Do you recognise these . . .?
In 1958 in a shed in Penrith,
New South Wales, these magnificent machines were created.
They were designed from a poor picture showing a new American
concept, the Go Cart! I can't recall the guy's names,
but the Brown brothers were there (the guy with the turned
up hat is one of them), I think the bloke in the overalls
was Kevin somebody-or-other and of course I was there
too, taking the pictures in this case.
They are in fact the first Australian Go Cart. However,
when the first of the American built Go Carts landed in
Australia, these machines took on a life of their own
and eventually became what is now the Micro Midget! They had a
re bored 125cc motor (I can't recall the regulated tolerances
of the re bore), built on a rigid chassis which rolled
on pneumatic wheelbarrow wheels/tyres. They could reach
speeds in excess of 60 mph - that's bloody fast just a
few inches off the ground. You will note the safety standards,
roll bars, safety gear on the 'riders' including helmets
- not! The blurb put out by the Americans about
the Go Cart was that it could not be rolled!!!! We filmed
the American imports being rolled quite easily - and so
could these beauties above. They did acquire roll bars
and safety gear was certainly required - especially for
racing at Windsor. CAMMS would not allow these machines
on any of their tracks without massive upgrades to the
tracks and barriers !! So they were raced at non CAMMS
tracks. The first week they ran as a demonstration, then
a flurry of 'would be mechanics' and riders/drivers headed off
to their sheds dismantling their 125cc bikes and returning
the following Sunday to race at Windsor. They came from
as far away as Katoomba with entries from St Mary's and
a couple of other nearby towns.
The attraction was that
they could be virtually built from shed scraps and therefore it was entry-level racing at it's best. Our Penrith group actually
built a 500cc beast but it's power to weight ratio was
disastrous - it was worse than a GTHO and would flip on
a stone.
Russ Wade
