Sunday, September 2, 2012

A few Holdens @ Wayville.

Yellow Monaros. What can you say? This one went pretty hard and did very well.
The VL Walkinshaw. Spectacular to watch, that's for sure!
Early Commodore with a tribute to Peter Perfect.
Changing the "E" to an "O". I would too.
Sarah Mitchell, no better promoter of HQ racing (except for her dad).
The pink XU-1. Yes, pink was a listed colour. There was even a famous one. It didn't have pink headlights like Sarah's though.
The 48-215. Gary Poole brought it over to run in the Regularity Section. In 1953 this Holden (well, not exactly this one) was shipped to Europe to compete in the Monte Carlo Rally - a first for an Australian manufactured car. The team comprised Stan Jones, Lex Davison and Tony Gaze, more or less Australian motorsport royalty. Stan, driver of the legendary Maybachs among other things, and an AGP winner, is of course, Alan's dad. Lex won the Australian Grand Prix four times. Tony, the ex WWII Spitfire pilot with 3 (yes 3) DFCs to his credit, was Australia's very first F1 driver. Two of them had never before driven on the icy roads that the rally is famous for. They came 64th out of a field of 400 which wasn't too bad. The car in the picture is actually a replica built by Gary Poole and the plan is to take it over to Europe next year to do the Monte Carlo again on the 60th anniversary of the 1953 event. This time the team will comprise Craig Lowndes (not his dad), Richard Davison (one of Lex's sons) and Gary Poole who is a bit of a humpy Holden race car expert and competes at historic events in a red 48-215.

Talking about motorsport royalty, Lex Davison and his wife Diana had 7 children and I know of 4 of them (and there may be more, I'm no expert) that had motorsport careers not to be sneezed at, that's Jon, Richard and Chris and their sister, Catherine, who was a Targa competitor. Diana herself was a talented driver, even wrestling that giant Mercedes in hillclimbs. Richard's two sons, Will and Alex and Jon's son James are keeping the family name alive at the upper end of motorsport. The family business was the fashion shoe manufacturer, Paragon Shoes who, incidentally, made our RaceSafe driving boots. The matriarch of this dynasty was Diana. Seven years after Lex's tragic death at Sandown, she married widower Tony Gaze and it was only last month that she died. Of the 3 entrants in that Monte Carlo effort, 92 year old Tony is the only one remaining.







1 comment:

Sean M said...

Full color name for the Torana was "Strike Me Pink" :)