The Roaring Season

Wow - what happened exactly?

After the rebuild - John Briggs
[video=youtube;GSZ8Ub1jbwE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSZ8Ub1jbwE[/video]

Bry- saw it on TV at the time .
His car went suddenly off the track- the driver - hit a ditch ( I think) and rolled and just kept rolling.
It was shocking.

John McKechnie wrote:Bry- saw it on TV at the time .
His car went suddenly off the track- the driver may have had a medical event- hit a ditch ( I think) and rolled and just kept rolling.
It was shocking.
If I am wrong or out of line here,let me know and I will correct this.

Cbeers John - I have never seen photos of that before

John McKechnie wrote:Bry- saw it on TV at the time .
His car went suddenly off the track- the driver may have had a medical event- hit a ditch ( I think) and rolled and just kept rolling.
It was shocking.
If I am wrong or out of line here,let me know and I will correct this.

Hi John, I was sitting in the stand near the sweeper and saw that crash. My memory is pretty rusty but I think Red just over steered coming out of the corner and bolted off to the inside of the track where there were a few drainage ditches and nosed in and launched.
I also recall Neville Brickley having a similar incident coming out of the esses at another event. The Manfeild organizers did a lot of work to try to keep on top of drainage problems, just an unfortunate set of circumstances for those two drivers. I hadn't heard of Red having a medical event but I'm sure it's possible. Dennis Marwood and other contemporaries would mostly likely know but whatever the cause it certainly was a sad end to Red's career.

Hi Grant, I believe your recollection is correct. Magazine reports from the time say Red simply lost traction exiting the Sweeper and spun into the infield. Its a quirk of the Manfeild Sweeper, and has happened to many since then, that when a car breaks traction on hard acceleration, can spun into the infield. In the case of Dawson, had that drain not been there he likely would have spun around a few times, come to rest, grabbed first gear and rejoined the action.

The track was only a couple of years old at the time, and I guess the theory was that a drain on the infield should be safe from any cars finding it. It was thankfully later filled in.

Photos and article from MotorAction

That was race 2, then in race 3, this happened.

Speaking with Jim Richards, he has a recollection that Bill Minty was the guy looking after the Monza and did the rebuild. Does anyone know the whereabouts of Bill Minty?

Rowan,-
There is a regular on our threads who has Bill Mintys Bathurst Monaro.
He has been in touch with him recently, I will PM you with details

John McKechnie wrote:Rowan,-
There is a regular on our threads who has Bill Mintys Bathurst Monaro.
He has been in touch with him recently, I will PM you with details

Thanks, CCR

My thanks to Warwick Clayton for the collection of photos that follows:

From the Monza's New Zealand debut at Bay Park, 1975.

This is an interesting shot showing a paint scheme I'd not seen on this car before, with the white nose. I'm assuming this is late in the 1975/76 season.

Steve- that is the same colour scheme and stickers as in Motorman June 1976-page 20.
Posted that-#15 here.