The first race meeting I attended was....

[Kwaussie]

First road race was at Ryall Bush 1957, one lap = 5.84km. A real road circuit after all the small grass tracks in Southland at the time.
Highlight in the morning on the drive out was Reg Parnel driving his Ferrari 555 coming up behind us in the 30mph zone and as we passed the derestriction sign he took both hands off the steering wheel to put his goggles up and then roared past and into the distance.
Spent most of the day in the pit paddock collecting autographs. Peter Whitehead, Reg Parnel, Horace Gould, Ron Roycroft, Jack Brabham and many more. Went up to wire fence every now and then to watch the cars go by - but soon lost interest as they were going so fast. There were lots of girls around but as my mum was with me and I was just 12 years of age kept myself busy by looking at all the cars in the paddock area.