WOLLONGONG (NSW)
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1950's - MOUNT KEIRA SPEEDWAY(Sheppards Oval)These days Sheppards Oval is an adjunct sporting field to Edmund Rice College. In earlier years it was a much more exciting place!
Throughout the 1950's it was the home of the Mount Keira Speedway. At the end of the decade the track closed and Edmund Rice College was developed on the surrounding site, The college opened in April of 1962.
At Mount Keira on race days the bikes would be on first, then the Midget Speedcars and then the Stock Cars. It was a great day of motor racing and there would be large crowds drawn from the Illawarra area and beyond.
The Mount Keira Speedway preceded the Wollongong City Speedway at Kembla Grange, the latter opening in 1963.
research and editorial Chris Cartledge |
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1952 - MOUNT KEIRA SPEEDWAY GRAND NATIONAL SPEED SCRAMBLE 9th June 1952 |
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1953 - DAILY ILLAWARRA MERCURY NEWSPAPER REPORTED
20th April 1953
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1956 - MOUNT KEIRA SPEEDWAY
1956 - Running repairs on a Stock Car in the pits. Photo: Chris Cartledge.
Lost Wollongong facebook Photo feature
1950's - Mount Keira Speedway. Photo: Lynne Hillier collection.
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1956 - BRYAN CARTLEDGE Photographer
For some years in the mid 1950's, Bryan Hammersley Cartledge (1916 - 1998) was the track "official" Photographer. Interestingly, Brian was a limbless returned soldier and lived in Fairy Meadows, a suburb of greater Wollongong.
He was a Rat of Tobruk - loosing his right leg above the knee to a piece of German shrapnel one afternoon whilst in a trench at Tobruk, his leg was was amputated in a field hospital (tent)
He had a prosthesis or tin leg which slowed him down somewhat but did not stop him from taking action shots from the centre of Sheppards Oval. Absolutely no safery barriers to get in the way in those days.
His sons David and Chris. sold postcards to race goers around the track using a sandwich board to display the most graphic shots, they also carried handfuls of other photos for sale at two shillings (20 cents) each.
1956 - Bryan and Chris Cartledge with cousin Nellie McLintock at Mount Keira Speedway, note the range of Bryan's photos on display attached to the fence. Photo: Chris Cartledge.
research and editorial Chris Cartledge
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1948 - MOUNT KEIRA SPEEDWAY LOCATION
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2008 - MOUNT KEIRA SPEEDWAY LOCATION
