End of an Era

[colcol]

Two large sites connected to former race car driver Bob Jane, including the Calder Park Raceway, Drag strip and Thunderdome, are set to become residential housing, Agency sources confirmed that Calder Park, established 54 years ago, known as 'Melbourne International Raceway', the Calder park site with Thunderdome was considered the outskirts of Melbourne, is now to become a housing estate.
Meanwhile around the corner, the Bob Jane family home has been listed for sale.
Last July, Bob Jane's ex wife Laree, pocketed $2 million selling the South Yarra penthouse, where the couple lived.
The Alfa Romeo club was fortunate enough to go there in the late 80's - early 90's to have a run on the Thunderdome, and have a run the flat track and Thunderdome together.
The flat track at Calder, was not the most interesting of race circuits, but was close to Melbourne, or more importantly, Alfa Romeo parts!.
Time is also ticking on the expected life of Sandown, when the Alfa Romeo club has a run there, make sure you enter, so you can tell the Grandkids about it, Colin.

[Jess159]

Very sad indeed.
I live about 3 roads away from the Calder Raceway and can often even hear it a little bit from my place whenever there's a big race on,
would have loved to take my 159 on the track at least once, but it looks like time is running out.

[aggie57]

Thanks for posting Col. Sitting here with Vic we both let out a "so sad"!

Remember those events very well. As well as the MSCA sprints we used to go to.  Was one of the regular tracks.  Lots of good memories.

[kaleuclint]

Surprised this didn't happen sooner.

The road circuit was never much more than a drag strip with a return road (even in revised form).  The superspeedway promised so much but peaked at its opening; AUSCARs not the same as regularly hosting a round of NASCAR Nationwide or IndyCar.  Incredibly bumpy too to the point of not being fit for purpose.

Still an incredible investment by Bob and some great memories.  Was Giacomelli the last person to race an Alfa F1 car in Australia?

[ALFAAA]

Sad to hear  ,
Its was a lot of fun going there to see the cars.
When they joined the track with the thunder dome circuit it was great to see the Alfas and drivers coping with road angle conditions.

[GTV-074]

Sad indeed...great memories of 'Calder Park' as we all knew it.

Club days, MSCA events. One damp day watching 3 Alfa's come around the top of the straight all sideways on the wet greasy bituman where the drag cars lined up. Touring car races, AGP including the day Jones etc. were there with the F1 cars, drag races, the Bowl being used in a race with the touring Group A cars (BMW M3's, Sierras etc.). they used both tracks - the flat then left into the bowl then 1 lap to exit back onto the flat track - it was great. Got to be close up to the cars not miles away on a hill somewhere. Moffat, Brock, Johnson etc etc. up close....

It was crude, dusty with next to no facilities (in the 70's and early 80's) but I loved it. The big teams and the public all mingled in the same paddock (well big patch of brown dirt!).

One memory was sharing the urinal with Norm Beechey and Dick Johnson then all 3 of us walking out together and lining up for a Hot Dog at the take away food caravan!

R.I.P Calder.....

[Paul Gulliver]

My memories of Calder Park are a little more recent and of a cultural nature. Here we go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PXDoRvojtU

Wait for the classic quote at the end " no man should have his leg set on fire trying to save one of his shitters"

[colcol]

If i remember rightly, the M.S.C.A. ran a triple treat there one Saturday, started about 3 pm, and first we had Drag racing, then we had sprints on the long flat track, then when it got dark, the lights came on, and we had a sprint on the short track, the short track is where there is a joining road between the front straight and back straight, the lighting was sort of adequate, but it was the same for everyone, but the Pommy cars with their Lucas lights were at the same disadvantage as the Italian cars with their Carrelo lights.
The flag points had 44 gallon drums, with fires burning in them, to get your attention, and for the flaggies to barbeque some sausages, and flags were shown....with a torch light shining through them.
It all wrapped up about 11pm, and i was home by midnight, all in all, it was one of the most fun days ever had, Colin.

[aggie57]

I think the MSCA ran that format a couple of times Col. In those days the track was a long way from houses, or rather the houses near it hadn't been built, so noise wasn't really an issue.

We always knew that the game plan was to have the place rezoned and sold off. So yes it's a bit surprising it lasted this long but it gave us the chance to drive competitively on a banked track, something that to this day stands out as one if the highlights in my personal memories. Until then I had no idea that on a banked circuit there's a diagonal line at the point a straightaway becomes a turn. You drop into the turn, the car drops on to its bump stops and gets loose. You look up and out the top corner of the side window and hang on. Amazing experiences, so long ago but still vivid in the mind.

If you ever get the chance visit one of the US super speedways like Daytona. They all do drive events, the Richard Petty experience and the like, and you can do track tours. Stand at the top of the banks and imagine doing 200mph in a 2 ton truck with 50 other cars inches away from you. With no brakes. 200,000 people can go to one meet, on one day. Amazing.

The Calder road circuit, yeah well it wasn't complex but it was still fun.  The extension changed its character for sure, that straight was loooong and braking could be interesting in a standard Alfa. But that little hill helped and the switch back on to the old circuit, right then left accelerating at speed and with a change in the middle, that could be interesting in the wet. Caught more than one person out including one I recall driving his Dad's newish Fezza. Not sure what type, Testarossa comes to mind.  Personally Dave Crump and I both hit that outside wall in our little Junior on the same wet day, trying but failing to 'drive to the conditions'. Luckily no damage other than scuffed bumper. But another memory.

Thank you Bob Jane for giving us the chance.

[Repco Lad]

Mrs Repco and I had our first date at Calder Park. Plenty of time to get to know each other as it used to take forever to get out of the car park

[vin sharp]

One of the reasons it may not have happened sooner is that the site is reportedly one of Melbourne's largest toxic industrial waste dumps.....under all that fill & the fill itself. Not too much regulation when it was being done, & the cost of removal & clean-up & what is actually under there is apparently not really known.....but some of the stories are interesting! It is most likely that it is only now that the land value is approaching something that will make it a viable proposition.
I don't reckon I'll be camping out for the first lots!
Good memories though of 5 or 6 years old, lurching humpy Holdens & Austins etc. Later  on Mustangs & Camaros& the odd Alfa.
Agostini on the MV Augusta!  Lauda, Prost, Piquet & Laffite etc in Ralts.  Rob Burns in Auscar Commodore wrestling the bucking beast on the Thunderdome giving the professionals a lot to think about in his own build car. Alan Jones revving the GTV6 to 9500 in qualifying...yes it broke! 

[Colin Edwards]

Agostini on the MV was amazing.  Seem to recall him also "racing" at Laverton Air Base. 
I literally bumped into Piquet at Calder an chatted to him for around 10 minutes.  The dicing between Laffite and our John Smith was some of the best open wheeler racing I have seen.  A couple of decent rock concerts their too!

[colcol]

The early 90's Guns + Roses concert there was remembered for having poor sound quality, 40 degrees celsius in the shade, $10 bottles of water and 4 hours to get out of the car park.
Back to motor racing, one of the more hilarious moments with the Marque Sports Car Association, was on the dummy grid, explaining to drivers that the Sprint had been Red Flagged....due to a dog running onto the track, we sent a search party out to locate dog, to no avail, only to have it appear as we sent the next group out to Sprint, there were many tunnels and hidey holes for dogs to hide, and when there were cars on the track, they would come out for a look and a wander.
Always good to go and have a look at the Thunderdome between Sprints to see the odd Nascar / Auscar / Security Guard going for a burn around the dome, such memories, Colin.

[Barry Edmunds]

I too have many terrific and very vivid memories of race meetings at Calder. On of the earliest was a 6 Hour event that the Alfa Club had an entry in back in 1971. The late Pete Geoghegan referred to Calder as two squirts and a wiggle and that was in the days when crowds of 10-12 deep lined the track to watch Beechey, Jane, Moffat, Thomson and Geoghegan at the front of the field closely followed by McKeown in a Lotus Cortina and the Minis of Manton and Foley giving them all a lot of grief. Bob Jane won a series production race in the wet in a Monaro fitted with road-going Kleber tyres which he sold at his T Mart stores. Bob never was one to miss an opportunity to promote. I can even recall a race day when it was so cold that it actually snowed and still the crowds turned out because the racing was great to watch. It was very hard to take photographs between falling snow flakes. Fairly sure that Norm Beechey was the first touring car driver to break the 60 second lap mark. I think he scored $1000 for his effort. Night race meetings were also popular too and watching the brake discs glow in the dark at the end of the back straight was always fun. Standing in the pits and listening to the post-race chat (including many unrepeatable in mixed company stories) by Geoghegan, Frank Gardner and many others was always guaranteed to be a good finish to the race day. Sitting alongside Indy 500 winner Johnny Rutherford out in the middle of the Thunderdome during a NASCAR race and listening to his commentary is just one of many, many good memories. And then there were the Rallycross meetings with Brock, Watson and Moffat and many others battling it out with no quarter asked or given or the drag racing demonstrations that saw one dragster run off the end of the front straight at full throttle, crash through the stone wall and cartwheel its way into the paddock at the southern end of the circuit. The driver emerged OK. The drag racing fraternity even invited some of the leading touring car drivers out one day and had their noses put well and truly out of joint when one Allan Moffat set a new strip record of 12.72 in the Mustang beating some of the drag racing leading lights on the day. I think that was the last invitation the circuit racers ever got.
What is under the Thunderdome track? it has been said (often as well as rumored) that the Thunderdome track was built on old car tyres and would be an environmental nightmare to clean up. Time will tell with what they find.
Barry