FORMER SYDNEY SPEEDCAR STAR BRIAN MANNION DIES

By Dennis Newlyn

Australian Speedway lost one of its wonderful characters with the passing on Tuesday, July 5 in Queensland of former Sydney Speedcar star Brian Mannion, 89.

Brian died at 4am after he was admitted to hospital on Friday, July 1 with a punctured lung.

Brian’s daughter, Nicole, explained: “he could have just coughed, given how advanced his cancer was. It was very hard to see him how he was, but he was comfortable and it (would have) happened relatively quickly, which is definitely how he would have wanted it, he knew we were there. He squeezed all of our hands when we each said who was there. We just wanted to see him comfortable.”

Nicole’s youngest son (and mother) were at Brian’s home just days prior. “We had lunch and he was playing with Taitum, my seven year old son who adored him.”

They called him ‘Fearless’, so very appropriate because Brian was a gutsy, brave, dusty hero of open cockpit Speedcar racing during the fabulous ‘sixties era when putting it on the line meant being incredibly ‘Fearless.’

Year in-year out he cheated death, whether in the winter months at Westmead Speedway or under the bright lights down town at the hallowed Sydney Showground during the summer, Brian loved every minute of it.

In his hey day Brian was one of the characters of the Sydney Speedcar scene – an affable character among many flamboyant personalities. This “Fearless Fred” (Corrigan) of ‘Sixties Speedcar racing led a colourful life and was not phased by the hazards involved with driving open cockpit Speedcars where winning meant running the ragged edge, a death defying move in traffic and putting everything on the line.

One day at Westmead in 1965 he almost crossed that line between safety and survival after he was involved in a horrifying crash that could very easily have ended it all right there and then. It was a miraculous escape and so typical of the men of his era, he later celebrated his side-step from death with a beer!

Brian certainly had a flare for humour and hilarity.

He was a jovial man, who often laughed at himself and life.

Brian’s life was colourful, exciting and at times a charade, full of highs and lows, like his victories on the track or the times when he was absent from the sport, not of his own volition. (That’s a story for another time!)

Brian’s speedway career started in Perth when aged only 13.

In a feature story I wrote on Brian “Fred” Mannion years ago, he explained how he got started in the sport.

“A guy in the street where I lived had a 500 Norton outfit and he was looking for a passenger. So in those days if you wanted to do something like that, you just did it. I rode passenger with him at Claremont and did that for a while and then I finished up on a Solo,” Brian explained.

Brian was well and truly bitten by the “speed bug” and raced not only speedway but also contested road racing and motorcycle scrambles events.

“But I never really had the money to get into it as I really would have liked,” he said.

By this time he worked as a truck driver hauling rigs interstate. It was his job that ultimately brought him to Sydney in the late ‘fifties.

“You could not make a dollar in Perth with their permit fees, so we moved to Sydney and got involved with Brock (Len Brock) and his motley crew,” Brian joked.

Before that he did a stint in Brisbane racing TQs, but it was the bright lights of Sydney and the mecca of Australian Speedcar racing that took him south where he lived for close on 30 years.

Brian was keen to get into Sydney Speedcar racing and so he purchased the Laurie Seidl-owned #44 Holden midget.

“I paid him (Laurie) a deposit but I could not race the car until I paid the full amount. I did that and started racing the car at Westmead. It would have been in 1962 I think.”

He went through the normal system implemented by the National Speedcar Club and was graded into the encourage ranks to learn the game.

He won a few races and caught the attention of NSC officials who later gave him a chance at the Sydney Showground.

He made a successful transition into the A-grade ranks and won his share of heats and became a middle mark starter in feature races.

Brian said one of the highlights of his career was a victory in 1965 in the annual KLG Spark Plug-sponsored 50 lap speedcar event.

Brian was now an established A-grader. The competition was tough where running the ragged edge was mandatory.

Sunday afternoon, August 8, 1965 at Westmead Speedway could easily have brought his career (and life!) to an end.

Mannion’s car cartwheeled and somersaulted on the top corner during the 15-lap feature race (won by Ray Noble) in a horror crash that had everyone holding their breath.

Fortunately, his car landed on its wheels and patrons breathed a huge sigh of relief when it became evident Mannion was unhurt.

He climbed from the wreckage with only a slight scratch on his chin!

These were highly dangerous times in Speedcar racing as the crash came only weeks after the July 24 black afternoon at Westmead that claimed the life of Tony Burke and a couple of months following Jeff Freeman’s May 9 fatality at the venue.

As a footnote to the accident, Sydney’s Channel Seven had only just started televising Sydney speedway action and the Mannion crash occurred during one of their very first broadcasts.

The massive media exposure the sport received in those days told a clear picture of the sport’s potential dangers.

The television coverage was headed up by former international Rugby Union and Rugby League player Rex Mossop who had a year earlier been drafted from car salesman with Stack & Co in Sydney’s downtown William Street to the role of television commentator/presenter.

He was new to speedway, so when Mannion’s terrible crash unfolded, Mossop interjected over the top of co-host Mike Raymond in tones of hysteria with the words: “There’s a car going over and over and over . . .”

He was quite shaken by what he had witnessed as he struggled for words in the aftermath of the accident while crews cleared the wreckage off the track.

The crash started after Brian ran right up against the fence as the field entered turn one and suddenly he found himself on the end of a chain reaction.

He copped the brunt of the domino-effect as Midgets bounced off each other and his Holden Midget embarked on a terrifying series of somersaults.

His body was stretched almost right out of the cockpit and Brian was flung like a rag doll with arms outstretched as his #88 speedcar continued its wild ride.

His head never touched the track during each somersault and the car landed the right way up on its wheels.

Fortune and fate was on his side. It was a miracle escape.

It was not his time, but could very easily have been a very different outcome with each high flying twist of man and machine!

“I was going for a big run around the outside and Al Staples spun,” Brian recalled.

“I’m right up against the fence and I thought there was plenty of room, however Lew Marshall turned right to miss Staples and I ran over his wheel.

“Lew had nowhere to go and away I went into orbit. I thought ‘I have got to get my arms in otherwise I am going to get hurt.’ I couldn’t and then it kept going and going and I thought ‘if this doesn’t stop soon I am definitely going to get hurt.’ ”

The irony of the crash was that when the carnage finally stopped, Brian actually thought he had crossed the Great Divide!

“There was steam coming up through the cockpit and into my gas goggles. I couldn’t see anything, I couldn’t hear anything and I thought ‘shit I am in heaven.’ They (the crash crew) got me out of it (the car).”

Brian was OK, if not a little unsteady on his feet.

His road car was parked at the back of the spectator hill on the same corner where the accident occurred. He later walked to his car and needed to get “a reviver” from the esky. After a crash like that, Brian needed a beer!

“I grabbed a stubby straight out of the esky and fell a-over head. Every bone and muscle was stretched to the limit.”

A later medical check cleared him of injury, however the biggest hurt of the day was a wrecked Midget beyond repair which meant Brian was out of a drive and for a time forced to the role of spectator.

Mannion built another car and this new Midget featured torsion bar suspension and the latest 149 cubic inch Holden engine.

Innovation was the order of the day after Brian secured Morris Minor torsion arms, but that’s how it was in those days when it came to finding spare parts for a Speedcar.

Brian was disappointed with the results of the 149 motor. It really didn’t live up to expectations but it was not too long before he was back to his winning ways.

“One Sunday morning at about eight Kevin Gormly and Geoff Spence called around and I was working on the car. I still had the original old gray motor and they suggested I should put that back in the car. They helped me fit the motor and later that day I won the 15-lap feature race at Westmead and broke the track record,” Brian recalled.

That 15-lap mark stood right up until the closure of the circuit in the winter of 1968.

With the car he won a couple of Craven Filter rounds and was reasonably competitive, however to this day, his most significant memory of his time in the car was a race he didn’t win: the 1967 Australian Speedcar Grand Prix at the Sydney Showground.

This event went down in history as one of the greatest Speedcar main events ever seen at the Sydney Showground.

It was an epic battle between Mannion, ultimate winner Len Brock, and American legend Bob Tattersall.

It was a high speed dress parade that lasted virtually to the end of the race – or in Brian’s case when he was spun to the infield by Tattersall on the back straight with only a few laps remaining!

Mannion and Brock continued their battle from an earlier heat into the 35-lap AGP.

“Brock passed me in a heat and I re-passed him on the first lap when I got him down the back straight. That was how it also happened in the opening lap of the Grand Prix,” Brian explained.

From that point Mannion held command, pressed every lap by Brock.

Than Tattersall joined up on the freight train after he worked his way from the back of the field.

The three cars ran nose-to-tail in an enthralling battle that held the attention of the massive crowd as the race continued at a frantic pace. Mannion led for most of the distance before Brock regained the lead in the latter stages.

Brian tried to make another lunge on the pit corner as the laps dwindled, but Brock shut the gate. Brian prepared for another attempt on the next lap as the three cars ran into the back straight, but he never got that opportunity, courtesy of a frustrated Tattersall.

Brian Mannion was on the receiving end of a shunt from the “Streator Streak” and finished on the infield.

Only two laps remained. He unbuckled and watched the remaining laps from the centre green. Brock won in what was his very last feature race victory at the Sydney Showground.

Tattersall was disqualified.

Brian was furious.

He confronted the American over the incident.

“I wanted to smack him in the mouth,” Brian admitted.

“Tattersall made some comment about me being a ‘cry baby’ and even though we never came to blows, I was upset over the incident.”

Brian said even in the last couple of laps Tattersall tried to get Brock in the same manner using the same tactics.

“Tattersall was trying to do the same thing to Brock as he did to me. He had his left front wheel underneaths Brock’s rear crash bar.”

That was one of those memorable nights that will live forever in the memory of everyone on hand at the Sydney Showground.

During his time in Sydney Speedcar racing Brian drove several different cars.

He had a stint in the “little Berco” Holden #65 – a Midget he described as “a beautiful car and the best I’ve ever driven.”

He also raced the McGee Tornado Offy, the Peers Chevy II and the Ron Ward #3 at a time when Ward experimented with a Peugeot engine.

He retired in the early ‘seventies and in 1976 moved to Brisbane.

He helped Brisbane Speedcar star Brian Dillon for a while, however Brian still yearned for Speedcar competition and he purchased a Volkswagen Midget from Barry Graham and returned to the track.

It was during this stint that he sustained an eye injury and the loss of vision. He later underwent an eye transplant operation to restore full eyesight.

In later years he bought the Neville Brennan Cosworth Midget. Brennan sold the Cosworth and Brian ran the car, powered by an Alfa Romeo engine, in vintage demonstrations.

Brian fondly remembers his time in Sydney speedcar racing.

“It was absolutely brilliant. They were the greatest bunch of people you could ever be associated with. I feel so privileged to be a part of that era. It was not only the Brocks, Stewarts and Freemans, but the others doing their bit. It’s not like that anymore,” he lamented.

Brian Mannion . . . a showman, personality, nice bloke and one of the great Speedcar characters of a sensational past era.

RIP: Brian Mannion.