Catalina Park......a little known road race circuit in NSW, Australia.

As soon as the word Catalina appears, thoughts drift to the island, Santa Catalina Island off the coast of California some two hours from Los Angeles where motorcycle races were held in the 1950's, but Catalina Park was the name of a road racing circuit at Katoomba, West of Sydney some 80km in the Blue Mountains at an elevation of around 3500', snuggled in a gully on the edge of the town and home to Motor Racing and for a shorter time, Motorcycle Racing from 1960-1969. 
Various views exist as to it's being build from a white trash settlement where no-hopers built up a shanty town and aboriginal women were encouraged to make occasional visits, a place almost permanently shrouded in fog and the smoke from camp fires such that the locals hated it and welcomed the local Council plans to build a motor racing circuit to it being an Aboriginal sacred site for the local Gundungarra and Darug tribes of the area, which in the end forced its closure.

I'm not here to comment on any of this, rather to look, with photos of a motorcycle road race meeting 11th September 1966 which I attended and took some photos, the negatives of which I recently scanned and list here.....
Oddly enough I recall going to Katoomba as a boy with my family by steam train in about 1954 for a weeks holiday in a rented house close to Catalina Park, so called because of a Catalina aircraft moored on a concrete block in the centre of a lake there.....it was never flown in, rather dismantled and brought in by truck in 1952, and reassembled as a tourist  attraction, finally being pulled off and on to the lake bank, then sold off for scrap in 1958.
The track still exists and you can walk around it, however no maintenance, water seepage and overgrowth has caused it to collapse in places.
I've located , on a blog, whose owner I can't ascertain, 
http://www.tasman-series.com/misc/lostcircuits/catalinapark/catalinapark.asp
some photos taken recently and some follow at the end of the blog.
Reference is made and acknowledged to conversation with motorcycling historian and editor of Old Bike Australasia, Jim Scaysbook, a Wikipedia reference and the blog mentioned for information.
Left click on the images to enlarge, where possible ( some files are very small).

Plan of the circuit...

The circuit, lined with wooden planks wasn't real forgiving in an accident....

#77 John Bauskis, Honda 125cc CR93 production racer.

#97 Terry Smith, squish head Venom Velocette special.

#41 Ray Curtis, New Imperial 250cc special...1934 engine in a Smith frame
 ( local version of the UK Beasley frame).

#9 Noel Manning, Vincent special...for a few years Manning was invincible in unlimited sidecar races.

#63 Ron Toombs. 
An email from Geoff Clatworthy comments ...."We believe the photo is Malcolm Sullivan's 250 MOV Velo in a  frame made by Malcolm similar to  Hendo's 4 valve G50 in the National Motor Racing Museum at Bathurst. Norton forks, Honda front wheel, Hendo modified rear wheel, fairing painted red..."

Back with more of Keith Bryen's photographs.... Aussie privateer and Moto Guzzi works rider and part of the "Continental Circus" in 1950's....

I've posted quite a few blogs featuring photographs kindly loaned me by Keith Bryen, Aussie privateer and then Moto Guzzi works rider in 1957. For earlier ones check over to the RHS "subject listings" and click on "Keith Bryen racing photographs"....

This blog has more of Keith's brief time on the Moto Guzzi factory racing team....you may recall, elated at his elevation to the team, on his return to Australia in the off season he received a "Dear John" letter from Moto Guzzi informing him of their decision to withdraw from racing in concert with Gilera and Mondial and as a result there were no further bikes available.....kinda' gut wrenching I would say.....

Left click on the images to enlarge.....

Norisring at Nurnberg, 27.07.1957.

Keith Bryen and Keith Campbell with Guzzi personnel and the 500cc V8.

The 500cc V8 Moto Guzzi that Keith Bryen tried out at Monza in August 1957.

Testing at Monza, 350cc Moto Guzzi for the Italian GP.

Velocette Viper items......

Seems time for some Velocette Viper stuff.....
The Velocette Viper, a 350cc 72mm bore x 86mm stroke single, introduced with its stable mate the 500cc Venom in 1956 was really a sleeved down Venom. But despite this fact which leads to the thought that it would be an underpowered 350 encumbered with the weight of a 500, the Viper was a nice, quick little machine, although it likely was considered inferior to the 350cc BSA Gold Star, probably because of the Gold Stars success in the Clubman races in the IOM TT in the mid 1950's.
For most of the following items used, courtesy of "The MotorCycle", "MotorCycling" who I acknowledge copyright to Mortons Motorcycle Media in the UK, "Moto Revue"..unsure who owns it's copyright and to the BMS Service Series book on Velocette Viper/Venom/Thruxton, although BMS himself utilised the photos concerned from "MotorCycling" where he was a staff motorcycling journalist for many years.
Left click on the images to enlarge...

1963 Viper Clubman fitted with a BMG desmodromic valve gear conversion.

French magazine "Moto Revue" test in December 1962 at Montlhery, France.

Below an August 1961 "MotorCycling" road test

Cartoons....Time for some more humour from "MotorCycle" and "MotorCycling" from the past.....

As I've said before I quite like the motorcycle oriented cartoons that various artists...Grimes, Thacker etc have contributed to "MotorCycle" and "MotorCycling" over the years the magazines were published.....
I acknowledge Mortons Motorcycle Media in the UK, the current owners of the copyright to these magazines and to the Estates of the cartoonists....
Laugh along with me.....
Left click on the images to enlarge....

Phil Irving's design notebooks......four small books that PEI recorded much of his work at Velocettes and Vincents...

I visited Phil Irving on several occasions when I had time whilst in the Melbourne area in Victoria, Australia years back and on one occasion when I was questioning him over the bore and stroke dimensions on the Stuart Waycott "600cc" ISDT Velocette outfit's engine.... it was 85mm bore and 105mm stroke out of interest and I'm assembling a blog on this machine now.....he produced four small black notebooks that were used by him when he was in the UK from around 1931 to the late 1940's and we looked in one for these dimensions.
They contained fascinating design calculations, power information etc for the LE Velocette that he did some initial work on, the Model O road twin of the Roarer, the ISDT outfit as mentioned and a general notebook with Military MAC information as well as JAP engined specials....
All fascinating stuff.
I've them on loan again and doing a full scan of their contents into digital form and will share some of the pages with you over this and future blogs....
This blog features items from around 1931 when he left Velocette and went to London to assist several Australian with JAP engined racers and record breakers...in particular the attempt in Hungary on the world Land Speed Record using a Brough Superior with a 996cc V-Twin JAP called "Leaping Lena" ridden by Aussie Arthur Simcock.
I've scanned a section from Phil's Autobiography, pages 172-177 and pages from his little notebooks referring to this and to a 250cc JAP engined racer that was used in the IOM TT in 1931.
Left click on the images to enlarge...