Page 18 - Beep Beep September 22

Historic Leyburn Sprints
August 2022
2 very special cars that raced for the Australian Land Speed Record were at Leyburn this year.
I picked up the story from ‘speedcafecom’ and thought readers would be interested.
My thanks to Joan Coles for taking the photos at Leyburn Sprints especially for Beep Beep. Editor
More on this story can be found on this link : https://www.speedcafe.com/2022/08/10/land-speed-rivals-to- race-at-leyburn/
Two cars that raced each other for the inaugural Australian land speed record appeared together on track for the first time in almost 106 years.
The cars, a 1912 Willys Overland and 1916 Studebaker, raced for the land speed record on Southport Beach on Christmas Day in 1916.
The story of the event has been told in the recent book Car Wars Down Under, The Untold Story of Australia’s First Land Speed Record.
The oldest participants in a gathering of more than 300 historic, classic and performance vehicles at the Sprints
The 26th Historic Leyburn Sprints celebrated almost 100 years of motoring on the Darling Downs recently.. Around 220 cars, the oldest from 1925 and the newest from 2020, contested the round-the-houses one kilometre Sprints course on Saturday and Sunday, commemorating the running of the 1949 Australian Grand Prix.
Historic, classic and performance open- wheel, sports, and closed cars competed across 59 classes.The oldest entry was a 1925 Austin Seven Sports Special – the newest was 2020 machine called a DPQ Special, a purpose-built single- seater.
Photo Joan Coles
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