Ray Curtis: A born showman
Spectacular and successful throughout his long and varied career, Ray Curtis never had top machinery, but that didn’t stop him always putting on a show for the paying public. Story: Jim Scaysbrook • Photos: Dick […]
Riders
24hr Reliability Trial – Eight decades of exceptional endurance
The rain eases a few minutes short of midnight but has already saturated the small knot of officials – their timesheets a sodden mess. A puff of wind does little to disperse the fog as […]
Doug James: The Original Wollongong Wizz
At just seventeen years of age, Doug James was the youngest rider in the Australian Tourist Trophy in 1939. He was also a long way from home. Pre-war, the journey from Wollongong to Phillip Island, […]
Harry Hinton: A Racing Life
The Isle of Man mountain course is unique in its sheer abundance of natural hazards, which are rarely tolerant of errors of judgement or mistakes. Those who have taken on the Mountain respect it, for […]
Laurie Boulter: Cover up at Handley’s Corner
Like many aspiring racers, the war robbed Laurie Boulter of perhaps his best years. But despite being on the wrong side of thirty, the South Australian resumed his career after the war and had a […]
Gregg Hansford: Talent to burn
The Gregg Hansford versus Warren Willing battles define the ‘seventies period of Australian motorcycle racing. Yet despite prodigious skill, both left careers unfulfilled… for different reasons. Story: Jim Scaysbrook • Photos: Rob Lewis, Michael Andrews, Warren […]
Peggy Hyde: Rebel with a cause
Unfazed by reputations, officialdom, or rules, Peggy Hyde showed that gender is no limiting factor in motorcycle racing. Talk to Peggy Hyde today and it is immediately evident that little has changed in her approach […]
Len Atlee: Quite a career
Towards the end of the 1960s, a group of callow youths from the south of Sydney, though somewhat intimidated by the stories they’d heard, decided to take the plunge and ride their shiny new Japanese […]
Eric Debenham: Bathurst Easter legend
Even above the hubbub of the combined racket coming from the pits and the racetrack, it was never difficult to find Eric Debenham. His constant guffaw rose above everything else, and yet, for a bloke […]
Tim Gibbes: Off-road trailblazer
The trail to England had been blazed comprehensively by aspiring Australian and New Zealand road racers and speedway riders since the mid 1920s, but the same was not the case for the relatively new (mainly […]
