THE GREAT ESCAPE
BRICKIES [State Brickworks] featured heavily in the street racing scene in the 60s and early 70s mainly because it had a wide, sealed straight road that was the best part of a half-mile. It was close to everything, yet out of the way in behind the cattle and sheep saleyards and the Parramatta River. The trouble was, there was only one way in and out. At least that was most people’s view; I can tell you there was another way out, which was a closely guarded secret by the Parramatta boys who found it. It’s over 40 years ago now, so I guess it’s safe to reveal the secret.
Let me set the scene: It was a Sunday night, that’s when Brickies would rock, maybe 2000 people in the place. Some cars would arrive on trailers – it was serious racing some nights. I was there with a mate we will call BB. Now BB’S HR was lower than any other around. Suddenly, the place erupted – the law had arrived in force, people were running everywhere, locking their cars and hiding in the brick stacks. That didn’t worry the police; they just started writing ‘yellow perils’ [defect notices] and sticking them to windscreens. Well BB was in a panic, he knew that the HR was in deep trouble – we had to find another way out.
Next to the stockyards there was a railway line, so we started running along the line, and about 30 yards along there was a gate straight into the stockyards and it wasn’t locked. All this was hidden by the stacks of bricks, so BB drove the car up to the railway line. Five of us bounced the HR onto the tracks and skull-dragged it the 30 yards to the gate. How we didn’t take out the exhaust and sump I do not know. Then we dragged the car off the tracks and through the gate. No one had seen us – they were all worried about their own problems. We all piled in and we’re off.
Now, how would we get out of this place? BB was driving like a crazy man (thinking about it, he was always a little crazy anyway. We all were). We opened up the gates and drove through, mixing up the livestock for sure.
Finally we came out onto a sealed road right in the middle of the yards. It was a huge area and there were stock-crate trucks parked everywhere. A few of the truck drivers were standing around having a smoke and a chat. “Where in the hell did you boys come from?”
BB explained what had happened, and it could have all ended there, but the truckies were virtually rolling around on the ground pissing themselves with laughter – they had no love of the constabulary, they had a pathological hate for transport department scalies. How lucky were we?
“Follow us,” they said, “we’ll get you out onto Parramatta Road.” So we went in convoy out onto the highway. We were out, no yellow perils, and were back at Beefies hours before anyone else.
It was decided amongst the five of us that we would never tell anyone else, to the point that we even denied we had been there that night. Eventually someone else found out and there was a mass exodus; the stockyards put in a bigger fence and a gate with huge locks. The secret escape was gone.