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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?
About the author
You couldn't get a weirder mix of a bloke than Bill Pearson. It took only one attendance at a race meeting to set him on the path of lifelong race car follower, participant and motor racing photographer. His jobs included copy boy, newsreel film editor and cameraman, videotape editor and TV workshop manager, ordained Baptist Minister serving 14 years in two states (Rev. Head), then a full-time professional award-winning taxidermist. Next came drug and alcohol counsellor, family community services manager, ending with services manager with a large fibreglass supplies manufacturer.
He taught himself how to do things by himself, sculpt and make his own fibreglass race car parts, all the automotive mechanics those projects involve, and was a skilled photographer with work published on the covers of "Autosportsman" and most other Australian car magazines. He was also a hunter/journalist, becoming a well-known and regular contributing journalist to "Australian Sporting Shooter" with regular articles and colour covers yet again.
Supposedly retired, he's just finished building his own two-storey house in the mountains virtually single-handedly over four years, which has formed just 58 of the over 250 videos uploaded to his WJP004 YouTube channel. Having recently switched from dirt to only tar, his current racing goal is to keep on winning state championships alongside his even more successful son.
