Last lap for Last-Lap Kavanagh
From our Old Bike Archives – Issue 85 – first published in 2019. Story: Jim Scaysbrook • Photos: OBA archives, Elwyn Roberts, Alan Wallis, *Letter kindly provided by Joe Henry. With the death of Ken […]
Tony McAlpine
Tracks in Time: Victoria Park, Ballarat
Ballarat is the only Australian city to be listed on the International Historic Cities register. Everywhere you go in Ballarat (or Ballaart to be more correct – from the aboriginal Balla-arat meaning resting place), are […]
Tony McAlpine: The wild colonial boy
Story: Jim Scaysbrook • Photos: Byron Gunther, Trevor Evans, Keith Bryen Wallace Anthony, or just plain ‘Tony’ McAlpine, died on the Queensland Gold Coast on September 26th 2005, aged 84. With his passing went perhaps […]
Tracks in Time: Mount Druitt, NSW
Story: Jim Scaysbrook • Photographs Frank Shepherd, Bill Tricker, Charles Rice • Archival assistance: John Wicks Even though it closed almost fifty years ago, Mount Druitt is inevitably mentioned whenever a bunch of old timers get […]
Doug Voss: The long way to the Earls Court Show
Few people have ridden overland from India to England. Even fewer would still own the bike they rode, 58 years after the ride, and still use it regularly. Such a man is Doug Voss, 85 […]
Tracks in Time: Flinders Naval Depot
As post-war public road closures for racing became more and more difficult, the search was on for suitable stretches of tarmac where motorcycles could be raced in anger. East of Melbourne, the bike brigade found […]
Tracks in Time: Parramatta Park – The circuit in the city
Show any motor racing enthusiast a set of roads that form a lap and the wheels start turning – literally and figuratively. In the days when Australia had no racing circuits built solely for that […]
The Twin Cold Shoulders: Gnoo Blas Circuit, Orange NSW
Rivalry in motor sport is not uncommon. But in the case of the long defunct Gnoo Blas circuit in Orange, 285 km west of Sydney, motor racing was simply the common factor in an intense […]
Sid Willis: The little master
There’s an old saying, “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.” It could have been coined to describe Sid Willis, barely five foot […]
Agro in Assen – Riders Strike of 1955
Saturday July 30th, 1955 was a tumultuous day in the history of motorcycle Grand Prix racing. For a bunch of Australasians, it marked a watershed in their careers. It’s a tough life being an international […]
