from
http://www.bunburymcc.com.au/history/Some memories from Robert Britza
My memories of motocross in Bunbury start way back in the late 1950s when my father used to take me to scramble events at Australind, Picton, and the old “Sea links” track over near the back beach. We then started to watch the events at the new track which was to become known as Hawkstone Park, and named after a famous motocross track in England.
We went to watch my cousins Vinty and Glen Britza race. I don’t remember how good Vinty was, I was too young, but Glen went on to win many state championships. I would later at the age of 15 join Glen on his Ariel Red Hunter 500cc single pot sidecar as “swinger”. The year I turned 16 (1963) I got my competition licence and we got second in the state “short circuit” championships at Mandurah and third in the Australian short circuit championships at Forrestfield. Forrestfield was a flat twisting and fairly smooth gravel track that cars used to race on. The machine that won the championship was a road racing “kneeler” that was over from the eastern states for the Australian road race championship to be held in Bunbury that year.
Another member, David Walker also wanted to passenger for Glen and we used to take it in turns. One day we raced at Allanson (just out of Collie) and they had three sidecar races. That was a problem, so I suggested to David and Glen that David do the first two laps of the second race and then we would swap at the slowest part of the course. We did, and went on to win the race.
I joined the club as a “junior” member along with Phillip and Robert Bruce, Melville and Ross Jarvis, Robert Sachs and a couple of others. Our parents had to sign a form to allow us to learn to ride at the track. The lessons were to start on the 20th of May 1961 but due to very heavy rain, it didn’t go ahead and I was the only person who turned up. Some of the riders that taught us to ride were Glen Britza, Ray Buck and possibly John Olsen and the “flying Renfrees” as Edgar, Jim, and Gordon were labeled by the press.
I used to attend the busy bees at Hawkstone Park most weekends with Glen Britza, Don Collins snr, Don Collins jnr, Edgar Renfree and “Tonchy Wallace”, and of course many others. My step father drove a bulldozer for WAPET, clearing very long and straight lines through the scrub up in the Pilbara. He used to bring home for me, sticks of gelignite with detonators and fuse. I would ride out to the track with the sticks in a bag on one handlebar of my pushbike and the detonators and fuse on the other end. We were removing trees on the northern end of the track (Hawkstone) to extend the track. After the busy bees, some of us would retire to a pastry shop alongside Glen’s house for a milkshake and pastries.
I left school the day before I turned 14, got a job and began saving for a bike of my own. With the help of a loan from my step father, in late 1963 I acquired my very own, brand new, Cotton Cobra. The Cotton was powered by a single cylinder, twin carburettor, Villiers two stroke motor. In those days most people still made their own scramble bikes by converting road bikes and you couldn’t walk into a bike shop and buy a purpose built scrambler. I had to order the Cotton from the “Clinton Bros Motorcycles” shop in Subiaco and wait three months for it to be delivered into the shop. Other British purpose built bikes that were being imported, mostly by Mortlocks, were Greeves and BSA.
The next week I competed at Cosy Creek in Manjimup and then other weekends that year at Rockingham, Forrestfield, and of course Bunbury.
During 1963 while still racing at Hawkstone Park, the club acquired a lease on land on North Boyanup Rd and those of us who attended busy bees, now including Phil Bruce, spent most weekends building the new track. This track was called Shrubland Park.
At Shrubland Park, a club run on mother’s day May 10th 1964, my bike took off backwards from the start line. Two strokes could run backwards without you noticing in those days if the timing was too close to top dead centre. I bump started it forward and took off to catch up with the other riders but lost it after the tabletop jump on the first lap. The Cottons were unfortunately, a poor handling machine and I got tossed off in the loose sand and my body was thrown in the direction of a banksia tree. I suffered some massive injuries
I tried to compete some months later but my injured shoulder dropped out too easily and I crashed off the end of the hairpin. The pin in my femur stayed straight but the bone around the original break cracked. I then went into rehab for eight months and reluctantly gave racing away.
