Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Australian racing driver, multiple midget car champion and winner of the Australian Hill Climb Championship.
On the island
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:12Did you take an interest in mechanical things at a very early age?
Yes, um actually I think my first mechanical uh toy that I ever played with was my push bike, which I often used to take apart and put together again and take great delight in doing that. And then I eventually uh uh always wanted to play with motors of some sort.
Presenter asks
2:24When did you decide to get into the big league with the big cars?
Well, in nineteen fifty one uh I got first got interested in the road racing side from a hill climbing point of view. And I've first started using the midget car in hill climbs, which was a form of road racing. And in 1951 I won the Australian Hill Climb Championship, which uh enthused me into uh wanting to go road racing. And uh the following year I bought a Cooper…
Presenter asks
3:24When did you come to England, Jack?
in nineteen fifty five.
Presenter asks
You came over here in nineteen fifty five, Jack, how did you find things? Was it easy to get started?
No, actually I think um the thing that made it very difficult for me was the fact that I didn't bring my Cooper Bristol with me. What I didn't realize at the time that the car I had in Australia was a very competitive motor car and would have been very competitive here. And of course um not knowing enough about Europe and England and the way that uh motor racing was … I um thought that um I'm bound to be able to buy a better motor car than what I had. And when I got here I found that uh well A I never had enough money to buy a motor car better than I had in Australia and um the type of motor car that was really competitive wasn't really available … and I think this was the thing that um stopped me from getting on as quick as what I should have done.
Presenter asks
9:41Which is the toughest race? Which is the one that you don't exactly look forward to each year?
Well, I wouldn't say there's any of the races I don't look forward to. Um the toughest race, I suppose, must be the Nürburg Ring, which is in Germany. Yes. And uh this is one race that I enjoyed winning this year very much because um being one of the toughest races on the whole series. To win the toughest race naturally gives you an added satisfaction.
Presenter asks
10:35Does a car have to be adjusted technically for different tracks and different weather conditions?
Yes, we do tune the car quite a lot for the different circuits and um different weather conditions of course we um uh alter the braking ratio a little and the handling characteristics of the car we play with, uh particularly if we know for sure it's going to be wet.
“And this is how I first went to watch a motor race. My first motor race I ever saw was in actual fact a midget car race. And um eventually we built a racing car between us and he drove it and uh I was the mechanic, and after a few months he gave away the driving side, and as we were stuck with the motor car I thought I'd better go out driving this thing myself, and uh that's how it started.”
“And uh the World Championship is decided on uh your best results from five races, if it's about nine races, and if it went on to eleven races in the year, it would be your best result of six races. Yes. So it's not a total of the number of points you've got over the year. You just take your best five or best six results.”
“I coasted right round to within about five hundred yards of the finishing line, and uh I had to push it the last five hundred yards, and this was uphill, and I can assure you this was pretty tough going, uh but this actually got me into fourth place.”
“Going right back to the early days in Australia, building and uh engineering has always been uh a great interest of mine. … I always liked the idea of building the car that uh I drive.”
“Are you superstitious? No, not at all.”