15 replies to this topic

[alessandro silva]

For my work on the 40s.
I have gotten this one from J. Piget’s list. Frank Kleinig is given as best on scratch. I have found a picture of Kleinig’s special that looks pretty much Maserati based.
I would like to know more. Were the Bathurst and Strathpine races the only two races in circuit in Australia during 1946? Is the Strathpine date known Are more results known? Distances? Is something known about Kleinig? Etc.
All valuable information will be properly acknowledged

[David McKinney]

Will be able to supply more later.
In the meantime, the Hudson Special that Kleinig raced from circa 1938 until well after the war was not Maserati based - IIRC an MG chassis with 8-cyl Hudson engine and one-off bodywork.
However, he used a 6CM Maserati as the basis of a later Hudson Special - 1954? Whether it was the Maser body on the old frame or the Hudson engine in the (modified) Maser frame I don't recall, but there was a TNF thread on it a few months ago

[Ray Bell]

There were also races at Caversham (WA) and I think there may have been an outing at Marsden Park (just off the Blacktown-Richmond Road near Llandilo) as well.

Kleinig's car had the chassis of a rather heavy MG sedan, and by this time it had Minerva front brakes but not, as I recall, the 16" wheels. By 1953 it was pretty well developed to its peak in this form, so a Peugeot 203 front end was grafted on in place of the beam axle and it was turned into a single seater using the Johnny Wakefield Maserati body...



Which was quite a change from this one (never before seen on Atlas)...



As David has said, it was rebuilt in this form in 1954, but was destined never to race...

http://www.atlasf1.c...=&postid=268651

I'm sure there's another picture of it somewhere... just before it was ripped apart by Tom Roberts so that he could rebuild the Maserati...



...and if you ever wanted to know why Kleinig was known as "dirt track charlie," well some may refer you to this... but it's not really the answer...



...Rob Roy, late forties.

[alessandro silva]

David and Ray, I really appreciate a lot.
Is it possible to have the Strathpine results?
And to know some basics as: which of race and which kind of circuit?

[Ray Bell]

I have results, I think, in my AMS volume, but it's not here with me...

as for the nature of the circuit... try this thread from a week or two back...

http://www.atlasf1.c...&threadid=49824

It wasn't quite flat, with a rise to the southern end...

[Jimmy Piget]

My source for the Strathpine 1946 race & some other is a book from the collection "Unique Book" called "Australian motorsport".
It is a recollection of fac-simile articles, but far from being exhaustive on every Oz races.
When I find it in my messed library (give me a day or two), I'll post you the Strathpiune results as published in it.

[Ray Bell]

Who authored that book, Jimmy?

I'm not familiar with the title...

[Jimmy Piget]

Well I unearthed the book.
"Australian Motor Sport", published by Unique Motor Books, PO Box 2795, Hockley, Essex SS5 4BL, email
No author, no year of publishing (circa 2000 ?), only a small preface to the collection of books (not only to this one) signed Colin Pitt.

Having a look inside, I'm sorry to have made a mistake in my previous message : there is no report of 1946 Strathpine.
But a small mention, appended to the 1948 Strathpine report :

"During both the Open events, Chas Whatmore repeatedly lapped at 1 min 13 sec, which betters the the figure of 1 min 15 sec set by Frank Kleinig (Kleinig Hudson), the course record standing since 1946."
Does this mean that Kleineg actually was the "fastest time" (sic) of the 1946 event ?
Perhaps was I too optimistic when I gave this information ?
Needing for confirmation.

[Ray Bell]

There's little doubt that Kleinig would have been the fastest at the meeting... Alf Barrett wasn't there, as I recall, nobody else could reasonably have touched him... especially with that dirt loop around the trees.

If Whatmore was faster, then it probably means that the circuit had been improved. Charlie had a speedcar with a Studebaker engine... not a match for Kleinig's car at all.

I'll get out my AMS volumes when I get back to Harden, that is if nobody else checks it out first.

I gather that this book is a little shallow then?

[Barry Lake]

Unfortunately the magazine Australian Motor Sports, the only one in Australia covering motor sport at the time, has a small article of less than one page, with three photos, covering the Strathpine meeting on Sunday 12 August 1946.

The track seems to have been straight up and down the airstrip, around markers at each end. The story says, "the strip used was 1.4 miles long". This appears to mean the lap distance was 1.4 miles, because it goes on to say that Frank Kleinig set the fastest lap at 1m 18s for an average speed of 64.6 mph.

John Crouch drove his brand new MG TC road car because his Delahaye Type 135 was not ready. Frank Kleinig had the Kleinig Hudson. Other entires included Len Fowkes in the "ex-Fagen" MG K3, George Bonser with the ex-Sinclair Alta; and "Ray Revell, W Matherson, and Ken Wylie". Revell and Wylie would have been in their Model A Ford powered speedway midgets, I am fairly sure.

Others mentioned in the story: Chas Whatmore's Ford; R Chatterton, Austin 7; Snow Sefton, Ford V8 Roadster; "W Matheson" in an SS; C Anderson in a Wolseley Hornet; A Bayne in a Willys 77 stripped of its mudguards and mentioned as a last-minute entrant.

It is dificult to judge if there were any more cars present. The meeting was held in conjunction with motorcycle racing. And it appears there were only two car races, a 10 Mile Handicap and an 18 lap, 25 Mile Handicap. No mention is made of scratch placings and only 1,2 and 3 on handicap.

Ten Mile Handicap: 1 Bayne, Willys 77; 2 Crouch, MG TC; 3 Kleinig, Hudson, 4 Anderson, Wolseley Hornet.

25 Mile Handicap: 1 Kleinig, Hudson; 2 Crouch, MG TC; 3 Matherson (sic) SS Jaguar; 4 Sefton, Ford V8.

The president of the Royal Automobile Club of Queensland commented on the good behaviour of the 40,000 spectators, "...at no time did they encroach upon the track".

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted.....
Unfortunately the magazine Australian Motor Sports, the only one in Australia covering motor sport at the time, has a small article of less than one page..... Other entires included..... W Matherson.....

Others mentioned in the story: ....."W Matheson" in an SS.....

One and the same?

The crowd figure would have to be highly optimistic, I would think... though it wasn't far from Lawnton railway station, nor Strathpine station for that matter. The area at that time was largely given over to dairy farming and the like, so not many lived in the district.

There was also a Willys 77 or two in the Woody Point event of 1936... I wonder if this car harked back to that era?

This race meeting was the first ever road race meeting held in Queensland, though the competitors in the Woody Point 'High Speed Reliability Trial' tried hard to make their event look like a race. No doubt partly resulting in the long wait until this one...

I'll check with Jim Bertram to find out if there was a wiggle at one end to make it more than just up and down the strip...

[Barry Lake]

I just read the motorcycle race reports for the 1946 Strathpine races.

In part: "It was a perfect day and the racing was conducted on a 150 ft wide strip seven tenths of a mile long. The strip was divided, one lap being approximately one and four-tenths miles."

No mention of any loop through the trees.

"There was a record attendance of over 40,000 spectators, the racing was free from accidents, and the public gave 100 per cent co-operation with the officials. On no occasion was there any encroachment upon the track."

Jack Forrest won both the Junior (350cc) and Senior (500cc) Queensland Victory Grand Prix races. Jack is the man who fell at Bathurst and broke his elbow on the last tight corner before the Con-Rod Straight at Bathurst, causing it to be named "Forrest's Elbow". Modern day racers insist on calling it "Forest Elbow", although there are too few trees there to suggest it is through a forest.

Jack actually died only last August, having regularly attended veteran motorcycle riders reunions right to the end.

The talk of spectators' cooperation with officials no doubt was prompted by spectators at pre-war Bathurst meetings strolling across and along the track as a matter of course. I have seen movie footage of spectators - many of them - walking down Con-Rod Straight with their backs to the oncoming cars travelling at top speed. Post-war, there were signs, "Please do not walk on the track".

Even in the late 1950s, I remember climbing trough the post and wire fence to hide, lying face down, in some bushes on the apex of the right hand bend after The Dipper and on the way down to Forrrest's Elbow. This was to overcome my lack of anything but a standard lens on my Purma Special cemera to take photos of the cars just before they whizzed past my face less than a metre away.

Had I been spotted by an official, which I wasn't, I am sure I would have had no more happen to me than to be told to get the hell out of there. And you can't do that on a modern GP circuit!

Totally off-topic, I know, but this reminds me of yet another story. Some time in the 1980s I was at Brands Hatch for the British GP and the art director of Modern MOTOR magazine, which I edited at the time, was there with me. He had a photographer's pass and managed to fall asleep on the grass at the exit from Surtees Corner. He was woken with a start when Rene Arnoux charged across the grass in his direction in, from memory, a Renault F1 car. You can't do that at 21st century race circuits either. And at the time it seemed like modern days...

[Barry Lake]

Of course Matherson and Matheson are one and the same. I was simply pointing out the alternate spelling used in the report to note that either could be correct.

I have also just noted that Sunday was 11 August that year, probably another mistake in the report.

[Ray Bell]

Why would you expect that to be a mistake, Barry?

Remember that at Lowood over the next few years they had a problem because they ran on Sundays?

[alessandro silva]

I am busy thanking all of you who answered my six queriesin separate threads! This place is really incredible as is the quality of the answers. Thank you very much.

[Ray Bell]

Well, I had the opportunity to drop in on Jim Bertram tonight...

He told me that many layouts were tried at Strathpine and, though he wasn't there at the first meeting, he would have expected that it was just straight up and down the runway (as at Ringwood, for instance) without the dive off into the bush.

Which makes me wonder all the more about Whatmore beating Frank Kleinig's time two years later... maybe the circuit was shortened (not difficult, just move some white-painted oil drums as seen in the background of the pic of Hope Bartlett).

But even more interesting was the inclusion of a Strathpine event conducted in 1934 in a list of results for Ballot racing cars... the 5-litre Indianapolis car being credited with FTD in what was presumably a sprint and probably along a stretch of the old South Pine Road at what now is Brendale...

Now, Barry and David... David because he contributed to the magazine in which this result is listed (a Graham Gauld Historic Racing mag dated February 1995)... what do you know about a driver named Bray in the 5-litre Ballot in this era?

Did the car go to Queensland for a while?

Bray Park, by the way, is now a suburb adjoining Strathpine, the Bray family were original settlers there.