Paperback
-
PICK UP IN STORECheck Availability at Nearby Stores
Available within 2 business hours
Related collections and offers
Overview
There's no other motor racing circuit in Australia that holds the same magic as Bathurst's Mount Panorama. It's been home to the Australian F1 Grand Prix, The Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix, the world's greatest 1000km touring car race, the Australian Hill Climb championship, and now a round of the world GT championship. To win on the Mountain is still the pinnacle of Australian motor sport achievement. John Smailes, co-writer of Allan Moffat's autobiography, and author of Race Across the World, has been at the Mountain for some of its greatest and infamous moments. His book tells the stories behind the champions and legendary races that have made Mount Panorama so famous. With extraordinary access to all of Australia's leading motor racing names, both past and present, John's book is full of color, anecdote, and true inside knowledge.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781760529369 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Allen & Unwin |
| Publication date: | 02/01/2020 |
| Pages: | 368 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.20(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
The Master of the Mountain
Gregg Hansford is the only top-line competitor to have won at Mount Panorama on two and four wheels. He won the Australian Senior and Unlimited grands prix on bikes, and the Bathurst 1000 and Bathurst 12 Hour. Hansford's skill and his bravery — on the bikes especially — epitomise the ethos of the Mountain circuit. Yet Hansford came second in the greatest race he ever contested on the Mountain.
It was Good Friday 1974 and the media manager of the first truly independent motorcycle grand prix at Australia's greatest race circuit illegally led a small party of journalists to an out-of-bounds area on Conrod Straight, the fastest and potentially most dangerous place on Mount Panorama — and, in fact, on all racetracks in Australia. Their purpose was to witness a phenomenon that would change the face of racing and elevate motorcycle competition to an entirely new level. If it failed, though, it would bring the sport into public disrepute. On that morning it was an each-way proposition.
A new breed of super grand prix machines was expected to break through the 300-kilometre-per-hour barrier.
Only two months previously, the same bikes — spearheaded by Yamaha's four-cylinder TZ750A and ridden by world champion Giacomo Agostini (he ultimately won fifteen world titles) — had come perilously close to the triple-ton on the banked track of Florida's Daytona 200.
But now, the bikes were at Mount Panorama, ridden not by Agostini but by two young Australians, not untried but not yet proven. One had turned 22 earlier that week; the other was still 21.
Gregg Hansford and Warren Willing were both entered in the twenty-lap, 123-kilometre Australian Unlimited Grand Prix that weekend on the enormously powerful machines, along with nine other riders including internationals Pat Hennen from the United States and Anglo-American Ron Grant. But from the outset, the focus was just on the two Australians — Hansford and Willing were the poster boys of a new breed of motorcycle racing emerging in Australia.
Conrod Straight is a killer. Of the 21 deaths at Mount Panorama since its inception, twelve have occurred on the 1.9-kilometre downhill plunge from Forrest's Elbow at its top to Murray's Corner at its base. As speed builds, the ability of a vehicle — car or motorcycle — to remain in controllable contact with the ground changes exponentially. And aerodynamics in the 1970s was largely a black science, unknown to some and experimental to others.
Two years before, journalists had stood in a relatively safe spectator area at the base of Conrod and witnessed what was said to be the greatest Improved Touring-Car race of all time. It was the third round of the 1972 Australian Touring Car Championship, and five-time champion Ian 'Pete' Geoghegan, in a locally modified Ford Falcon GTHO, battled four-time champion Allan Moffat in his US-built Ford Mustang. They traded position more than twenty times in thirteen laps, their cars perpetually imbalanced as they slipstreamed for advantage on the bumps and corrugations of Conrod. When they returned to the pits, with Geoghegan the hair's-breadth victor, both cars bore the scars of body damage from their 260-kilometre-perhour grinding, suspension-bottoming contact with the Conrod tarmac. Moffat's Mustang was covered with oil from Geoghegan's car, which had split hoses.
Three years before that, the pits had been silenced when crews looked to the second hump of Conrod — the straight had two distinct lift-off elevations — to see the fatal crash that claimed 22-year-old emerging star Bevan Gibson. One Bathurst race meeting later the veteran Tom Sulman replicated the inversion, in his elderly Lotus Eleven Climax, again with a fatal result.
Some of the journalists who stood in the paddock bordering Conrod on Good Friday 1974 had been at Mount Panorama for all those races and incidents. For the real cognoscenti there is no difference between fast bikes and fast cars. Bravery, skill and mastery over mechanical elements are universally appreciated, and Mount Panorama provided the common ground.
In truth, the spectator crowds were different then. The bikes at the time had a more blue-collar leaning. But Hansford and Willing were changing that perception. Thanks to smart young promoters like Vincent Tesoriero — a real force in the development of the sport — a new breed of motorsport enthusiast was emerging. That was reflected in the journalists at this first modern-era bikes-only meeting at the Mountain.
And now it was the moment of truth.
The journalists gathered at the fence, which was nothing more than a three-strand restraint to keep the cattle out. The media manager pushed them back. 'Leave at least a 50-metre gap,' he implored. It seemed prudent. No one had ever been allowed here before, and he'd lose his job and face a huge sanction if something went wrong. But what an opportunity it would be — what a unique experience — if it all went right.
And then the bikes were there. Even on the first lap of the first practice session they were getting air, their front wheels losing contact with the ground and pawing at the sky. And it wasn't just the sight. The sound was awesome — the in-line four-cylinder two-strokes emitted high-pitched screams like no other bikes did. They were so loud you could hear them coming, and the sound remained long after they'd gone, chasing them down into the braking area.
An assault of air surrounded the bikes. Turbulence creates a physical force field. For every kilometre per hour of speed, the corresponding air resistance on the front fairing of a race bike increases by a multiple of three. If you're standing close enough, it's like a near miss from a punch thrown by a prize-fighter.
No one had ever felt anything like it before, not even from the cars. The slippery open-wheelers that had dominated Mount Panorama in the 1960s travelled like arrows through the air, and the touring cars were rudimentarily aerodynamic, but the bikes were built like bricks. Their fairings, designed to guide airflow around the rider, still presented a near-impenetrable wall to the atmosphere through which they were passing. Even now, almost half a century on, MotoGP teams are still experimenting with the wings, tabs and winglets that have become the stock-in-trade of Formula One. The Federation Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM), the world governing body of motorcycle sport, is refusing many of their attempts, partly on the grounds of safety. The winglets impose new dynamics and no one is certain how to manage them.
The Mount Panorama journalists stood in awe of this new sensation, some of them attempting to mark the braking points at the end of Conrod as the bikes tipped left into Murray's Corner. At such increased speeds, the pressure on brakes and the need to find new points of no return for keeping the throttle wide open would become critical. There was a windsock on top of the second hump, an essential guide to the cross-winds that could catch competitors out; strong windage can be fatal, but the windsock that day was almost limp, every now and then catching a playful breeze.
By the third lap, the journalists had become active participants. Some had brought cameras — telephotos with mirror lenses — to diffuse the background. Viewed through a 200millimetre lens, American Pat Hennen appeared over the second hump and for a split second his front wheel — a good metre in the air — caught a slight gust and he turned sideways, pointing directly at the photographer. The photographer prided himself on his reflexes: the adrenaline hit his stomach with a cold rush and he simultaneously took a step to the side. But Hennen was gone. In the instant that the photographer had reacted, the American — travelling at 75 metres per second — had already sped the length of two football fields past the journalists, corrected his own trajectory and was braking for Murray's Corner.
It was a shocking moment — an indication of the extreme vulnerability of the position.
The media manager gathered up the journalists, who didn't complain as they returned to the pits.
The atmosphere was charged with excitement. With huge grins on their faces, people were describing, more than anything else, the traction — or rather the lack of it — of these new machines. They would wheelspin in every gear. The power band, although reasonably wide, was still brutal. Riders would reach the point at which it lit up — at around 8000 rpm — and they'd enter a new world of control.
While the media pack had been on Conrod Straight they'd missed the action on the opposing Mountain Straight, to the west. For the first time ever, the bikes were monowheeling over the hump halfway up the mountain. Competitors on the 350-cc machines — half the size of the new bikes, but still potent — were seeing the Yamaha TZ750s open 200 metres on them from the entry point at Hell Corner to the exit at Griffin's Bend. Two hundred metres in just under a kilometre! It was phenomenal.
They were going as fast up the Mountain as they were coming down. But the fabled 300 kilometres per hour was out of reach. Not because the bikes weren't capable. With gearing on a long flat road, of course they could do it, but the circuit couldn't provide the playing surface. It would take a foolish rider to hold the thing flat down Conrod. There was no absence of bravery, but all the skill in the world just couldn't provide a 300-kilometre-per-hour result when the chassis and suspension weren't in synch with the track. Two-eighty would have to do. It was still as fast as anyone had travelled on Mount Panorama.
Tyre performance became a major topic of consideration. Wide, slick tyres, now a mainstay of motorcycle competition, were then in their infancy — in fact pretty much unheard of. Dunlop had devised a treaded tyre, quite narrow, for the TZ750, but it was inadequate, especially at Mount Panorama.
Hansford and Willing listened to the comments and quietly smiled. They'd both been at Daytona two months before, Hansford riding one of the TZ750s, Willing acting as his mechanic, and both of them learning from Australia's world 250-cc champion Kel Carruthers, who was running Yamaha's US team. Carruthers had been instrumental in the development of the new bike. He'd risked his life riding the prototype when no one else would throw a leg over it, and had convinced Yamaha to increase the wheelbase of the bike to settle down the death-twitches that threatened to throw riders off during swift changes of direction.
Hansford had been unsuccessful at Daytona, but he'd learned a lot about the TZ750's characteristics. Willing, the quietly spoken race engineer with a prodigious riding talent, had learned a lot too — not from the seat but on the tools. Now at Bathurst he and Hansford were rivals. Willing applied his technical knowledge to his bike. Hansford, not mechanically astute, had the self-belief to ride around most problems and was content to do so.
Both, however, had a secret weapon. They'd brought back to Australia a limited stock of new semi-slick rear tyres that had been developed just for Daytona. While others were talking up, with some trepidation, their lack of traction, Willing and Hansford knew they had an edge.
* * *
Gregg Hansford and Warren Willing came from opposite ends of town. Hansford had been born into privilege. His dad Harry had died when Hansford was in his teens and he'd lived with his mum, Edna, in what was essentially Hansford's Compound: six acres (2.4 hectares) in Nestor Avenue in the upmarket Brisbane suburb of Bardon. When Hansford married Julie, a model, when they were both quite young, there was plenty of room and money to build their own home on the same property, with both houses nestled around the swimming pool. Hansford belonged to a motorsport clique in Queensland, and most of its members were wealthy. Charlie O'Brien was one; his family owned quarries and transport companies, and at various times he drove for both Allan Moffat and the Holden Dealer Team. Bruce Allison was another; his dad, Big Col, had multiple businesses that helped fund Bruce's open-wheeler career, ultimately in the fearsome V8-powered Formula 5000 cars both in Australia and the UK. Bruce would marry Julie's twin sister.
Warren Willing, just three months younger than Hansford, was from the Western suburbs of Sydney. His parents, service station owners Barbara and Brian, had a daughter, Rhonda, and three boys — Len, Warren and Glenn — all of them motorcycle mad. The Willings went to school with the Sayle boys Douglas, Murray and Jeff; along with another member of their Macquarie Boys' High alma mater, Joe Eastmure, they comprised the Macquarie Motorcycle Mafia. The Sayle boys' mum Marie knew them all: she worked in the school's canteen. The Sayles sucked the Willings into motorcycling. Harold and Marie Sayle had been going to Mount Panorama and camping in the Bathurst sportsground since the mid-1950s, initially travelling there in a sidecar until the kids came along. The Willing–Sayle link was sealed when Murray married Rhonda Willing.
Between them all, there was a cornucopia of opportunity. Vince Tesoriero, who inaugurated the Castrol Six Hour production race and coined the descriptor 'superbike'— a term now universally used, with a world championship named after it — recognized something special in both Gregg Hansford and Warren Willing. In Tesoriero's view they were the pick of both litters, immensely talented and promotable, and they fitted in perfectly with the youth formula he was developing. Tesoriero was looking for new adventure heroes, determined to turn motorcycling into a sport that would rival surfing for the attention of a young Australian public. As well as circuit racing, he was also active in motocross, and his talent spotting was becoming legendary. As he did for Hansford and Willing on tarmac, he fostered Stephen Gall and Anthony Gunter on dirt — and made them all stars.
'Gregg was a big strapping lad who looked too big to fit on a bike,' Tesoriero recalled. 'He was introverted too.' In 1973, Hansford turned up at Mount Panorama for the first time on a Yamaha TZ350 and with natural ability he'd won the Australian Senior TT, then backed up to win the Unlimited TT as well. It was a stunning debut and had brought him to the attention of the motorcycle industry. His new TZ750 for 1974 came from Queensland distributor Annand & Thompson.
Willing was ambitious, more so than Hansford, but he lacked the funds and the acumen to seek support. In 1974 it was Tesoriero who took the proposition of a new-look motorcycle series to cigarette company Rothmans. Through a haze of smoke at their Granville headquarters, Tesoriero overcame his own non-smoking habit to extract enough funds to run the Chesterfield Australian Grand Prix and to purchase Willing a TZ750 Yamaha on which he could match-race Hansford. The Chesterfield $20,000 Grand Prix, with $1000 going directly to the winner, was the richest Australian motorcycle race ever staged at the time. The Auto Cycle Union of NSW, long-term promoters of the Mount Panorama motorcycle races, could not believe their good fortune.
The Australian Racing Drivers' Club, promoters of the car racing, had in the 1973 off-season decided to concentrate on their burgeoning long-distance production car race in October. With costs escalating well beyond the risk-to-reward ratio, they had decided to abandon their traditional Easter date. The Auto Cycle Union, armed with its cigarette money, leapt right in.
* * *
It almost came unstuck on the morning of Easter Saturday. A preliminary race to the Grand Prix, the Bathurst Unlimited, provided a first hit-out for the big bikes. Hansford made a slow start but then surged to the front on lap two while Willing, easing himself into a day of racing in several classes, was content to use the race as a warm-up.
Not so Bryan Hindle. The quietly spoken, lightly framed, deeply religious and incredibly talented Western Sydney chemist had stunned motorcycling back in '71 when he'd beaten Giacomo Agostini fair and square at Sydney's Oran Park. 'Ago' had been brought to Australia by tyre-industry entrepreneur Bob Jane to promote his new MV Agusta franchise, and the Oran Park race was expected to be nothing more than a demonstration run. Instead Hindle took the fight to the Italian maestro and claimed the flag. It's a toss-up which of them was more surprised.
Now at Mount Panorama on Easter Saturday 1974, Hindle was on a new TZ750 and he was challenging Hansford. It was three-time world champion Kenny Roberts who later wrote of the Australian, 'If you pass Gregg Hansford in a corner you know you're going to crash.' The naturally talented Hansford had such an innate feel for the limit of adhesion that he was on it all the time. Roberts' assertion was that to pass Hansford, you had to go beyond the limit, courting disaster.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Mount Panorama"
by .
Copyright © 2019 John Smailes.
Excerpted by permission of Allen & Unwin.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Diagrams ix
Prologue xi
Part 1 The Legends
1 The Master of the Mountain 3
2 In the Shadow of Brock 27
Part 2 Precious and Precarious
3 A New Era 51
4 Preparing for War 70
5 Police and Politics 88
Part 3 The Golden Age
6 The Golden Age of Motorcycles 115
7 The Golden Age of Cars 140
8 The Tin Tops 161
Part 4 The Races That Stop a Nation
9 A Wild Ride 181
10 Supercars 204
11 Jump Over Your Shadow 224
Part 5 Tragedy, Triumph and Turmoil
12 The Laps of the Gods 241
13 Sky Pilots 265
14 A Day at the Races 285
15 Virtual Reality and Real Legends 304
Epilogue: The Battle of Bathurst 319
Acknowledgements 331
Index 336