, historic Formula Fords and the Celica Sports Sedan. Brian hasn’t even driven the restored Celica yet; it was taken off the trailer two years ago and parked at the Speco Thomas Moorabbin factory.
Perhaps one day we will see this old warrior back on track in the pretty little Celica. And we will celebrate a uniquely long, successful and varied career. He may modestly rate himself as merely “an enthusiastic driver”, but Brian Sampson will forever be in esteemed company as a Bathurst 1000 winner.