For some, the hunt through boxes of old postage stamps, carefully handling the little rectangles of perforated paper, deciphering water marks and looking for rare cancellations with a magnifying glass in hand, is the stuff of dreams as the years tick by and retirement becomes a yawning future that needs to be filled. For others, however, retirement fun is to be found at speed, ignoring a slowly failing body and coaxing a race car to its maximum in open competition with a bunch of younger would-have-beens and showing them how it’s done.
That’s how 87 year-old George Wegener fills his days in the year 2023.
Wegener is a long-term drag racer, who had a background in go-karting starting as far back as 1957, when he was 21, with trophies – including a Queensland Championship – from 1961. He scored a number of titles before his growing
That was in around 1966-67. He constructed a couple of 500cc three-quarter speed cars, using motorcycle engines. Again, he proved a competent and competitive racer, and was soon on three-quarter lap handicaps in four-lap races at the Brisbane Exhibition Grounds, meaning he had a lot of passing to do on the outside. In the end he became pretty sick of being run up against the fence and bending parts.
In 1969 George took a trip to the new drag strip at Surfers Paradise. He remembers watching Tom Stirling racing
