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Busselton

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THE inaugural Busselton Derby was held on Australia Day, 31 January, 1955, on a T- circuit laid out on the runways of Busselton airport. The circuit was marked by haybales, and a very large crowd (including the Governor Sir Charles Gairdner and his wife Lady Gairdner) attended.

This was Mick Geneve’s debut, and he gave a good display before retiring with a cracked cylinder on the Ballot V8. Bruce Mutton of Bunbury won the feature race in his MG TF and also took out the under-1500cc 5-lap scratch race.

The 1956 crowd was down on numbers and there was a smaller field, too, The feature race had two sections, Scratch and Handicap, of equal value. Merv Dudley in the BRM-Morgan set a shattering pace, but was delayed by a pit stop and then retired on lap 19 of the 25-lap race. Sid Taylor (Fastest Time last year) won the Scratch section, while Vin Smith (Alpha) won the Handicap. Several drivers beat their handicaps by too large a margin and were disqualified; there were only 4 official finishers in the Handicap section. Complete details including lap charts are available here.

The circus was back again in January, 1957, for a third and final Busselton Derby, which saw Sid Taylor (TS Special) win handily, touching 115 mph (185 km-h) down the short main straight. Highlight of the day was Mick Geneve’s tenacious performance. He went to the starting line with only two of the four gears available in the box, only to have one more gear fail shortly afterwards. He fought on in top gear, cornering at the hairpins in lurid sideways slides, and only conceded defeat when a tyre wore right through and burst, forcing him to retire.

RESULTS

(* indicates Fastest Time)

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