The Places They Raced: An Abandoned Street Racing Haven

[cjforumadmin]

http://www.bangshift.com/blog/The-Places-They-Raced-An-Abandoned-Street-Racing-Haven.html

[Hamar]

Re: The Places They Raced: An Abandoned Street Racing Haven

Ah..The good ole Ringe (Ridge) Arena in Braintree.......My Uncle had a Blue 69 GTO Judge and would take me up there on occasion to watch the race action. It is true that cars would come in on trailers too. Got quite rowdy up there. It wasnt long after that my uncle drove his Judge through a house in his nieghborhood while driving after way too my haffenreffers Good bye GTO...

[antmnte]

Re: The Places They Raced: An Abandoned Street Racing Haven

Wow cool! Of course some horendous thing had to happen and ruin the fun.

[Hemidog]

Re: The Places They Raced: An Abandoned Street Racing Haven

Reminds me of the place known as 'Brickies' here in Sydeny in the 1970s. A straight strip of concrete road adjacent to an old brickpit in the suburbs that was home to some of the hottest street racing in the area. There was only one access road in and out so the cops would block that off and bust the racers who were often caught loading their race cars back on to trailers.
The old brickpit is still there now and it is surrounded by the site of the 2000 Olympics stadium. Ironically, the Australian sedan car racing category, 'V8 Supercars' staged a major street race at the site just last week attracting more than 150,000 race fans.

''Brickies'' was as basic and illegal as a backyard marijuana crop. In an article in V8 Sydney magazine, former Herald journalist James Cockington harks back to the days when - amid the wasteland of factories, toxic swamps and a brick pit - Brickies was a drag racing paradise.

A smooth stretch of Bennelong Road, a few hundred metres north of the weekend's pit straight, was the race track and it was called Brickies because of the nearby State Brickworks - responsible for the huge hole in the ground that is still a major feature of Olympic Park.

''Brickies was almost an institution among local car enthusiasts - it was so entrenched that at one stage temporary staging lights were set up on the start line,'' Cockington writes.

''By the 1970s things had really started to get organised. Up to 50 cars would meet here on a hot summer's night. The date and start time were promoted by word of mouth and the pre-race meeting point was the Big Chief Hamburger Bar on Parramatta Road. Here challenges would be thrown down by competitors, sometimes for large amounts of money. One famous challenge was for $3000, winner takes all.

''And there were always plenty of people there watching. If the Sunday night movie on TV was crap, a crowd of 300-400 would be at Brickies, often including a Mr Whippy (ice cream) van!''