Tracks in Time
Mooliabeenie WA
Mooliabeenie WA
The recent news that a resort/motor sport facility is to be built at Bindoon, 85km north of Perth, will be déjà vu for some of the state’s elder statesmen. The proposed facility, basically a US-style Country Club that will incorporate a 4.1km sealed circuit (at this stage not planned for racing but to allow wealthy owners of powerful motor vehicles a chance to test their skills away from the long arm of the law) is just down the road from Mooliabeenie (alternative spelling Mooliabeenee), which housed motor sport, particularly motor cycle road racing, in the 1950s.
At the end of WWII, Australia had 317 mainland and regional airfields, all controlled by the Royal Australian Air Force. ‘Moolie’, as it is commonly referred to, 56 miles (90 km) from Perth, was the site of a 1500 metre long airstrip that was used by the United States Army Air Corps during WW2, as was the similar strip at Caversham Airfield at Middle Swan. Moolie was referred to as a satellite strip for Caversham, and was rarely used except for training. Caversham, being closer to Perth, hosted some high profile events including the Australian Grand Prix for cars. Moolie, on the other hand, was out in the sticks, although the now-defunct private Midland Railway ran past the site from Midland Junction to Walkaway, with the Mooliabeenie Siding between Gingin and Mogumber close to the track.
When the military departed, what was left was a very wide and long (1500 metre) flat runway, sealed with bonded bitumen, plus a much narrower loop road that meandered through the scrub and joined both ends of the runway. It was an inhospitable place, hot and very dusty in the summer, plagued with bushflies and many miles from the nearest town or facilities. Nevertheless, several low-key meetings were held there in the early 1950s.
Although the bitumen surface had remained basically intact, all the sealed sections had been covered in gravel, whether for military camouflage purposes or some other reason. Whatever the reason, it made for a very challenging surface, and the flying stones inflicted considerable damage to vehicles and drivers/riders alike. ‚
Peter Nicol, one of WA’s most talented and versatile riders, was a regular at Moolie, and says the track’s condition was not as bad as generally thought. “The ‘surface’ situation was overrated, it wasn’t a consideration. The Ariel Club got a lease on Moolie in 1951. Caversham was controlled by the Sporting Car Club so in combined car and bike meetings, the motorcycles always got second best, plus they had to deal with all the oil dropped by the cars. Post-war, there was a shortage of good cars and bikes, so combined meetings were the only viable solution, but they weren’t popular with bikes. I always thought that Moolie was far more interesting as a layout. It was undulating with a rise in the back near the S-bends section. They held one meeting per year in the early days.” 1954 was the track’s most active year, with three meetings, the first in January. WA’s top rider George Scott had not yet arrived home from his season in Europe, so the stars of the meeting were Clem Dwyer, who won the 125cc race on his BSA from Ron Bradbury and South Australian Rex Tilbrook (on a CZ), and Peter Nicol with his well-prepared KTT Velocette. Nicol won the 10-lap A Grade Scratch from Ken Tester on another KTT and Clem Dwyer’s 7R AJS. Nicol and Tester also filled the first two positions in the Solo Handicap.
In May 1954, Moolie hosted the West
Australian Championships, which drew a healthy entry and a large crowd of spectators. One of the favourites, Ken Russell, crashed at high speed in practice and was taken to hospital with concussion and missed the races. Now armed with a 350cc Manx Norton, Nicol again starred, winning the opening Junior Championship after a tremendous tussle with Tester and George Scott’s 7R AJS. The Senior provided an even more thrilling finish, with Nicol now aboard a 500 BSA expertly tuned by Dwyer and Harry Gibson and Scott, now on his GP Triumph. In the drag to the finish line, Nicol got the verdict by half a wheel. Once again, Dwyer dominated the 125 Championship after early leader Ron Bradbury seized his Francis Barnett and retired. A special event called the Champion of Champions Race was contested by the six fastest riders of the meeting, with Nicol again the winner after Scott’s Triumph developed gearbox trouble. Completing the championship events was the Sidecar race, won by Eric Nicol’s Vincent from B. Adams’ 650 BSA and J ack Alexander in third.
Late in 1954, rumours of a Down
Under tour by the celebrated multi
World Champion Geoff Duke, as well as our home-grown star Ken Kavanagh, and Rhodesian tearaway Ray Amm, began to circulate. Then Amm was injured in England, and Kavanagh withdrew for personal reasons, leaving Duke on his own. George Lynn, editor of the Melbourne-based Australian Motorcycle News weekly newspaper, had been handling Duke’s arrangements and convinced him to still undertake the tour, despite the lack of travelling partners. Eyeing a possible export market, Gilera gave its blessing and two four-cylinder 500s were shipped from Genoa, accompanied by works mechanic Giovanni Fumagalli. The bikes arrived in Fremantle on January 2nd, 1955, and after some wrangling with local customs officials (who placed a value of $40 each on the priceless machines), the cargo was cleared.
Duke travelled by air, arriving in Sydney on Friday 7th January to be greeted by a bevy of fans and riders, before flying on to Perth where he was deluged by the media. In the mid-fifties, the closest that Australian motorcycle enthusiasts came to ‘the big time’ was via months-old copies of the English weekly magazines, The Motor Cycle and Motorcycling, so the appearance of the reigning world champion was greeted with near hysteria.
Naturally it was assumed that Duke’s WA appearance would be at Caversham, but with the on-going conflict between the Sporting Car Club and the motorcycle clubs, it was decided to hold the event at Moolie. Writing of his Australian ‘tour’ in the English motorcycle press and later in his autobiography, Duke recalled, “My second day in Perth included a visit to Mooliabeenie, right out in the wilds. I have to admit to misgivings when the car I was travelling in turned off the excellent bitumen road, about 25 miles out, onto a pure dirt road, running apparently endlessly into the bush. I did not have the heart to enquire if this was the sort of surface I was to ride on, and had all kinds of horrifying thoughts of trying to cope with full-lock slides, brought about by my 60hp projectile. However, my fears proved groundless as we shortly arrived at the circuit, which consisted of a wartime airstrip, almost a mile long, leading on to a perimeter road with a good mixture of fast and slow corners, making 2.5 miles in all. The surface, although loose in places, was generally ‚
in quite good condition, consisting of bitumen-bound shale. On first observation, this looked rather slippery, but in practice it provided an astonishing amount of grip.”
In Perth the Gileras were entrusted to Harry Gibson, former land speed record holder on a Vincent. The bright red racers were kept at Gibson’s home in Dalkeith, under the watchful eye of Fumagalli, with a constant throng of visitors, eager to inspect the finest racing motorcycles in the world. One of the frequent visitors was Peter Nicol, who had ridden Gibson’s machines for several years with notable success. “Geoff Duke and I got to know each other well,” says Peter. “Afterwards he asked me if I was going to try my hand in Europe, and he offered introductions should I decide to do so.”
Race day, January 9th dawned stinking hot, but it did not deter 15,000 eager spectators from filing into the circuit. With the temperature soaring to 45 degrees, members of the organising clubs, the Ariel, BSA and Coastal MCCs, formed a human chain to sweep the track surface free of loose gravel before racing could start.
Practice had shown that Duke’s main opposition would come from Peter
Nichol, on a Matchless G45 twin, and the Triumph of George Scott (a Grand Prix engine and gearbox in a 3T frame), who had raced in Europe and at the Isle of
Man TT in 1953. In the Senior Race, Duke was caught out when the starter lifted the flag (instead of dropping it), and the Gilera was among the last away. However inside the first lap Duke was in front, chased by Scott and Nicol. As Peter recalls, “My G45 was faster than Scott’s GP Triumph, but after about four or five laps it started to misfire at top revs and it got steadily worse, until I stopped by a section of the roadside at the back section of the course with a dud magneto. When Duke came past on the next lap I gave him the thumbs down signal. Scott held second before his machine jammed in third gear, allowing Jack Lowe’s Norton through into second behind the long-gone Gilera.
Duke spent the time before his second start, the Unlimited Race, resting under a tree and hydrating by drinking tea in the intense heat. Dutifully, he came to the line for the race, but the start was delayed by ten minutes as police, mounted on BSA Golden Flash models, cleared hundreds of spectators from the starting area and back behind barricades. Nicol’s sparkless Matchless was a non-stater for the Unlimited race, but Scott had the Triumph’s gearbox functioning again and clung to Duke for the entire race. In the latter stages, a stone flung from the rear wheel of a lapped rider smashed one lens of Duke’s goggles, cutting his face and further
adding to his discomfort from heat exhaustion. However he maintained his advantage to the flag, holding a slight advantage over the determined Scott and young Dave Fletcher, riding Scott’s 7R AJS. Duke took 5 seconds off Nicol’s lap record to leave it at one minute 48 seconds, an average of 83 mph.
Despite the intense heat, Duke declared he was “highly satisfied with the day’s racing”. Later he added, “I found more sheer enthusiasm (for motorcycling) in Perth than anywhere else in Australia. What a pleasure it was to talk motorcycles and racing with such a keen band of enthusiasts who practically ‘lived’ motorcycles. From these talks, often going on into the early hours of the morning, I got an initial glimpse of racing ‘Down Under’; a new and very exciting experience for me.”
Duke had planned to return to
Australia following the 1955 European season, but with Gilera in the midst of one of their frequent cash crisis, this was shelved. Instead, the works Moto Guzzi team of Bill Lomas and Dickie Dale was recruited, arriving in Perth on 14th
December 1955. This time, the influence of the Sporting Car Club, which had noted the success of the Moolie ‘International’ meeting the year before, ensured the overseas stars would compete instead at Caversham.
Thus Moolie faded into obscurity, although one or two more meetings were held in 1955 before the track finally closed down. This left Caversham as the only permanent facility in the state, but when the brand new Wanneroo circuit came on stream in 1969, it too was lost to the sport.