In October 2007 TOTALLY OUT OF THE BLUE, me and my better half were invited by the Ryan family TO STAY WITH THEM IN bRISBANE FOR 3 WEEKS. We talked about it for a BLINK OF AN EYE and accepted and the rest is here for you to read. Welcome to Australian Odyssey 2008.
Been there, seen it and got the T-Shirt. After a couple of few years corresponding with guys from the Brisbane Stockrods, we met a couple of them at Kings Lynn and Coventry and dreamt that one day we might go to Australia and meet them all. On 22nd Jan 2008 at 9am the dream came true and we touched down ever so slightly sideways, courtesy of our Etihad Airways Russian pilot, at Brisbane International Airport, Queensland, Australia. We were met by Shane Ryan, dressed in Queensland’s national dress of T-shirt, shorts, baseball cap and thongs (flip-flops to us Poms), which was the right choice of clothes given the 33ºc temperature outside the airport. Imagine opening the oven and sticking your head down to see if the pizza is done, well that’s what it was like as we exited the cool air-conditioning of the airport and emerged into the Queensland sunshine.
The idea was, to keep our arrival a secret after all the banter leading up to Craig “Crasher” Smith, Steve Cooke and Nigel Woodhouse’s visit. As it turned out, quite a few people knew of our arrival, but it was quite special meeting all these people and putting faces to the names of people whom we had previously only known by nicknames on a computer forum.
Ryano, as he is also known, is the PR man for Brisbane Stockrods, he is also the pit bloke who shepherds the drivers into a cohesive flock, tells them the score, reads the riot act and gets them onto the track in time for the racing. It might not sound much, but believe me, when you see the speed of the car/race turn round at Australian speedway tracks, the Ryano’s of this world are indispensable.
All race bookings are sorted out by Kym Riseley, the club secretary, so it’s a team effort and it does not stop there. Almost everyone in the club wants a say on how it is run and consequently democracy and friendship is one of their strong points, something they must embrace fully. Although the club is called the Brisbane Stockrods, drivers come from far and wide, from towns as far north as Dayboro and as far south as Beaudesert, a distance of over 120 km. Brisbane is in fact a huge collection villages that grew into towns and more recently, based on population, even small cities such as Logan City, which has well over a hundred thousand inhabitants. There are over 3 million people in the Brisbane area and yet only 4.1 million in the whole of Queensland, an area twice the size of Texas and 8 times the size of the UK. Australia is big with a capital B. Geography lesson over and back to the track!
How about this; there were 51 races at one meeting! However, this includes several 3-lap time trials involving as little as 3 or 4 Sprint cars at a time. Most people seemed to drift off while this was going on, to the pits or to get can of something cold or to the snack bar to get a snag on a stick (my own words, maybe it’ll catch on eh?) which basically was a huge battered, deep fried sausage on a stick, dipped in salsa. The burgers were quality beef and had loads of salad and various dressings with them and as Crasher said, “You don’t get these in Manchester do you mate”. And he was right, you don’t.
There were many formulas but only one was contact racing and it was the Stockrods, and in all three meetings I went to, the Stockrods stole the show just like the F1’s invariably do in the UK.
We visited Brisbane International Speedway twice and Toowoomba once. The Brisbane track is called Archerfield and is in the middle of an industrial area and just like the UK, faces noise restrictions and customary threats to it’s existence from little old ladies living many kilometres away with their hearing aids turn up full who can vaguely hear it but say it disturbs their budgies. Nothing changes.
The surface is red clay and as UK407 Craig Smith will tell you, involves a totally different approach towards racing than that in the UK. The Toowoomba track is actually just out of town at a small place called Charlton. It is run by previous UK WF competitor Allan Woods and sits atop the Great Dividing Range. It is a bit like Buxton but the climate is not so much of a gamble and the vista and ambience verges on, how can I put it, yes that’s the word; perfect. The sprint cars and speed cars which race on both tracks are veritable flying machines with enormously wide tyres and as they race, they push the clay up forming a ridge, which necessitates grading the track at intervals. Twice the Stockrods raced after the track had been graded and it was like a ploughed field. However, a few times the Stockrods raced when the surface had been well flattened and the racing was pretty damn fast I can tell you.
At Archerfield the cars leave the pits and filter onto the track at turn 3 at the same time as the previous formula are leaving and as the last car from the previous race leaves the track, the rolling lap begins, it’s that quick. Very rarely was there any waiting for cars to some onto the track, if you’re not there, you don’t race. Simple! Unlike the other formulas which had spread out fields and haphazard starts, the Stockrods had rolling starts but with a very tight and disciplined closed grid which makes for some good action for the first two laps or so, then as the field settles down you see the better drivers carving their way through the field to the front. Even though F1 (v8’s) and F2 (v6’s) race together, much is down to the choice of the racing line and consistency whether you are successful or not.
The Aussie title was a good case in point where although Greg Churchill was in control using the well worn inside line, Dudley Ward was using the extra grip on the outside and if it wasn’t for a slow puncture could well have overhauled Greg for the chequered flag, but as it turned out it was a well earned victory and the right man won it, although Dudley might not see it quite like that.
Dudley Ward, Greg Churchill and Shane French in particular make their v6 cars fly at times whereas other times Dennis Fabian or Steve Bateman got away in their V8’s and disappeared into the distance. There are a couple of old soldiers in the club in Brian Solway and Dennis Fabian but a new batch of younger drivers are coming through who are not frightened to mix it, Jason Martin in particular and Kev Healy to name but two as well as New Zealander Graeme Rangihuna who told me he wanted more power and has now got it after buying Steve Bateman’s old V8 car lock stock and barrel. Steve Bateman is building a new car, closer to a UK spec than ever before. Greg Churchill, who hasn’t been racing very long is consistently in the points, albeit tagged unfairly as the rollover king over the last two years, his short driving career peaked this year when he won the Aussie title which rewarded him with a trip to the UK and a start in the BriSCA F1 World Final in a Frankie Wainman Snr. tarmac car at Ipswich in September.
At Toowoomba the cars enter and exit via different gates on the straight, but the turn round is just as quick as Archerfield. There was a major delay whilst we waited for the ambulance to return from the hospital after a bloke collapsed in the pits, but apart from that and few other incidences where the meat wagon was required, the whole meeting went off with speed and precision.
Looking through a crowd of faces was one I recognised but could not put a name to then he put me out of my misery and introduced himself to me as James Potter ex-UK10. Well it appears he’s flogged off his JP Skips business and is busy trying to make a new life, already talking of buying a house in Beaudesertshire, a beautiful area in the country, half way between Brisbane and Tambourine and Lamington National Parks complete with rainforests, snakes, lizards, koalas and whatever else. I’m jealous to death. He’s even asked Craig Riseley to build him a car so he can race next year. Like I said, jealous to death…..!
Toowoomba is known as the garden city because of its beautiful flora. Most of the houses are traditional wooden properties, some for sale are reasonably priced at around $400,000 for a 4 bedroom with 6 acres of land. The scenery from the top of the Great Dividing Range towards the east is breathtaking and to the west is equally stunning in it’s endless vastness. We shouldn’t have been surprised to see cacti growing wild but we were. After the racing there was an electric storm towards the south, which nobody else seemed too bothered about, but which we found spectacular.
Unlike the UK, each formula looks after itself, which means no presentations on the track. Instead each formula does its own backslapping. Ryano organises this as well along with Kym Riseley. All the UK representatives including myself got a gift from the Stockrod club.
I wasn’t expecting anything, but apparently mine was for making people aware of Brisbane Stockrods in the UK via Sheffstox, without which Steve Cooke or Craig Smith would have known about Brisbane Stockrods as soon as they did. I’m happy to be of service gents and really, the pleasure is all mine.
I suppose based on the way we conduct our affairs in the UK, given that on this night there was the Stockrod’s Australian Championship and the Queensland Speedcars Title, I would have expected at least a lap of honour with the trophy and an announcement to the crowd for both the title winners. However, this is Australia, the new world, so they do things their way. Perhaps it’s us who make too much of a song and dance about trivial things like heat wins. Having said that I’d sooner have 13 all contact races involving for example 3 Saloon stockcar races, 5 F2’s and 5 F1’s, than 46 non-contact races + 4 Stockrods races. It was interesting though and quite an eye opener.
Hurrah for the Brisbane stockrods for giving the spectators what they want. Believe me, they want it. On the back straight at Toowoomba and the 3rd bend at Archerfield, the rollovers involving Craig Smith, Graeme Rangihuna and Greg Churchill were greeted with smiles and cheers, I also noticed and heard people pointing out the contact made during the racing, something conspicuous by its absence for the other formulas. This was good entertainment & hard racing at the same time and they clearly liked it, so give it to them. Mind you, the Sprintcar boys like speed, once they have dispensed with the preliminaries such as time trials. And when they roll, boy, do they roll.
I can’t really criticise it because the Sprint and Speedcars were what attracted the majority of fans to the racing. The meeting started at 4pm and finished at 10pm but until it was 6 pm, I thought we’d come to the wrong track. The crowd sort of drift slowly in ready for the climax of the racing and don’t seem bothered with much of the preliminary proceedings. Obviously they find the Sprintcar time trials a bit of a yawn as well. It was a pity because the Stockrods had raced twice by then already and put on a good show both times and half the eventual crowd had missed it. It was a bit like Coventry when the Rebels raced. You knew the F1’s were on at 7, but the Rebels were on first so you’d wander around the pits for half an hour. Mind you, the Rebels could turn it on sometimes.
For the second Archerfield meetings we went down to the track with former Stockrod driver Brett Tobin and his wife Vera, who some of you will remember winning the women’s world title at Sheffield. She proudly showed us the trophy to prove it as well as a few scars she picked up in doing so. We’d stayed a couple of nights in their house and had a great time during which we had a seafood barby along with the Riseleys and 7 of their 8 well behaved and friendly kids. Jade Riseley, the other “kid” is not a kid anymore, he drives a stockcar now, but he was tired from working so didn’t come. No problem mate, see you in England soon or dare I say it, in Australia again! Brett now drives an AMCA car, or at least he did, as he managed to total it in the feature final. It was interesting to be part of a team and to see what happens in formulas other than BriSCA F1’s or Stockrods.
The AMCA’s are strictly governed by a bloke in Melbourne who co-ordinates the organisation. All the cars have to be built to the same specification. Colour choice is personal of course, but they have to have the same tyres, power unit, chassis etc. A strange but maybe a fair rule is, if you think anyone is doing better than he ought to be, you can swap engines with him after three meetings.
The facilities are similar to here in the UK, but with more attention to detail, the toilets are cleaner for instance, Toowoomba even had showers for the drivers and the choice and more importantly the quality of the food, is far better, a bit like comparing Yatala Pies (par excellence) to Greasy Syd’s Café. One rule I found amusing was that you have to have covered shoes to get into the pits. Given that the standard Q’land footwear is the flip-flop, it was sort of common sense. The other rule was that you could not consume alcohol in the pits, also common sense, but after the racing, all the eski’s come out and then its time to down a few beers. It was also $10 more to get into the pits. Apparently the insurance is very high. Sssshh, don’t tell any of the UK promoters…
There was the customary snarl up trying to get out of the car park after, nothing new there then. One difference was, nobody was covered in dust, instead I was pulling small lumps of clay from my hair and off my t-shirt, which had solidified into hard concrete. I always wondered what materials they built those earthquake proof skyscrapers from and now I know. When Craig Smith rolled at Toowoomba, he had a considerable amount of clay around the car. Some of it collected between the Kirkey seat and the rollcage and was packed solid forcing his head tight against the other side. The clay packed between the under rider and chassis and nerf rail and chassis had set like concrete and after kicking it, scraping at it and a few blows with the sledgehammer we achieved nothing, so I gave up. They’d need a JCB pecker to get that out.
Since we returned to sunny Yorkshire, we’ve had snow, ice, fog, rain, freezing fog, gale force winds and yes, we’ve had a lot of sunshine but the highest temperatures are more like 10ºc than 30ºc. One noticeable difference in Brisbane was how early it gets dark in the evening, it was dusk at 6pm and all of a sudden the sun’s gone. Most of the Aussies we spoke to thought it weird that in mid summer in the north of England, it would still be light, and sometimes even ‘til gone eleven.
Christmas 2008 sees a visit to the UK by Brett and Vera Tobin and Frank and Angela de Haas and I’ll tell you what, they might just notice the difference in temperature. What they’ll also notice is how narrow the roads are and how fast people drive compared to Brisbane. They’ll also notice the atrocious state of the roads, all the potholes, the road works, all the congestion and how impatient many of our drivers are. I could go on forever berating the UK’s road network, because lets face it, it is a big mess exacebated by beurocratic idiots. Whilst all this is in the cities, there are myriad quiet lanes criss-crossing a patchwork of stone walled fields in the countryside and hundreds of unspoiled villages to explore. What they will see and hopefully enjoy is a traditional British Christmas with our little villages decorated with festive coloured lights, crackling log fires in pubs, fine nutty ales, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and of course, British hospitality. If they are lucky they might even see a stockcar meeting, albeit the Ice-Breaker banger meeting at Kings Lynn.
So that’s it, these were my stockcar memories of Australia. We visited lots of places purely as tourists such as koala sanctuaries, surfing beaches, rainforests, mountain villages and the city of Brisbane itself. We fed kangaroos and emus, got deafened by the cicadas, surprised by geckos walking on our bedroom wall, were wary of giant but apparently harmless spiders, awakened by frogs, kept awake by kookaburras and bitten by mosquitoes at barbies, but this is neither the time nor the place for those memories.
Oh, and like I said, we've got the T-shirts, but we will be back when they need washing.....

Credits: Thanks to Shane, Karen, Lisa, Brad,, Kev, Debbi, Brett, Vera, Craig, Kym, Jade, Frank, Angela, Steve, Bear, Tina, Dennis, Kenny and last but not least Nakita and Braydon. And to anyone who I've missed off this celubrious list and who helped us in any way -many many thanks.