BUNBURY (WA)
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BUNBURY SPEEDWAY 1975
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previous year www.speedwayandroadracehistory.com/1974-bunbury-speedway.html
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1975 - CHRIS BILSBY Division Two Sedan's
1975 - Chris Bilsby the flying chalky from Newton Moore High School was very popular with in the students, often Chris would stay back after school and help out many of the young students that raced junior sedans and bikes, Chris would venture on to gain a lot of success in a Mini. Photo: Chris Bilsby collection.
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1975 - KIM JEFFREY THE MAN BEHIND THE MIKE
Bunbury's Kim Jeffrey interviews Dutch solo ace Henny Kroeze and English rider Tom Leadbitter.
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1975 - BUNBURY SPEEDWAY WEST AUSTRALIAN SALOON CAR CHAMPIONSHIP 1st March 1975 |
On the 1st of March 1975, The Bunbury Speedway under the management of Allan Blake, Hosted the states biggest Saloon Car event of the year, Tonight's field which is made up of the best the state has, also features the American's off Wayne Sue, Gene Welch, Ed Wilbur and Hash Brown. this event was round 2 of a 4 round series
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1975 - JOHN HUDSON Saloon Car's
Peter Roebuck Photo feature
1975 - John Hudson in the pits parked next to the Mule from Port Hedland. Bill Francis. Photographer: Peter Roebuck.
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1975 - RICHARD HARTZER Saloon Car's
Memories of Bunbury facebook Photo feature
1975 circa - A very young Krissi Brewster in the pits at Bunbury Speedway with Richard the Shaker and the Morris Johnston Panel Beaters GTHO Falcon. Photo: Krissi Brewster collection.
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1975 - USA CHEVY VEGA INVASION TOUR Saloon Car's
West Coast Speedway News pictorial feature
1975 - The USA team of Wayne Sue Ed Wilbur Gene Welch unloading the Chevy Veges in the Bunbury Speedway pits. Prior to the running of the West Australian Saloon Car Championship at Bunbury. Photo's: Bill Veersma collection.
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(use controls to pause - forward and reverse 12 images)
1975 - BILL BARR Saloon Cars
1975 - Bill Barr was a division 2 driver who was often seen running in the open division, often in Bunbury team events, He also ran in the West Australian Saloon Car Championship at Bunbury Speedway. Photo: Barr family collection.
1975 - BRIAN PEARCE Division One Sedan
1975 - During 1975 Kalgoorlie driver Brian Pearce made a return to racing and traveled to Bunbury to race. He was here for the 1975 West Australian Saloon Car Championship. Photo: Pearce family collection.
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MARK VATRI Junior Sedan's
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1975 - SOUTH WESTERN TIMES NEWSPAPER REPORTED
12th March 1975.
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1975 - SOUTH WESTERN TIMES NEWSPAPER REPORTED
15th March 1975
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1975 - SOUTH WESTERN TIMES NEWSPAPER REPORTED
27th March 1975 - Wayne Patterson Bunbury Speedway.
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1975 / 1976 - Bunbury Car Club committee of the day. front: Allan Blake Manager. Harold Thomas President. Barry Dillon Treasurer. back Chris Bilsby Committee. Darrel Thomson Vice President. Merrick Triplett Secretary. absent is Ian Hillman Committee. Photographer: Simba Pictures.
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1975 - DOUG JAMES TQ's
1975 - Doug James in his Suzuki powered TQ in the Bunbury pits. Photo: Steve McCaul.
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1975 - LARRY RICE USA INVASION TOUR Speedcar's
Allan Blake recalls: At the time I was running Bunbury Speedway and Indianapolis based driver, Larry Rice was touring for twelve weeks and racing speedcars, During an appearance at Bunbury Speedway one night Larry jumped into Alf Barbagallo's Modified Sprintcar and received a standing ovation from the big West Australian crowd when he drove from the rear of the field to run second, I can also recall at the time my press release was, If you think he was great in a speedcar, wait till you have seen him in a Sprinter.
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1975 - PHIL BAKER Division Two Sedan's
After a very successful stint in junior sedans, Phil's farther Vern decided to upgrade his EK Holden production car to the later EJ model, this gave Phil the chance to jump into the drivers seat in the EK and continue racing.
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1975 - MERRICK (MICK) TRIPLETT Division One Sedan
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1975 - ROSS DUNKERTON
Brian Moyle recalls: Merrick brought the 240Z off Kim and had Kim build the Speedway car in Merrick's Wrecking yard building, i used to be at the wreckers often and Merrick was always happy enough to show me the progress on the project. Also prior to this when Ross Dunkerton still owned the car, he appeared at Bunbury Speedway one night and did a demonstration run, in the dark, all the venue lights turned off and Ross Hot lapping with head lights and spot lights his only guide within the walls. Fantastic display, as you could imagine through the turns the Z Car was sideways with the cars light's pointing infield and not where he was going.
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1975 - SUNDAY TIMES NEWSPAPER REPORTED
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1975 - JOHN HUDSON
John Hudson has been associated with the Bunbury Car Club since it was founded by his grandfarther in 1954, John,s first actual competition drive was at the age of fourteen when he competed at the Blunders mud scramble in a car he bought for twenty seven shillings.
Two years later John would race local engine reconditioner, Terry Veale's FJ Holden at Caversham road race circuit. John also competed in many rally's in that era and holds the creditable record of six winning drives from 8 starts.
With the emergence of modern style Super Modified racing in 1966 John commissioned his long standing friend Allan Nylander to build him a chassis to run a 186 Holden worked engine, John raced the car with success for 3 seasons and set the Blicks one lap record at 19.2 seconds, a record that still stood the day the track shut.
During this period John also jumped into Geoff Prosser's twin engine supermod for a few runs.
By 1972 when Bunbury Speedway opened, John had moved into sedan racing and taken on the Presedent's position of the Bunbury Car Club, his choice of car in a VC Valiant was not the right one, John could not get on top of the handling problems and his success was limited.
1972 - John Hudson in the VC Valiant on the outside of Robbie Harding Photo: South West Times
With the start of the 1973 season John was behind the wheel of a very fast 283 Chevrolet powered Holden Monaro, the car initialy had some reliability problems but the crew of Terry Westbrook, Fred Murren and John's brother Terry soon put that behind them.
During the 1973 / 1974 season John was selected to represent WA in a saloon car team tour of the eastern states. After the tour John returned a much more fierce competitor.
March 1975 saw the Bunbury Club host the WA Saloon Car Tital, this would be John's year, well it was John hit the lead early in the feature and held it comfortably until lap 23 when a transmission problem forced him out of the race.
In the 1975 / 1976 season John won the WA Saloon Car Tital at Boulder Speedway, the remarkable story behind this was that one month earlier the car was written off in a crash at Bunbury Speedway so it was no surprise that John dedicated the win to his mates, pannel beater and fellow racer Robert Harding, brother Terry and mechanics Terry Westbrook and Richard Roberts, along with local sign writer Ray Freeman.
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1975 - BERT VOSBERGEN Division One Sedan
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1975 - MAL COOPER (SHOOTING STAR)
As far as photographers go in WA one of the most traveled would have to be Mal Cooper.
Mal started snapping speedway action in the mid seventies at Waroona and Bunbury, as his interests grew he found himself working every weekend of the year travelling as far north as Karratha, Port Hedland and Broome.being based in Busselton Mal was able to travel south as far as Esperance and throughout the wheat belt.
Ellenbrook and Bibra were on Mals list as well as every speedway in the South West, as Mal reflected he explained there is only Kalgoolie and Pithara I can think of I never made it to, Mal hung up the camera in the mid 90's although Mal is still open for photo sales and can be contacted on 04 0852 3028.
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1975 - SOUTH WESTERN TIMES NEWSPAPER REPORTED
Bunbury Speedway manager Allan Blake with some of the trophies that will be presented at the Bunbury Car Club presentation dinner at Tarooki Lodge on Saturday night.
Circa April 1975.
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1975 - SOUTH WESTERN TIMES NEWSPAPER REPORTED
Bunbury Council Grants Car Club $50,000 Self Supporting Loan
The Bunbury Council has granted the Bunbury Club the operators of the Bunbury Speedway a $50,000 self supporting loan on money's owed by the club. The club has provided a list of guarantors on behalf of the club to safe gaurd the loan.
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1975 - SOUTH WESTERN TIMES NEWSPAPER REPORTED
7th October 1975
1975 - KIM REID Standard Saloon's
7th October 1975 - Kim Reid is currently in top form in the Standard Saloons, but there are some new kids coming in from the Junior ranks and they are red hot. Greg Freeman and Michael Moule will be on the pace from the get go. Photographer: unknown.
1975 - GREG FREEMAN Standard Saloon's
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2015 - SOUTH WESTERN TIMES NEWSPAPER REPORTED
B u n b u r y S p e e d w a y r o a r s
o f f w i t h 17 - e v e n t n i g h t
The 1975-76 Bunbury Speedway season roars off on Saturday night with a 17 event programme plus the official opening by the Mayor of Bunbury, Mr Pat Usher, followed by a grand parade and fireworks.
The GT Falcon in which Colin Harper is expected to make a winning challenge for the trophy in the main division one saloon car event at Bunbury Speedway on Saturday night.
October circa 1975
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1975 - ALLAN BLAKE Division One Sedan
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1975 - SOUTH WESTERN TIMES NEWSPAPER REPORTED
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1975 - SUNDAY INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER REPORTED
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1975 - GEORGE LANE Supermodified's
Speedway and Road Race History Pictorial feature
1975 - George Lane was a very valuable club member as well as a hell of a racer. Started of with bedsted Hot Rod powered by a Dodge Q engine, Ran Jaguar powered Modified's before moving up to this Ford V8 powered Supermodified. Photo's: Brian Moyle collection.
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1975 - BUNBURY SPEEDWAY Division One Sedans
1975 - John Duda in the EH Holden leads away Allan Blake in the Torana Colin Harper in the Hardtop Falcon and Brian Pearce in the Monaro from Boulder Speedway at the rear. Photo; Pearce family collection.
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1975 - JOHNNY CLAPP Division One Sedan
1975 - Johnny Clapp in the Mini a bricklayer by day and a fearsom speedway racer by night. Photo: unknown.
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1975 - PHIL BAKER Division Two Sedan
1975 - Phil was a division 2 driver that made his way up through junior sedans starting in 1971 at Collie Speedway and then Bunbury in 1972, firstly in an Austin and then a Triumph Herald. Photo: Baker family collection.
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1975 - MERRICK TRIPLETT Division One Sedan
1975 - Merrick or Mick as most knew him was well know for thinking outside the circle when it came to car choice, by 1975 Mick had worked a deal with Kim Abbott to turn a rally car into a speedway car. Photo: South West Times.
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1975 - BOB SHEPHERD Division One Sedan
1975 - Boulder Oval Champion Bob Shepherd often ran the big open Bunbury and Claremont tracks, often not to far away from trouble, Bob would often come to the notice of officials. Photo: Sunday Independent newspaper.
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1975 - JOHN HENDRY Production Cars
1975 - John Hendry in his Datsun 180B SSS Production Sedan. Photographer: unknown.
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1975 - ROYCE FITZGERALD Supermodified's
1975 - Ray Geneve suited up looks over his old ride in the Bunbury pits prior to racing the now Royce Fitzgerald car.
Ray Geneve recalls: I had onsold the car to Royce Fitzgerald then and he had intended on racing the car at Claremont Speedway, but Cyclone Tracy hit Darwin and he had to return to check damage to his business and left the car with me to drive, Wasn't quite the same car as when I had it.