Now Dad is a very competitive sort of fella & before long he had the “creme-de-la-creme” of race drivers all "playing up" in our yard. Driving around our house at stupid speeds on 2 wheels was "Normal" Soon enough we had the "Holden precision Driving team" at our place partying all the time, and parking their practice car there! An old EH Holden (it was) with a big metal frame, Tri-pod out the side with a caster wheel attached & acting as a training wheel for 2 wheels driving practice. These were the good old days. Both dad & mum would be at work till late & we (my brothers & I) would be home from school about 3.30 so we had plenty of time to practice driving around the house as long as there was fuel in a car.

 

Jack (my dad) was into all sorts of motor racing but couldn’t afford the really serious bitumen stuff. So he stuck to the dirt & became one of the fastest dirt drivers in South East Qld & Northern NSW. He was very hard to beat & managed many Qld Motorkhana championships, rallies & heaps of Hillclimb records.  Speedway became a sort of obsession to him & he teamed up with a fella by the name of Ian (Gabby) Marshall. This came about because dads business of repairing minis became too big & busy for him to be able to race speedway every Saturday night, so Ian & dad shared the drives alternating Saturday nights.

Matt standing proudly next to two Rally 1800s

 By now I was becoming more & more involved with the racing side of things being the "Gofer". You know, “go get this” or “go for that” or “hurry up what’s taking so long”, etc. and it wasn’t long before I was racing. Dad had decided to build a "special" for motorkhanas and this was to become "My" buggy as dad ended up buying Keith Self`s old hill climb special.  That one became dads & my brothers to drive as they both sort of outgrew "My" buggy (it was quite a short little beast).  I started off at age 7 with 2 pillows behind me & 2 under my bum, just to reach the pedals properly & looking “through” the steering wheel. We`d play around in a paddock at Samford after a Brisbane Sporting car Club event or at the top of Repco Hill at Lakeside & soon I entered some events & away I went.

 We would do all sorts of stuff like autocrosses, solo rallies, hillclimbs, motorkhanas & the like. "Speedweek" at Surfers Paradise was a big treat & so too was the Autocross circuit out the back of the big bitumen racing track that was "Surfers Paradise International Raceway"...this place was AWESOME!!! All the "Big Boys" would race around here & after the meeting I would be let loose on the circuit following other drivers’ lines. Soon I was keeping up & driving around corners on 2 wheels, etc. I remember one time where dad was called out from the clubrooms by a fella claiming that I`m about to blow up the mini. He went out to the verandah & saw me buzzing along the main straight at, what I read off the tacho as 8000rpm. Dad figured it was more like 9000rpm but was pretty sure it wouldn’t blow up & said, "it’s ok, he’s not revving it any harder than that, it should be fine". People were waiting for it to go "POP", but it didn’t and I stayed out on the track going round & round till way into the night.

 Soon I was taking out Club motorkhana wins and 2nds & 3rds at hillclimbs & autocrosses…dad was pretty hard to beat in those days. We did quite a few Qld & NSW championships but I got stopped a few times because of my age. It seems there were a few people with their noses out of joint and CAMS ended up sending their "Officials" to stop me racing for being to young.  Fancy sending CAMS officials to a motorkhana…Huh!!!

Matt has spent many years of his life here - the ReadSpeed HQ

 Once we were at Helidon attending a Qld championship & the CAMS officials stopped me running (I was 12 then) so dad said “bugger that!!”. The ground was really, really bumpy & unsafe anyway so it was decided we`d “all” go home. Heaps of other drivers went home too on the principle of it, as they had raced with me for years by this stage & found nothing wrong with me or my driving & left the event in protest. Sort of boycott style.

 Well, as it happens, on the way home we pulled into a fruit stall & before long Tom Poots (Manx Buggies) parked beside us with his off road racing buggy in tow. Dad & Tom were old mates & he asked where the off road race was today.  Tom said that  "Echo Valley Hillclimb" was on & that was it!!! …dad was pumped!!! "we’re off to the hillclimb" he said.

 That was one of the best runs I’d had to date. Tom came first in his 2 litre, dry sump, fuel injected, race buggy. Dad came 2nd in the "ReadSpeed Mini Bug MK2" & I came 3rd outright…AWESOME DAY!!! This was the dawn of a new era for me. Echo valley became my "Home Track" so to speak.  Hillclimbs & short circuit stuff are just amazing, and back then you would have 20-30 cars buzzing around each other with very little room & at speeds you wouldn’t believe, up & down hills lefts & rights. The clay base surface was very grippy...but not so grippy in the wet! Some people have been known to be stuck there for a few days after it rained, unable to get up the hill to get out of there.

Another time we were at a NSW motorkhana championship in Sydney & the CAMS officials were sent again to stop me driving. Funny as dad must have known it might happen & told me not to say anything when they asked my age. I just said, “you’d better go see dad” & they were baffled, “what…you don’t even know your own age?” they asked.  hee hee. They had put it to the vote & 2 people didn’t sign the protest so I wasn’t allowed to race…Bummer!!! Sat out watching all day…boy I hate watching!!!

Racing, racing, racing nearly 2 weekends a month, which took us from Brisbane to Sydney. Even Gympie hosted a Qld round of the championship where I came 3rd overall & was talked about heaps at the presentation, where it was said, “how it was so good to see young kids getting into it & how they encouraged all parents to get their kids into it as well”. Obviously they hadn’t read the rules of that year as the wording had changed to “unable to HOLD a licence till the age of 14” which was changed from the previous years  “unable to OBTAIN a licence until the age of 14”. Of course I already “had” my licence & wasn’t  “Obtaining” one. The following year I turned 14 so it wasn’t a problem anymore.

The KX500 "Weapon"

My dad decided to fund a “Decent” education for me so sent me to TAS (The Armidale School). This place was in the middle of NSW & was also where my dad’s dad had sent him & I was actually taught by 2 of the same teachers that taught my dad. That’s what I call Tradition. So I had a 3 year break from racing but once I finished school I got into Motor cross racing motor bikes at the Redland motorcycle Club.  Not that mum or dad liked it at all but there was nothing they could do, I was 18 years old & “in charge” of my own destiny. Well, quite a few “big” wins & more than my share of “BIG” stacks & that put an end to my bike racing days. I’d smashed my right collar-bone, cracked my right shoulder blade & corked nearly my entire body…OUCH!!! I figured that all my life I’d played squash & had won tournaments all over the place, so if kept up with bike racing I’ll have kill my squash…& I loved my squash!!!  So, back to racing minis, and speedway was the new thing for me.

I raced mini panel vans at Archerfield, Gold Coast & Toowoomba for about 8 years & took many feature race wins against all sorts of methanol injected V8s & 6 cyl cars. This racing is so much fun & used to be quite cheap to do, these days it’s a bit harder to win with rotaries & multi valve twin cam injected jap cars taking line honours. A little dearer these days to boot, but still within reach of the average guys/girls funds. I still have an old spaceframe chassis speedway brick which I’m re-building, so it won’t be long before I’m out there doing my thing again. I’ve always hoped to be able to build a few (maybe 10) “Hire Mini” speedway cars for anyone to hire out for a nights fun on the dirt oval…soon…very soon maybe.

Later on, I bumped into a fella (Greg Craig) who was renting my dads old shed in Taylor St, Bulimba & working there as a “Normal car” mechanic (Taylor St mechanical). Well, as it turned out, he was a member of the “Surfers Paradise Auto Racing Club” (SPARC)  & at that stage I was keen for some more speed so I joined the club again & got into bitumen circuit sprints/hillclimbs & autocross again…boy that is fast stuff… I had to “up it” a notch or 2 just to keep up. Back then I had on old red Leyland Mini Sunshine & shoved my brothers old sh!tter 1360cc donk into it. This is what I was using as my mobile mini repairs vehicle as well. (hee hee) not much chop, but it did the job & doubled quite well as a club race car.

"green pig"

About this same time I was talked into going go-kart racing & the bug had bitten even harder for bitumen stuff. Soon I was getting on the pace & decided that something quicker was needed. I bought a friends old green MK1 Cooper “S”, which I had built for him about 10 years earlier & fitted a 1415cc stroker motor for him which was still in reasonable condition. The hydro suspension was getting sad but was still really suited to the dirt autocross & clay hillclimb tracks but wasn`t really suited to the Lakeside & Qld Raceway circuits or Mt cotton hillclimb. The Go-Karting & the circuit racing I was doing really taught me something about chassis dynamics & suspension sorting, so, I`d really put an effort into the “Green Pig”. I fitted fully adjustable dry suspension & my newly sorted 1510cc stroker donk,  hooked into the 1999 SPARC championship & with the help of some friends Dale Allen, Ken Cumpstey, Matt Archer & Garry Farrell I`d taken the Class A (up to 2litre) & the “”Outright Championship””…AWESOME YEAR!!! Extremely fast speeds were the result & 122mph at the back straight of Qld raceway were the norm. I found myself  “flinging” the brick into the first corner at over 100mph…Scary stuff!!! Lakeside became a bit of a passion & I was really keen to break the “Mini Record” there. It seemed not to far away as I`d been sitting on 1 min 4 secs for quite a while & a few more “go-fast bits & pieces” & a bit more suspension sorting would have been all that was needed, but, it was all to no avail as they had stopped the use of the track…DAMN IT!!

After all this was done, I’d taken a couple of years off racing to finish building 2 of my new “weapons”.  If I kept racing, nothing got done.  The first beast being the “Black  Beauty”, an all Alloy P76 4.4litre V8 east-west, front wheel drive Sports sedan Mini.  I’d been building it for a few years & was originally John Lungren`s & then the Swinton bros bought it & I bought it off them as a modified bare shell. The second “weapon” was my 1510cc “New Blew Brick”, for tarmac rallies & club events.  Now that one is finished & as most of you would have read about the Targa Tassie Adventures. Targa is a really good thing & now I’m concentrating on building my business back into a workable state & all the while trying to continue work on my Alloy V8 mini.  Also now I’ve started on a turbo, injected, BMW, twin cam ,16 valve cyl head conversion to the A series donk. It’s nearly finished.

I hope you all enjoyed reading a little bit about my life & hope you all get a better understanding as to why I’m so “Nutty” about bricks. It’s been a “born & bred” & life long passion & it won’t stop till I’m dead & buried.(hopefully a long, long way away)

I have to thank mum & dad for their “Mistake” otherwise you guys wouldn’t be “READ”-ing this. J

MadMattRead…

The “MiniMan”