A few guys asked after Alan Stone the photographer. See below, for update.
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BACKGROUND: for interstaters. Stoney went to all the Victorian bike race meets, and took thousands of pro pictures. At each subsequent meet, he'd string up sheets with the pix sitting (in pockets I think) from the previous races ... and you could view and buy from there. Riders would also contract him to take shots of them on the day.
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I phoned him several times over the years, chasing access to the negs. He was always hesitant. The pix and negs were all stored in boxes and labeled by meeting name and date in his attic. (He did the roadraces too) I never visited him, nor saw the motherlode. (But I can imagine that for every print he may still have, there would probably be 15 times more negatives)
In Late 2008, we managed to get him out to a Dandy MMC club reunion at the old closed Bihamco track. Alan is circa 65 or 70, and I was amazed that he showed up. And I was stunned when he showed up, wearing his original jacket, and proceeded to string up one of his original photos hanging sheet. He also had a box of A4 prints on the grass, and I nearly vomited when I flicked through them. (For example, a crystal-clear shot of Gary Flood doing a flying W. Never published.) Talk about 100% gold gold gold! It would fair dinkum bring tears to your eyes. I had to walk away ... for to even begin contemplating making a book out of them - well, you be looking at 400 A3 pages and about two years' full-time work. Not to mention squinting at negs, or laboriously scanning them.
Anyway, after the BBQ reunion (which MA Drakey was at), the MA HQ managed to secure alan's negs as a bequest to the MA "museum". So, they are all there now. Maybe some 10,000 negs, which will very probably never see the light of day again.
