LEFT:
Bob paid $300 cash for what was left of the Johnny Anderson sprintcar in 1984. After trailering it back from Darwin strapped to the side of his race car, it sat in the shed for 10 years and then took another 20 years of sporadic work and parts-scavenging before it was finally unveiled in January at the 55th Australian Sprintcar Championship at Valvoline Raceway A: The five photos of Anderson’s sprintcar on Bob’s locker door helped guide him throughout the build. “The car is virtually the way it was when Johnny Anderson came here,” he says. “The lettering on the right-hand side – ‘Anderson Special’ and ‘301 Chevy’ – I saw in one photo I’ve got. There are never many shots of the right-hand side of a speedway car!” B: Bob reckons the ‘301 Chevy’ painted on the right-hand side probably means “it was either running a 302, or a 283 bored out to about 301ci” when Johnny Anderson bought it here. But with that motor long gone, Bob’s engine guru Alan Felsch sourced a steel-block 350ci Chev from a retired Late Model car and pushed it out to around 366 cubes with a 39/ in 16 Hank The Crank crankshaft C: The pearlescent white and blue metalflake paint was applied by Rod Bowen in Blacktown. “I think Rod pulled his hair out trying to do it because when I picked it up he said: ‘Don’t bring the bloody thing back again!’” The numbers and lettering were handled by veteran race car signwriter Dennis Phillips. “Dennis said: ‘I haven’t done this oddball running writing for years; I used to hate doing it,’” Bob laughs