Real Time View

It may surprise many to read that as a teenager growing up on Sydney’s North Shore, I was already into cars. I made models of Formula One cars – back then it was a Ferrari “sharknose” and a Porsche (yes, Porsche were an F1 constructor for a number of years) – and I built slot-car circuits. My favorite configuration was the Warwick Farm race track; a circuit in Sydney’s western suburbs that, today, no longer exists. My mate Graham Long and I snuck out to the circuit one Saturday afternoon to see a club racing event and, from that time on, I must admit, I was hooked. This was the 1960s and it wasn’t long before I became a regular at a slot-car establishment in the Sydney suburb of Hornsby; nearby to my High School, Normanhurst Boys High School. I built a model of the Pontiac Tempest – a later model of which carried the badge, GTO, and it was a wild, overly large car for a slot car and my crashes were legendary, as an off-track excursion would take out several other cars. As I prepared ...