GREAT RACERS RECALL

Sixty-one years have passed since Australia’s first ‘Great Race’ - the touring car enduro that has become Australia’s Le Mans. The first such event, the Armstrong 500 at Phillip Island in 1960, saw Frank Coad and John Roxburgh partner up to take the chequer in a Vauxhall Cresta.

The next 40 years were classic Pro-Am affairs, with amateurs also having a red hot go. Brake failures, prangs and run-ins with officials – there were huge adventures and wild moments. HTCAV racers look back.

TED BREWSTER

For the 1962 Armstrong 500, the last to be held at a dusty, potholed Phillip Island, a young Ted Brewster signed on as relief driver for George Reynolds and Jim McKeown in a VW Beetle. He never got to turn a wheel.

Twelve years later, Ted partnered Nick Louis in a Mazda RX-3 in the 1974 Hardie-Ferodo 1000 at Mount Panorama.

“I’d never seen the place before,” recalled Ted, “Luckily, (the late) Bruce Hindhaugh drove me around the first night saying things like, “When you go through The Cutting, aim straight for that tree”.

Faster? Can’t