Geoghegan had a sensational meeting plonking his ‘Stang on pole by 5 seconds and then proceeded to disappear during the race at the rate of ten seconds a lap. The first are the relatively mild modifications to chassis #06003 and #06021. Pete again took pole from Beechey and Hamilton who equalled the Monaro V8’s time- pretty amazing on this power circuit. Formula Libre race during the 1964 Gold Star, October weekend. Its first custodian was a Roman, Antonio Maglione who contested at least four Hillclimb events in it in June/July 1965 having acquired it that April. The specifications of this batch, very close to production cars included short nose bodies and six Weber DCN3 carbs, rather than the standard three, feeding essentially a standard wet sump Tipo 213 engine. Left to right- unknown, McKay, unknown, Geoff Sykes Warwick Farm promoter and manager, GH and Mike Kable, motoring journalist. Then Bob Jane’s McLaren M6B Repco ‘740’ 5 litre and Niel Allen’s Chev F5000 engined Elfin ME5 joined the grids during 1969. These photos by Milan Fistonic capture the late-sixties flavour of the Geoghegan’s dealership in Sydney’s Parramatta Road, ‘Auto Alley’. #9 is Bill Patterson, #19 Doug Whiteford and #6 Bib Stillwell all driving Cooper Climax T51 FPF’s ubiquitous as they were at the time! His ‘Sports-Racing Closed’ Mini is somewhat of a fish outta-water amongst this lot. After 9 years of duty the CMF Air Squadrons were given non-flying roles and simultaneously Mallala was wound down. Phil Barnes, Cooper S from Mike Savvas Ford Falcon GT XT, Bathurst Esses  ATCC round 1969 (oldracephotos). Knocking off Pete in a car which was continually developed by John Sheppard in Sydney was always going to be a big challenge, lack of development time was a barrier, on the other hand the team knew Chev V8’s well, if not the balance of the new cars running gear. Later they would achieve much together with Spencer driving both the SV Brabham BT11A Climax after Graham Hill had finished with it at the end of the 1964 Tasman Series and McKay’s famous, glorious ‘Red Lady’- his Ferrari 250LM. At the same time, Phil Barnes began slowing in his Morris Cooper S, allowing Peter Manton, Bob Holden’s Escort Twin-Cam and Roy Griffith’s Falcon GTHO Ph1 past.

There were three Australian sports car titles to his name, the last in 1976 in a Porsche. Leo also finished 3rd outright in the 1973 Hardie-Ferodo 1000 (the year the race was extended from 500 miles to 1000 kilometres) co-driving with Colin Bond in a Holden Dealer Team LJ Torana GTR XU-1. Two of them actually. At about the same time the new RAAF Edinburgh opened at Salisbury in South Australia. When this was done the body crate was opened, plastic wrapping removed and using 2 trolley jacks the body was moved into the workshop and placed on modified jack stands. Lets go back a step and have a look at the background of Mallala. It is in this period in the earlyish days of historic racing that I remember the Melbourne based car and later when raced by Ian and his son Nick McDonald, the car always looked ‘a million bucks’ and was very fast as the McDonald cars always are. See here for more; David McKay, Lola Mk1 Climax, Forrests Elbow, Bathurst, Easter 1961. It never looked better than in its yellow phase in Bert Howard’s hands mind you…. Lets not forget his late career drives in Laurie O’Neill’s Porsche 935, a notoriously tricky device to master. Geoghegan’s ’67 Mustang and Norm Beechey’s Chev Camaro 350 were the main threats to Porsche victory with local boy Pete Geoghegan the man most likely. If, if, if… (D Friedman). The addition to the nose of the car appears to be a camera- I would love to see the footage if it exists?

Oh, there is no sign of Alan Hamilton’s Porsche 906 or was he in between 906’s at the time perhaps? So I finished my coffee quickly…went into the service bay held out my hand and introduced myself, without a blink he shook my hand introduced himself and told me what the problem was, I fixed it in 10 minutes and he was on his way, oh his name…Warwick Brown, I serviced his Elan from then on…’(In 1969 20 year old WB would have just been starting his racing career in a little Brabham owned by Pat Burke- who was still his patron when he won the Tasman Championship in 1975 aboard a Lola T332 Chev F5000), Photographer Milan Fistonic with an eye for Plus 2 Elans (Fistonic), Lotus equals ‘Lots Of Trouble Usually Serious’…. The ball-game changed into 1969 off course, Matich’s SR4 4.8 litre Repco 760- four cam ‘Sledge Hammer’ first raced at Warwick Farm on 1 December 1968. Niel and Peter Molloy modified the car in several ways, most notably replacing the Olds/ZF combination with a 5 litre Chev and Hewland DG300 gearbox- but not really troubling Matich with the modified, faster car. As always with Porsche you could order whatever you liked, that included the ‘Carrera 6’ engine and running gear from the 911R! Ian or ‘Pete’ Geoghegan was a multiple national champion aboard cars with a roof and Leo was similarly credentialed in the more rarefied and refined single-seater world. During this time, Leo and big brother Ian were involved in testing a ute fitted with a 5.6 litre, 340ci V8 engine and with the R/T Charger's wheelbase at the Mallala circuit in South Australia. The second placed Ferrari P4 of Scarfiotti/Parkes ahead of eleventh placed and first in class Filipinetti Ferrari 275GTB/C #09079 driven by Steinemann/Spoerry (LAT), Ray Delaney in GTB #07545 at Amaroo Park, Sydney in 1981, Jaguar Magazine, Repco Collection via Nigel Tait, Rod MacKenzie, Ray Delaney, Talacrest, barchetta.cc, LAT, Stephen Dalton, Australian Muscle Car interview with Phil West, Borrani’s at the front and Campagnolo’s up the back, ain’t she sweet…, Allan Moffat chases Pete Geoghegan out of Creek Corner at Warwick Farm in September 1970…. Hamilton followed Geoghegan home by a respectable 44 seconds for second with Peter Manton’s Cooper S third. The car was built during ’68 by Norm’s team led by Claude Morton at Beechey’s Brunswick, Melbourne workshop. Geoghegan made the most of the freshly resurfaced track to score pole ahead of Bob Jane’s TransAm Mustang with Hamilton fourth behind Beechey’s Monaro. ‘BR15’ was not available until the end of the British racing season however. Happy chappy. And he entertained in and out of the car. Cusack could see the writing on the wall so acquired two Elfins, a Catalina single-seater and Mallala mid-engined sportscar with which to take his career forward. As a consequence Beechey was able to easily reduce Geoghegan’s lead in the second half of the contest.

Maranello sold it in October 1965 to Paddy McNally, then a respected journalist later to make a motza as an equity-holder in Allsport Ltd along with Bernie The Unbelievable (Ecclestone). You see, he was out of the (championship) running entirely at that point, and his car had all but expired.’. Commonwealth CA-18 Mustang 23 (P51D) manufactured by the Commonwealth Aircraft Factory in Fishermans Bend, Melbourne. Frank Matich won in a Jag XKD ‘GT’ from Brian Foley’s Austin Healey Sprite Hardtop and Bob Jane’s Maser 300S Coupe. We did well to get where we did. The top four grid slots were Jane, Geoghegan, Moffat and Hamilton. Alan Moffat’s long-awaited TransAm Mustang was the star attraction, this car surely the most iconic ‘greatest’ touring car ever to race in Oz. Car made its race debut the following weekend at Warwick Farm on 1 December. The Ferrari was on 10-inch wide racing Dunlops with inboard disc brakes and the Holden was on Michelin XAS road tyres. Here Pete enters Hell Corner ahead of 1970 Champion Norm Beechey’s 1970 Holden Monaro HT 350 GTS. Ironically, the HDT was then run by Harry Firth while Leo's older brother Ian won the race co-driving with Allan Moffat in a Ford Works Team XA Falcon GT Hardtop. Beechey was again a non-starter with yet another blown engine. Nicknamed variously Big "Pete" or "Fatty" (hey, he wasn't small), Geoghegan was from a famous racing family that included his older brother Leo, sister Marie-Louise and father Tom. Then the motor box was opened and all suspension parts/wheels were removed and taken into the workshop ready for assembly, by this this time it was time to stop work for morning tea! . Superb ‘Racing Car News’ cover by David Atkinson of Matich in the SR3 ahead of Alan Hamilton’s Porsche 906 Spyder. Track only 1 mile long then (unattributed).

McKay’s cars finally arrived from the UK in October 1960, their first outing a test day at Warwick Farm in October before the inaugural Warwick Farm open meeting on 18 December 1960. A total of 2257 trainees passed out of the school before the unit ceased to work as No 6 SFTS on 31 December 1945. The #16 car is Tony Osbourne’s Argo Chev driven by Peter Macrow- then the twin-dark striped Lotus 23B Ford of Bob Muir another obscured Lotus 23- that of Glynn Scott, then the distinctive shape of a mid-dark coloured Elfin Mallala Ford driven by Ray Strong in front of Doug MacArthur, Lotus 26R and then, finally, John Leffler’s Cooper S Lightweight at the rear. a Nardi modified Fiat 1800 taken out to 2 litres owned by Fiat Australia which David raced in the burgeoning Appendix J touring car class and his Jaguar. Ferrari P4/Can-Am 350; https://primotipo.com/2015/04/02/ferrari-p4canam-350-0858/, Elfin 400/Traco Olds; https://primotipo.com/2015/05/28/elfin-400traco-olds-frank-matich-niel-allen-and-garrie-cooper/, Matich SR4 with some SR3 bits; https://primotipo.com/2016/07/15/matich-sr4-repco-by-nigel-tait-and-mark-bisset/, Longford with plenty of 350 Can-Am; https://primotipo.com/2018/07/05/longford-lap/, Tailpiece: O’Sullivan, Matich SR3 Repco from Niel Allen, Elfin 400 Chev, Warwick Farm early 1969…. Geoghegan and Moffat pulled away from the rest of the field over the next 2 laps whilst ‘Stormin Norm’ Beechey suffered a misfire. Touring Car racing is a religion in Australia, our sedan racing has been the equal of the best in the world for decades and arguably for the last 20 years our V8 Supercar category has been consistently one of the Top 5 sedan racing contests on the planet. I’ve not quite gotten to the Matich SR3’s yet, in terms of an article but click on the SR4 piece referenced below- there is a bit at the end of it about the SR3 and a complete Matich chassis list which will tell you what is what. His band-width extended from GT’s to Sports Cars, Production Tourers and very highly modified Sports Sedans- sedans of considerable power and performance. In more recent times, May 2017, after Clem Smith’s death, the Peregrine Corporation, owners of Tailem Bend’s new ‘The Bend’ motorsport complex own the facility. That was number one check on all Lotuses even new ones. The shadows of the War by then had to a large extent diminished, globally the worlds economy was performing well and consumer credit was becoming more widely available- many young men could afford to go motor racing and FJ was very much a class of choice.

Indeed, the difference between an Australian Grand Prix ‘Old Nail’ win for McKay and 3rd place at Mallala in October 1961 was a jumped start and 60 second penalty in the opinion of the race stewards…but not in the opinion of many informed onlookers!


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