By Tania Phillips
Motor racing in Australia came of age in 1928 with the inaugural Australian Grand Prix held at Cowes on Phillip Island but 21 years later – in one of the first races after World War II – it was the AGP that put a little town in Queensland on the map.
That town was Leyburn and every year (only pausing for Covid) since 1996 the Historic Leyburn Sprints have commemorated the weekend Leyburn hosted the Australian Grand Prix.
This year the Historic Leyburn Sprints will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Australian Grand Prix with a record entry of 243 historic, classic and performance cars on 27-28 August.
The biggest field in the Sprints 28-year history will represent 10 decades of motoring and include many types of vehicles, from vintage home-built racers to grand prix and Indianapolis 500 contenders.
The weekend’s highlight will be celebrations for the 75th anniversary of Leyburn’s hosting of the grand prix on 18 September 1949, commemorated by the Sprints founding in 1996. At least four original 1949 cars will be on display and three drivers from later Australian Grands Prix will be among several high-profile former competitors on hand to help mark the occasion.
“We’re doing a number of things to celebrate 75 years,” Sprints organising committee president Tricia Chant explained.
“For the opening and 75th commemoration ceremony on Saturday 17 August we’ll have some well-known retired drivers as guests-of-honour – Warwick Brown, Australian Grand Prix winner in 1977, and generally a big Australian name in international racing in the 70s,
Bruce Allison, another star who raced internationally, including Formula 1 in Europe, in the 1970s, Dick Johnson – touring car legend, still running his own Supercar team. One of Australian racing’s most famous names and John Bowe – Dick Johnson’s teammate for several years and a highly successful driver in his own right in a variety of car types. Still racing at age 70 and a very popular personality.
“We’ve got four possibly five of the original 1949 cars coming as well.”
So why is Leyburn and the Sprints so special?
“We’re probably the only place in Australia that actively celebrates previous Grand Prix in Australia, it’s built up slowly over the years,” she said.
“We started the Leyburn Sprints in 1996. My parents actually started it. It’s just built up from there and it’s just got a really good following and a lot of people support it and they love the town and event. It’s just sort of built up organically over the years.
“We can now pull in some of these great names to come and they love being part of it.”
When it’s not playing host to a plethora of beautiful old race cars Leyburn is home to 350 to 400.
“Of course we grow it to about 16,000 over two days,” Tricia laughed.
“When we don’t have the weekend on it’s a very quite village, it’s got a great pub and great people. It’s a very popular town for visiting on weekends and more and more we’re seeing city people buying weekenders and coming out and enjoying the quiet life and the country life.”
But back in 1949, Leyburn like every small country town in Australia was rebuilding after World War II.
The opportunity to host the Australian Grand Prix – the nation’s most important motor race – on a nearby ex-wartime aerodrome provided a highlight for people throughout the Darling Downs region.
“Back then the Grand Prix used to be held in a different state each year,” Tricia said.
“Queensland was chosen for one of the first events after the war. So the Brisbane Sporting Car Club was tasked with the job to go and find a racetrack. Because the Second World War had only finished a few years before, they knew there were heaps of disused airfields. They decided they would focus on them and try and find an airfield that was suitable for a racetrack. They went driving around to visit different airfields to try and find a suitable one.
“Leyburn wasn’t the first choice it was Lowood, half way between Brisbane and Toowoomba, but they had a very significant church going community who weren’t pleased about the racing being held on a Sunday. They pulled out of Lowood and went to Leyburn instead.
“Of course, those Grand Prix’s were the lead up to what we now know as Formula One.”
And while the Sprints are about looking back, both to the original event and to all of the beautiful cars that have raced in Australia and around the world over the decades. The event is also about fostering the future of racing and features a junior category.
“We have ten juniors coming through this year which is really awesome,” she said.
“They vie for the Mike and Ann Collins Memorial Trophy which is my mum and dad – they have both now passed away so we do the junior memorial trophy in their honour.
“We lost mum in 2018 and dad in 2022. The Greenmount Pub supplies cash prizes for juniors and we give them half-price entry.
“The first few years we sort of struggled. I remember we had four and another year we had five so we decided last year to grant them half-priced entry and the Greenmount Pub started offering the prize money for first, second and third. Now we have them coming out our ears,” she laughed.
“If we can get ten to 12 or even eight to 12 on a regular basis that’s perfect.”
The Mike and Ann Collins Memorial Junior Award is for young drivers 14-17 and is designed to help youngsters enter motorsport.
