22 replies to this topic

[DNQ]

My latest project (following my F1 test driver project) is the Australian Racing Circuits Archive.

This archive is part of Chequered Flag Motorsport (http://cfm.globalf1.net/) and aims to catalogue every Australian racing circuit (loose definition of "circuit" being any (sealed) closed road which hosted a competition car race).
For each Australian circuit I hope to include:

• Key stats (Location / Years Active / Length / Type)
• Description / History
• Aerial / Satellite Photo
• Track Map (as detailed as possible)
• Picture(s) of the circuit
• Onboard Video (YouTube link embedded)

An example of a profile is that of Lakeside: http://cfm.globalf1.net/?page_id=201. This is near complete, however I have yet to complete the description, which ideally should be a few paragraphs and cover the basic history.

If anyone has track maps, aerial shots etc they can contribute for any track, please do not hesitate to post them or PM them to. Please make sure that these are either from a) the official site of the circuit b) Google Maps c) your own photographs d) un-copyrighted photos or e) items which are unlikely to cause copyright issues.

I realise there is Terry Walker's excellent Fast Tracks book out there, however, the internet allows us to put together a much richer visual experience to complement detailed written works such as that (incidentally, anyone know where I can get this book? Can't find it anywhere). Not to mention Fast Tracks is 10+ years old and there have been many changes to Australian racing tracks since then.

As you can see, the work I have done so far is very, very incomplete. The present circuits aren't too bad, I have a track map for each and aerial photograph for most, but I've done virtually nothing for the previous circuits.

[Terry Walker]

Hi - Fast Tracks is now out of print, and the last known copies were with Pitstop Bookshop in Perth WA, who are online. They may be all gone by now.

Terry

[DNQ]

That's what I thought.

Ah well.

[DNQ]

Just wanted to bump this one, although it seems there isn't a great deal of interest, I guess there is a feeling maybe that what I'm attempting has already been done??

Anyway - my list of "active" Australian racing circuits - are there any others I should add to it? Has McNamara Park in SA ever held car races?

[David Shaw]

I for one think it's a very worthwhile project, just for the fact that Terry's fantastic book is out of print and getting thinner on the ground. You may want to send Hidden Valley a bit further north though, and a quick scan of the circuites off the top of my head noticed the omission of Altona, Victoria from the 1950s where Black Jack raced and Len Lukey made his racing debut in a Ford Mainline ute.

[Terry Walker]

Altona is in Fast Tracks.

I had vague plans to update and expand Fast Tracks, but new projects are always more interesting that old ones, and I'm working on a big new one, so this venture of DNQs is welcome. But there will be problems getting official circuit maps of some of the dead tracks - there never was one of Barjarg for example. The one I drew for Fast Tracks, taken from an old air survey pic, was the first to be published. Many early circuit maps aree woefully inaccurate - little better than rough sketches. Things got better from the 1960s on.

It was the startling difference between a published map of Mt Druitt circuit, and a contemporary air photo of same, which triggered Fast Tracks.

[Terry Walker]

Getting the ball rolling: Port Wakefield circuit map from official programme, 13 October 1958

[David Shaw]

Here is a trackmap of the original Phillip Island track from the June 16, 1958 programme, which varies slightly in the pit lane area, and the now shortened run to Repco/Honda.

I have found that Fast Tracks is an invaluable resource for my research, so thanks again Terry.

[275 GTB-4]

Originally posted by DNQ
Just wanted to bump this one, although it seems there isn't a great deal of interest, I guess there is a feeling maybe that what I'm attempting has already been done??

Anyway - my list of "active" Australian racing circuits - are there any others I should add to it? Has McNamara Park in SA ever held car races?

A wheely, wheely good thing to do (for anyone so inclined) would be to troll through the myriad threads here with lost track info and collate it and consolidate it into an easily searchable database or whatever

[eldougo]

Came across this original layout for Eastern Creek in 1989. This is the Bob Barnard design.It is a lot different to what we ended up with i quite like it.




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[Ray Bell]

The website has made little headway in the two-plus years since this thread began...

I'm always interested in things like this and I opened the pages of a number of circuits. Unfortunately, despite the lack of information, there were also errors in most I looked at.

I'd be happy to help out if there are plans to continue with this.

[eldougo]

I am trying to find the "ApplecrossGP " track and drive around it when i am over there in a few months time.From what i can work out it starts along Canning Beach Rd going (clockwise ) or (anti clockwise) then Duncraig Rd and Tweeddale Rd is this correct or am i way out.

Click on MAP an Zoom in for streets names.

http://maps.google.c...q...a=X&oi=geoc

Edited by eldougo, 09 March 2011 - 07:48.

[Ray Bell]

A truly wonderful circuit, it really should have been kept on after the war...

Though it was undoubtedly under pressure for housing by the end of the forties.

[Catalina Park]

This is what you want (I think!)

[eldougo]

Thanks Michael for that overlay it is GREAT now what direction do we go .Anybody got ideas. Cheers Doug.

[Terry Walker]

The arrow is the wrong way: I found out years after Fast Tracks was published that the start, at the school, hared off to the right for a very long way, hung a left, got onto the riverside road, down to the yacht club corner, left up the hill past the former mental hospital, then through sweeping downhill curves to Tweeddale Rd, then right, then left around a hairpin, left again and back to the school.

I ony realised this when I was looking at a picture a few years back and suddenly realised from a building and radio mast in the background which way the circuit actually ran. Absolutely none of the sources I had back in the 70s gave any clue as to direction, and I got it wrong by mis-interpreting that same photo. Recently the little house and radio mast were pulled down and new expensive houses are going up. So: circuit is CLOCKWISE!

1940



2005



You can see the small brick and tile building and the mast in both photos. The Plymouth Spl is climbing up Duncraig from the left-hander at the corner of Canning Beach Rd and Duncraig, towards the hospital (now a tourist spot). There are a lot of roundabouts on the route now, but the left-hand hairpin at the corner iof Tweedddale and Ardross is much the same.

I didn't make too many mistakes in Fast Tracks - that one, Woody Point (totally wrong), and Wanneroo short circuit - slightly wrong.

Edited by Terry Walker, 09 March 2011 - 10:05.

[Ray Bell]

Oh yes... Woody Point... we sorted that, but only with the help of a competitor who wasn't sure either!

But between the photos we located and the movie we found we got there.

You actually mean anti-clockwise, Terry.

[Ray Bell]

That's right... you have to turn left out of Canning Beach Road into Duncraig...

Which ruins the best corner on the whole circuit!

[eldougo]

I have Google streeview and the car is going the wrong way to my way of thinking.

[Lee Nicolle]

Just wanted to bump this one, although it seems there isn't a great deal of interest, I guess there is a feeling maybe that what I'm attempting has already been done??

Anyway - my list of "active" Australian racing circuits - are there any others I should add to it? Has McNamara Park in SA ever held car races?

Only a couple of years late. Mac Pk as far as I know holds races for both bikes and Karts. And they also hold single car type Sprints for cars. It is fairly tight and narrow.

[Terry Walker]

Sorry Doug - call it a senior moment, not knowing which way a clock runs. Mind you, in the RPH in the orthopedic ward sister's cubbyhole there's a bunch of clocks, one of which is numbered, and runs, the wrong way. That messed with my head, I can tell you.

Street view - as you can see, the little house and the radio antenna have gone. The car coming towards the camera is travelling in the race direction, up Duncraig. When you go to look, if you're coming from the city side, get into the right-turn lane on Canning Bridge, turn right past the Hotel and down to the water, turn left, and you're almost on the circuit in the correct direction. The blue line on Catalina Park's pic is wrong at this point, the cars actually came out of what used to be Ogilvie and is now called Moreau, the first street on the left as you head around the river. The Plymouth Spl in the pic is roughly where Carson Rd joins from the left, which wasn't there in 1940. This stretch of Duncraig has been revised and the curves eased since 1940.

Edited by Terry Walker, 09 March 2011 - 11:32.

[ken devine]

As it happened i drove part of the circuit yesterday doing a delivery and thought how Canning Beach Rd and Duncraig rd must
have looked in 1940, today it is all expensive mansions.

[eldougo]

The proposed Track North on the now Old indy track in Surfers Paradise.

From RCN March 1990. Pity it never happen instead of that Street race TRACK that they have too set up each year at a GREAT cost. An now run Taxis on it .

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