I loved growing up and spending time in my dad’s shed as he worked fixing trucks, utes, and build things (when I wasn’t running from the noise of the drop saw!). Here are my kids checking out how their Pop is going building his new speedway car. His old yellow one he’s hoping to sell eventually and the white one he’s been busy building. He’s a clever man my dad, he’s doing all the bar work himself and getting it ready for my uncle to give it a new paint job.
And you can tell Blake has got the same revhead gene, look at the smile on his face as Pop lets him take it for a test drive. I was in a go kart at the age of three and loved getting behind the wheel and my daughter is a good driver, but dosn’t have the love of cars like Blake does.
And the last pic is of Homer, (RIP) the buggy my dad built with our mate Steve. We had an old brown Datsun we used to drive around in also when we were nearly teenagers, the older we got the more daring we became. My dad was the one who taught me how to do a reverse spin in Homer (which is flogging along in reverse, spinning the car and taking off forward in one smooth motion). This picture was taken at the Kukerin Creek Bed racing event where you go through a muddy track, as you can probably tell. Poor Homer is retired to the back of the yard now, but he gave us years of fun and adventure.
For those of you who have never seen speedway here is a clip for you. This is the start of the final, 20 cars doing 40 laps at Narrogin Speedway Club.
The orange car out the front is Kye Blight who is the state number one already and is one of the local lads (and only 17). A very good driver and although he ended up sitting out most of the final he’s got plenty more chances to get the number 1 spot, and I don’t doubt that he will.
I took the kids, who absolutely loved watching the cars race. I enjoyed catching up with blokes I used to race against and watching them race in the national title. Yes, it makes me want to go out and buy a car and start racing again, but it is an expensive sport…and I lack funds. The production division is the division I raced in, just about the cheapest after street stocks, which my dad still races in. After juniors, I went into productions at the age of 17 because dad thought it would be better as productions are allowed to have more bar work protecting the car (don’t think he liked the idea of lots of panel beating).
There were a few crashes, one with a missing wheel, engine failures – but the kids loved the crashing the best.
And I must say I was amazed at the turn out and what a great event for the Narrogin Club. The place was packed and cars were parked down the road outside the club. I even got to show my kids my name up in the club rooms on the champions board…not that they really cared or understood what it was for - LOL!
You can see more about the speedway on their website.
