Double post, sorry...
Double post, sorry...
The first fully-sealed purpose-built circuit not based on an airfield circuit was Altona, near Melbourne...
This was essentially the shallow dry area around a little lake called Cherry Lake and it as sealed for racing in 1953. But Mount Druitt had preceded this, with the proviso that it used an airstrip as its main straight, a year or to earlier. Of it's 2.2 or 2.4 miles, perhaps a mile as on the old airstrip, the rest was purpose-built and sealed for racing.
It wasn't long before a wet season saw this flooded and within three or four years it was beyond repair.
Phillip Island came in 1956, but there were plenty of fully-sealed airstrip circuits around which used the strip and taxiways or service roads to complete the circuit. Mooliabeenie and Caversham had the main strip and what was called a dispersal road joining one end to the other and going off into the bush. These were intended for use during the war to hide aircraft under the trees.
Nowra - 1946. Caversham - 1946. Lowood - 1948. Mooliabeenie - 1950.
Great information Ray Bell,
Have been given the " Australian Motor Racing Annual 1967 " which has a summary of the 1967 Tasman Cup Series - " In the Mirrors "
Covering from Pukekohe NZIGP through Levin Wigram Teretonga then the Australian part of the series at Lakeside Warwick Farm AGP Oran Park Sandown and Longford.
Not sure if the list is in order as the article is a bit hard to follow as not headlined for each track.
There are maps of Pukekohe [ without the loop ] Wigram Lakeside Sandown Park and Longford.
A few Lost tracks among the " Old Race Tracks "- that list Levin and Longford, among them.
port wakefeild 1st jan 1953. all of our military airfeilds particularly had three strips in a triangle shape giving 6 different landing options 60degrees apart so none needed extra seal to run races and as you said service roads were used too
I'm sorry, I forgot Port Wakefield, though in working on memory I would have said it was inaugurated in 1954, a year or so before the AGP there in 1955...
Are you in Australia?
Yes, in the main, airstrip circuits had a triangle to work with. But not Mt Druitt, nor Marsden Park, Strathpine, Lowood, Point Cook, Mooliabeenie, Ringwood, Tomago, Gawler, Beverley or Quorn Hall. So I guess it's not even 'in the main' when you count them up. Then you look at some, like Schofields and the main Caversham circuit, they had the triangle but didn't use it, racing in part on taxiways etc.
There were motor bike races around the streets of Whakatane in the 1950s.
I don't know exactly but I think somewhere around the High School in Kopeopeo.
the only time Waiheke Island was used in the 1950'si was on the first of january 1950 as the second part of a two day meeting. It was first raced on in 1931 through to early forties and then again after the war
Brief report from the NZ Herald on the first TT race on Waiheke. June 3 1931 was a Wednesday, which I thought was a strange day to hold a race, but then I discovered that it was Kings Birthday and a holiday. Obviously not Mondayised like today.
mentioned by an old friend was the "Prosperity Grand Prix" on Waiheke after the depression. Does anyone have any info at all?
it was interesting that in depression times they chose to do the 'first' road race on an island in the middle of winter, there were no dry runs on the mainland to speak of, and the fact that is was a wedensday meant travel was even harder. It must have worked as they continued aside from the war for two decades. what's also interesting is that it didn't spark more meetings, even just to practice at or get rankings, there were no north island 'road races' till post war and only cust in the south island.