Early Bathurst

Early Bathurst


Early Bathurst


Early Bathurst

Some odd Italian bike . :)
 
I went down in 85 on my 82 Harris built Triumph Thunderbird, what a great Easter weekend, the Trummpy didn't miss a beat, drank lots of beer had a great time and we all played with the NSW police force on the Saturday night up at the compound on the hill, one of my mates threw a can of beer at the police and someone grabbed his arm after he did it, it was a copper, he was taken away and he missed all the fun for the rest of the weekend, he got out of jail on the Tuesday morning.

Saturday night a channel 7 news car got burned out, it was a set up at the time but next day in the papers read, massive riot, bikkies V the police, cars burned out, police bashed etc etc, it was more like the bikers bash by the police (why have a police compound built right in the middle of the camp grounds where thousnds of bikers will be camping, drinking and just having some fun) it was just there to stir up trouble, but Bathurst was the loosers as the whole town made a lot of money from the Easter bike races, the whole town opened up, the poeple was very open and friendly to the bikers and council open all their parks for free camping.

The fun police always win, but great menories.

Ashley
 
My head hurts just looking at the pictures.
Flaming dunny roll football,
The chap with the 900? Honda in the dunny with his front wheel in the piss trough doing burn out till his tyre exploded.
The lengths of barbed wire thrown at the overhead wires to the cops enclosure, black outs.
The head cop with the whistle standing on a ladder or box, blows the whistle then all the TSG cops do a batton charge.
The chap hiding behind a tree with a large branch that took out a TSG cop as he ran past.
The missing motorcyclists in the morning that got grabbed by the cops and locked up.
The channel 7 car that was staged as a news riot story.
The girl friend of the Laverda fellows that was sold to the Triumph ? Chaps for a bottle of JD.
The racing.
The racing.
The friend ship.
The "show us ur tits"
The racing.
The dough nuts and burn outs.
And the racing........

Shame it ended
 
Great summary GRM! I was there too. 1985 i think you're referring too..the pics in that thread are earlier. although I don't know the guy who created that post, he captured some of my mates in his photos. that is Glenn and Kerry on the XS1100...
 
Posted this before, but can't hurt to repeat for this topic.

Waay back when I was a rather impecunious student, living in a share house and riding a Yammy XS360. We'd decide to jump on our bikes Easter Thursday night and head off to Bathurst for the bike races. We'd ride all night to get there, drink a lot, watch the racing, ogle the bikes, get bugger-all sleep and then ride home Easter Monday. So desperately un-PC by today's standards.

Early Bathurst

During the day there's some really wonderful racing.

Early Bathurst

There's some excellent specials to be found. A Vincati in this case.

Early Bathurst

Our camp. Later that night some guys walked past and chucked a handful of bullets into the fire. Funny, gosh we laughed and laughed. No we didn't, we ran like buggery.

It got a bit silly that night. Can't remember what sparked it all off. I spent at least a half hour talking to the police to get my mate's Bol D'or back as it was parked in front of the compound. Not normally a problem, but several Molotovs had been thrown in that general direction. I got lucky and got the bike back. I spent a large amount of the rest of the night up a tree watching the melee below. Pity I didn't have a camera with me.

Early Bathurst

This is where you buy beer. Why can you see the side of the truck at the back of the shop? Because the boys needed some bricks the night before!

Early Bathurst

You really don't want to drive your camera car through the pack at night, do you.

I remember leaving the mountain the last time, heading down the exit road on the Tuesday morning. Beautiful clear cold morning. One last Molotov sent a perfect smoke ring 10s of metres across up into the sky. Should have taken that shot too. Damn.

The last time we rode up there, the DPO was on the Norton. Never dreamed (nightmared?) that I'd own it one day.

And now they just race cars around it. What a loss.
 
I've been to the races at Bathurst about 4 times, first in 1963 when Kel Carruthers was riding the Honda250-4, and the Geoghan brothers had the Daimler sp250 there on the Sunday. A friend of mine walked into the police station to find out what had happened to his mate. The cop reached over the counter and grabbed his hair, then bashed his head down onto the counter several times, he then went through my mates wallet and emptied it. You had to be careful in the main street of Bathurst. There were guys with neat haircuts wearing Hawaiian shirts and shorts looking for aggro. Regardless it was a really fun weekend, especially as we were kids, and the local bikes were usually miners from Newcastle et c, who would never back away from a fight with the police . You've probably all seem that silly old movie 'the wild one'' ? Well I actually saw a guy do a Chino up on the mountain. The cops grabbed him and went to chuck him into the utility truck with the cage. He yelled out 'they are taking me away' and the best and biggest ever brawl erupted, as all his mates descended on the cops. I think everybody loved it there, especially the cops. You only had to look sideways at them, and you were in business.
Thanks for posting this topic, it brought back memories of very happy times in my childhood. Bathurst really appealed to my warped sense of humour.
 
Memories memories! Vivid memories burnt into the mind of a beardless youth.
As a young lad a bunch of us rode down from Coolangatta and found a camp spot on the Mountain, passing out from fatigue and beer to be woken up in the evening by the sound of the Crackatoa's and the roar of the crowd at the compound, so I thought I better go up for a look see.
Working my way through the crowd for a vantage point I scaled the dunny block opposite the compound for the view, the boys were having a of game firery footy (toilet roll soaked in petrol) in front of the cops, somehow the footy ended up on the compound roof, one of the boys in blue must have drawn the short straw and came out in the helmet and full protective gear like they use for attack dog training, he pushed a ladder against the wall and made his way up with the garden hose to extinguish the fire, this drew the attention of the mob that commenced to pelt the sorry bugger with cans rocks bottles whatever, I was temporarily distracted by a well proportioned young lady who had joined me on the dunny roof and proceded to do a strip for the audience, the coppers made the most of the situation as the attention was on the stripper they exited the compound banging their shields with their baton's in beat like a Zulu horde, they were pretty quick to start bashing their way through the crowd towards my vantage point so I did the best I could think of and jumped off the roof and ran like fuck!. Those were the days! If I tried that now I would fall on the ground like a sack of spud's :D
I remember the bull rings got pretty out of controll and some poor sod that refused or couldnt do a donut was pushed over and had his bke burnt, and the channel 7 station wagon full of camera gear and journos stuck in a bull ring till it was abandoned by the passengers then pushed onto it's roof, of course the petrol gushing from the tank was an invitation for some clown to flick a match.
Yeah it was a wild night, there was a whole lot of sore and bruised heads the next day andi it seemed that the racing was just a distraction. Incidentally Roger Freeth rode the Macintosh suzuki to victory in the main race, seeing these guys throw a superbike over the top of the mountain at speeds I couldn't even imagine was just awesome!
I have a couple of pics of a skinny kid on the Yamaha but not digital form, I will try and dig them up.
Fred.
 
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