CAUSE AND FX

SO HOW did I move on from speedway? Well, KC – he has a lot to answer for – arrived one Saturday morning and asked the old lady if I could go over to his work so that I could see how a mechanical workshop operated. She said yes and off we went. This would have been around 1961-62.

We drove into this servo/workshop and there sitting on the driveway was this FX Holden – British Racing Green, white racing stripe a foot wide starting at the front, running over the roof and finishing at the rear bumper. The thing was the lowest I’d ever seen, with reversed white-painted wheels that were widened maybe an inch, and the biggest tyres ever.

Then KC lifted the bonnet: Wow, a humpy motor with triple inch-and-a-half Skinner Unions on one side and the extractors on the other, and a funny rocker box with a Waggott logo cast in.

I was trying to take all this in and then KC asked: “Wanna go for a ride?” Is the Pope a Catholic? I was in the passenger seat so fast; there were two seats in the front and there were these belts. KC said: “This thing’s really fast and the seatbelt will stop you from falling out when we go around some corners I’ve got planned.” Now I’d seen a few floor shifts in humpies, but none like the one I was looking at in this car. KC informed me it’s the shifter that comes with a Riley four-speed gearbox. I was thinking, what do you need four gears for? I was about to find out!

Well, KC fired this thing up and the dash lit up. “Gotta let it warm up first,” he said. Remember, this was Saturday morning around 10.30 in a leafy northside Sydney suburb. KC decided to move, and all of a sudden there was exhaust noise and acceleration like I’d never experienced in a motor car. Suddenly, oh shit, a corner, we are going to die! But this thing was around it and KC shifted into third and we had another gear to go. Now I understood! What a ride – I was hooked forever! To this day I don’t know who owned that car, but thank you whoever you are.

KC started to find other interests and we drifted into different paths, but I never forgot the guy and I hope he’s still around. I hope he reads this, he was a legend in my early life.

The top speedway racers were household names during the 60s, and (as hard as it is to believe now) races were held right in the centre of town, each Saturday night in big cities like Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney, as well as in countless smaller towns...