Photos: The Graham Ruckert Collection: Part 1

[Steve Holmes]

Couple of great shots here of Norm Beechey in his HT Monaro during the 1971 season, when he competed as reigning ATCC champion.

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[Steve Holmes]

Pete Geoghegan charging hard in the Mustang GTA at the Lakeside round of the 1971 Australian Touring Car Championship.

Despite the old Mustang being well into its 5th season of racing, it was still going strong. Although not able to compete for outright pace with the Allan Moffat Mustang and Bob Jane Camaro, Geoghegan was super consistent. Although he didn't win a race in 1971, he also never finished outside the top three, and he scored points at every round.

Come the championship deciding race at Oran Park at the end of the season, he was right in the championship hunt, 2nd on points. Here at Lakeside, for the penultimate round, he finished 2nd to Moffat, and heading into Oran Park, had 32 points, to Jane's 34, and Moffat's 31. What a fighter!


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[Greg Ghost]

Yes that's the car Steve Dymand bought of Ron Dickson ended up in OSCA trim

[superroo69]

The no 24 car is the Grecian Gold Roy Griffiths GT-HO Ph 1 and I am guessing the HO behind is a Brambles Red car but not one of the factory race cars,don,t who the driver is-Ellis and Stephen come in please! The Pacer is possibly the Tony Paul car. Tony had a road re-surfacing business called Queensland Roads and Pavements (QRP) and Roy was one of his employees. The HO was Roys daily driver and weekend racer and he ran the car in the 1969 HF500.

Regards Pete.

Pete... I think you will find car 22 is John Harris... with both cars entered in "The Lakeside 1500" event for Production Touring Cars, on 29th November, 1970. As for the Valiant Pacer behind, its a bit hard to tell without a number, but could also be either of the Geoghegan brothers, who each had an Austral Motors Pacer, or Alan Whitchurch, driving for P.J. Motors... and based on the sign on the back of the car, I think it is likely to be the latter. :-)

[Steve Holmes]

Yes that's the car Steve Dymand bought of Ron Dickson ended up in OSCA trim

Thanks Greg.

[Steve Holmes]

John French, in the Bryan Byrt XA Falcon GT hardtop, one of the half-dozen or so RPO83 cars that ran in Group C in 1973. This car was quite distinctive, for its lime green and purple colour scheme. It was later converted into a Sports Sedan, and was the first car Dick Johnson drove for Bryan Byrt.

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[Steve Holmes]

Norm Beecheys awesome Chevy Nova, in its 1968 guise. The Nova was part of the Tridents/Neptune Racing Team, who usually changed their colour scheme each year. This car first appeared in 1966 (at the Australian Touring Car Championship held at Bathurst no less) painted navy blue with this white stripes. For 1967 it was black with red and yellow stripes, before this colour was applied for 1968. The car is now restored to its 1967 guise, which is probably its most memorable.

Someone may wish to correct me here, but I believe this car only ever raced with 4-wheel drum brakes. Beechey had the option to switch to discs on the front later in its career, but stuck with the drums.

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[Steve Holmes]

How about this! Dick Johnson, giving it heaps and cocking a wheel in his EH Holden. Brilliant photo!

[Steve Holmes]

Kevin Bartlett, and his awesome Lola T300 at Surfers Paradise in 1972. Standing next to big-rev-Kev appears to be John Harvey. Check out the purple outfit! Damn, the '70s were wild!

[Steve Holmes]

Bob Jane's awesome 7 litre ZL/1 Camaro, powering towards an eventual third place finish at Lakeside, 1971. Jane sat in second position for much of the race, chasing leader Allan Moffat in his Mustang, before wheel bearing failure slowed the Camaro late on, allowing Pete Geoghegan up to second in his Mustang.

Moffat won the battle that day, but ultimately, Jane won the war, emerging as 1971 ATCC champion.

[Steve Holmes]

[Steve Holmes]

John French in the famous purple Bryan Byrt Ford GTHO Phase III.

[Steve Holmes]

Another shot of the Bryan Byrt Phase III. This must be either late 1972, or possibly very early 1973, as the car is wearing aftermarket wheels. Note also the nice metallic gold paint added over sections of the purple. I think it really looks sharp.

[Ellis]

Steve
It already had the Gold highlites in 5 slot pre Globe days....
I think it would have been nice if it was restored to this configuration
and be remembered as how it first run in 71 as Barnes /Skelton (pic is Sandown pre Bathurst)
French had a works HO3 in 71 and drove this one in 72

[Steve Holmes]

Well thats certainly interesting Ellis. The car raced at Bathurst 1972 with just the purple paint without the gold highlights, and the photo in post #52 above from Lakeside appears to have been taken not long after Bathurst, as the car still wears its Hardie Ferodo sticks. So it would seem the gold highlights appeared earlier in 1972, and later in 1972. Seems unlikely, but do you think they could have been stickers?

[prn31]

Superb shot this one, Brian Foley gets the inside wheel waaaaayyyy up in the air in the Alfa at Lakeside in 1971.

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This genuine 1750 GTAm has been restored by Vin Sharp in Melbourne, back to the original 1971 Chesterfield spec (as seen here) with the Autodelta 2.0 narrow angle twin cam complete with Spica slide throttle fuel injection. Briam Foley was reunited with the car in Melbourne late last year.

[prn31]

One of the beautiful Alec Midren Racing Alfa's. We have an Alfa expert on here and I vaguely recall them saying this right hand drive Alfa came after the lhd version the team had.

This car was often driven, with much gusto, by Kevin Bartlett.

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Yes, this is the second of Alec Mildren's GTAs and the first RHD one that Kevin Bartlett took to 4th in the 1967 ATCC at Lakeside. This must be at least 1968 given that there is a Datsun 1600 in the pits.

This GTA later passed to John French who repainted it red with sponsorship from Clive Nolan Motors (John's father-in-law) and then Brian Foley who turned it into a sports sedan in Chesterfield colours. He crashed it badly in 1973 at Oran park breaking a leg and then the GTA headed west where it was originally restored in Chesterfield colours before returning to New South Wales where the current owner carried out an expensive restoration back to its original Alec Mildren Racing white livery as seen here. John French was reunited with the GTA at Lakeside in 2011.

[prn31]

More Italian eye-candy. Gorgeous little Lancia Fulvia HF 1600. This example was owned by Graeme Ward.

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I think you will find that this was actually a Fulvia 1.3 HF. Grahame Ward raced this car in early 1968 with some success before he was involved in an accident with Bo Seton in a Falcon GT at the 1968 Easter Bathurst meeting. Unfortunately the little Fulvia was written off. There was talk of the car being reshelled but this never happened.

Grahame Ward, who still operates a Lancia sevice business in Surfers Paradise, apparently still has the original 1.3 HF engine....

[Ellis]

Well thats certainly interesting Ellis. The car raced at Bathurst 1972 with just the purple paint without the gold highlights, and the photo in post #52 above from Lakeside appears to have been taken not long after Bathurst, as the car still wears its Hardie Ferodo sticks. So it would seem the gold highlights appeared earlier in 1972, and later in 1972. Seems unlikely, but do you think they could have been stickers?

The Skelton / Barnes pic is Sandown in 71 pre Bathurst (#54)
I believe they had a spare car originally entered for Geoghegans in 71 Bathurst (allocated 56E) but didnt race
(Its not in the race program but is on the preliminary entry sheets.)
The spare was originally another colour (Red) but repainted Wild Violet.
The better known car was a delete options Wild Violet car.

[Steve Holmes]

Yes, this is the second of Alec Mildren's GTAs and the first RHD one that Kevin Bartlett took to 4th in the 1967 ATCC at Lakeside. This must be at least 1968 given that there is a Datsun 1600 in the pits.

This GTA later passed to John French who repainted it red with sponsorship from Clive Nolan Motors (John's father-in-law) and then Brian Foley who turned it into a sports sedan in Chesterfield colours. He crashed it badly in 1973 at Oran park breaking a leg and then the GTA headed west where it was originally restored in Chesterfield colours before returning to New South Wales where the current owner carried out an expensive restoration back to its original Alec Mildren Racing white livery as seen here. John French was reunited with the GTA at Lakeside in 2011.

Thanks Paul. So this is the car Foley fitted the V8 to?