The Immortals of Australian Motor Racing


Book Description

This book takes the Immortals concept made famous in cricket and applies it to motorsport, choosing the best of the best from Bathurst and the Australian Touring Car Championship (now the Supercars Championship) and other local series. It delves into the careers and characteristics of icons Peter Brock, Allan Moffat and Dick Johnson along with modern-era champions such as Mark Skaife, Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup: heroes who are not just high achievers but influential identities who set a new benchmark and changed local racing forever through skill, determination and sheer will. It tells the remarkable stories behind each Immortal's rise, from the fabled tale of rock star Johnson to the little-known facts surrounding Lowndes' Bathurst arrival in 1994 that, a few hours earlier, teetered on the brink of disaster. The Immortals of Australian Motor Racing: the Local Heroes is the third instalment in Gelding Street Press's Immortals of Australian Sport series. In it, motorsport writer Luke West gives readers insights into his 10 chosen immortals and their influence on the national scene.




Birthplaces of Australian Motor Racing


Book Description

This book records and now preserves the history of Australian motorsport. Huge proportions of it were just on the very edge of being lost. By the time you have read this book, you will be unbeatable at Australian motor racing trivia around any race campground fire pit or BBQ. You will know what the deadliest day was trackside in this country, the speedway promoter who discovered and named one of Australia’s biggest international rock groups, the most extreme financial car racing venue disaster of all time, why many residential roads have names the people who live there don’t appreciate, and what venue built its own railway station which is still in use today. You will discover places worth dragging the family off to so you can take photos of rusting artefacts and sprout knowledgeable but boring nostalgic conversations. You’ll also be amazed at some of the historic car racing locations you’ve unknowingly been driving past. How do you locate old car venues when some were utterly demolished 90 years ago, an industrial complex built on the same spot, which was in turn torn down and replaced with a university, a lake or a multi-storey housing estate? This roll call of mine started out with two simple questions that most petrol heads in this country ask themselves sooner or later. How many car racing facilities have closed in Australia – and why?




Hawkeye


Book Description

The life of the supremely talented Australian racing driver Paul Hawkins was cut tragically short at Oulton Park in 1969, but in his cruelly shortened life and career he made a lasting impression on those around him, on and off the track. This thoroughly entertaining biography tells the story of a man whose talents behind the wheel were only eclipsed by his charm and outspokenness out of the car. Famed for a vocabulary that would make a sailor blush, mayhem was never far away and many of the anecdotes from friends and acquaintances are absolutely hilarious. Perhaps not one to read in a public place!




Best Seat in the House


Book Description

As a broadcaster and motorsports legend, Neil 'Crompo' Crompton has had the best seat in the house for the last 40 years of Australian motorsport. From Allan Moffat to Jamie Whincup, Supercars to Sportscars and the Bathurst 1000 to the Indianapolis 500, Neil has had a front-row seat to see the biggest names, machines and events of this high-speed, high-octane sport. As a kid from Ballarat in country Victoria, Neil was obsessed by speed. It was a passion that would take him to the top of motorsport and see him, at 28 years old, lining up on the grid at the Bathurst 1000, driving for a team run by his childhood hero, Peter Brock. Over more than 30 years, Neil has raced wheel-to-wheel with some of the biggest stars the sport has ever seen in this country - from the brilliance of Mark Skaife to the sheer speed of Craig Lowndes. Neil has seen and done it all: thrilling wins, heartbreaking disappointments and witnessing the tragedy of competitors and mates lost to the sport they all loved. Since 2003, as the trusted and respected modern-day voice and face of Supercars racing on television in Australia, Neil has added the audio soundtrack from the commentary box to some of the most iconic moments in the sport. Best Seat in the House is an unputdownable memoir of one of Australia's leading motor-racing and automotive industry personalities.




Speed Kings


Book Description

The fascinating, definitive story of Australia and New Zealand's quest to win the world's greatest motor race Winning the Indianapolis 500, the greatest spectacle in motorsport, has been a quest for Australians and New Zealanders since the first race in 1911. Seventeen have tried and two have succeeded: Scott Dixon in 2008 and Will Power in 2018. Rupert Jeffkins, Australia's original speed king, entered the first Indy 500 and on his second attempt in 1912 came within five kilometres of victory. He and Italian Ralph De Palma created legend when they pushed their car to the finish line after it blew up while leading. Speed Kings tells Jeffkins' full story for the first time. The lure of the Brickyard, paved with 3.2 million bricks, has drawn champions from both sides of the Tasman. Sir Jack Brabham, his son Geoffrey and grandson Matthew have each tried to win. So have the 'big three' of New Zealand motor racing: Bruce McLaren, Denny Hulme and Chris Amon. Now Scott McLaughlin looks set to become the next driver from down under to chase American motor racing's greatest prize. Indy doesn't offer up victory lightly. Blinding speed - nudging 380 km/h and averaging 280 km/h over 500 miles - makes the Brickyard one of the most precarious racetracks in the world. Forty-two drivers have died attempting the 500. Speed Kings tells the story of the Australian and New Zealand drivers, team owners, engineers, even commentators who've made the Brickyard their quest.




Supercars


Book Description

V8 Supercars is a great Australian sporting success story, still going strong for over a quarter of a century. It was the first local race series to gain a mainstream national following, catapulting the likes of Peter Brock and Dick Johnson to fame against the backdrop of Mount Panorama, Bathurst. These days the sport draws huge crowds, attracts big-dollar TV rights deals and a new generation of heroes have appeared battling over old territory, plus a host of new street circuits, turning this Australian motor sport into a globally recognised phenomenon. The V8s have evolved into today's Supercars Championship, creating household megastars such as Craig Lowndes, Marcos Ambrose, Jamie Whincup and Scott McLaughlin. Supercars gives detailed insight into how each and every championship was won, tracking the development of the Supercars class between 1993-2010. This comprehensive and absorbing account of a uniquely Australian sport is a must for any race fan's bookshelf.







Motorsport Going Global


Book Description

This book provides the definitive economic study of the global motorsport industry. Drawing on a decade of research, and interviews with top industry executives and international commentators, the global grid of motorsport is analyzed and the world's national motorsport industries benchmarked. Motorsport Going Global concludes on scenarios for the global industry as it enters a new era of market growth and global opportunity.




Racing the Lion


Book Description

Holden has been a major part of Australian motorsport history and, in this special edition hardcover 400-page release from the V8 Sleuth team, they celebrate and honour the brand's history in racing.An illustrated racing history publication assembled by Aaron Noonan, Will Dale and the V8 Sleuth team, this book features a massive range of photos never-before-published.Whether it's the memorable Monaros, Toranas or Commodores or the star drivers that achieved great feats behind the wheel, there will be something for everyone in this book.We also include a range of motorsport activities undertaken by Holden in racing from touring cars to rallying and trials, rallycross, production cars and much, much more.With chunky captions outlining the history, statistics and interesting facts related to each image, this is the sort of book you'll pick up, put down and pick up again many times over.Our editorial team has searched high and low through our photo archives to find Holden motorsport history of all sorts, the book our tribute to the brand as it comes to an end prior to 2021.




Australian Dictionary of Biography, 1981-1990


Book Description

Volume 17 of the Australian Dictionary of Biography contains 658 biographies of individuals who died between 1981 and 1990. The first of two volumes for the decade, it presents a colourful mosaic of twentieth-century Australian life. It contains biographies of well-known identities such as Sir Henry Bolte, Sir Robert Askin, Sir Reginald Ansett, Sir Macfarlane Burnet, Sir Raphael and Lady Cilento, Sir Arthur Coles, Robert Holmes-O-Court, Sir Warwick Fairfax, Sir Edmund Herring, Albert Facey, Donald Friend, Sir Roy Grounds, Sir Bernard Heinze and Sir Robert Helpmann. Eminent Australian women in the volume include Dame Elizabeth Couchman, Dame Kate Campbell, Dame Doris Fitton, Dame Zara Holt and Lady (Maie) Casey. Although many of the women achieved prominence in those professions conventionally regarded as the preserve of women, othersandmdash;such as Ruby Boye-Jones, coast-watcher; Ellen Cashman, union organiser; Elsie Chauvel, film-maker; Dorothy Crawford, radio producer; Ruth Dobson, diplomat; Mary Hodgkin, anthropologist; Margaret Kelly, restaurateur; and Patricia Jarrett, journalistandmdash;demonstrate that some women at least were breaking free of the constraints of traditional expectations. The lives of fifteen Indigenous Australians are included, as are those of a number of immigrants who fled from persecution in Europe to establish a new life in Australia.