Mark Roberts #23 Slide 22 Car Racing. Katoomba, Bathurst and Orange

1960 ATCC Champion David McKay in his Red Jaguar # 71 at Windsock Corner - Gnoo Blas circuit - Orange.Photo Don Read from 
http://aussieroadracing.homestead.com/DonRead1.html

Of course my father always had to do a lap of Mount Panorama

on the way through Bathurst. Even if we didn’t have time

to stop for a cup of tea my father always made time, telling

my mother “it won't take long darling - 4 minutes if there

are no police”. My sister and I in the back seat, no seat belts,

rolling around as he found the best line he could through skyline

and then dropped into Conrod where the police would always

be waiting. So we slowed down and waved to them,sitting

their bikes or their Mini Coopers, as we drove past.

Dad knew most of the old race tracks. He drove me through

the back streets of Orange once, a month before he went

into hospital for the last time, showing me where the old track was.

Pointing out where someone he vaguely knew had rolled

and hit a tree. The spot where they had died was now a building site

and I thought of still nights and ghostly sounds of brakes

and crumpling metal keeping children awake.

Leaving Katoomba in thick fog we hear the sounds of engines

just after passing the dead explorers tree. My father pulls

over to the side of the narrow road and winds the window down.

Down in the valley full of fog, around a lake where a seaplane

once landed, there are cars racing around in a blinding

milky whiteness. I listen unsuccessfully for the sound of a crash.