The 6 Hour is back!

The 6 Hour is back!

The iconic race that helped to shape the career of many of Australia’s motorcycle racing greats is set to run one more time in November as a final farewell to Sydney’s Oran Park Raceway. The event will be the last ever motorcycle meeting to be run at the historic circuit.

The Castrol 6 Hour (as it was known back then) was the biggest single event on the racing calendar from 1970 to 1987. Only the Easter race meeting at Bathurst could challenge the 6 Hour for interest, but the Bathurst meeting comprised a number of events over several days (including the famous spectator vs Police events each night - but that’s a story for another time).

The concept behind the race was simply brilliant. Take a stock standard production motorcycle, 2 riders and then ride the absolute you-know-what out the bike to see if you could cover more laps in 6 hours than any other team.

Easy enough huh? Well, no. The race was tough, both physically and mentally. It challenged everyone from the riders through to the team bosses. A win in the 6 Hour meant a serious career boost for a rider, massive bragging rights and sponsorship potential for a team but for manufacturers it meant sales.

It really was the ultimate “win on Sunday, sell on Monday” sales campaign.

And because the “no modifications” rules were so strictly enforced, when the winning bike crossed the line at 4pm on Sunday afternoon every motorcyclist in Australia knew they could walk into a dealership the next morning and buy the very same bike. It really was the ultimate “win on Sunday, sell on Monday” sales campaign.

With so much at stake teams and manufacturers would go to extraordinary lengths to secure a win. And as a member of the organising club - Willoughby District Motorcycle Club - and a scrutineer I can remember seeing some interesting strategies surface over the years I was involved with the race.

Factory teams especially were eager to prove that the bikes they were running were strictly production machines. Kawasaki were known for taking the club’s Chief Scrutineer, Chris Peckham, to the warehouse where he would choose 2 crates at random and those bikes would be the team’s race bikes for the weekend.

Honda tried an interesting approach as well. I recall sitting in the scrutineering bay one afternoon a few days before the race when one of the Honda mechanics came up and asked if he could bring one of their bikes in. Yep, sure. But he came back with about 4 crates of spare parts, the bottom end of an engine and proceeded to build the thing in front of me! As scrutineers we had no doubt that the engine was strictly legal, but it’s a damn shame it seized a short time into the race!

Minimising the number of pit stops the bike had to make also had a big impact on your race winning potential. If you could get through with one less stop than your competition it may just get you that win. So pit crew, squeeze as much fuel into that tank as you can! And a few teams tried one year by chilling the full fuel tank in dry ice before the race and mounting it on the bike just before it was rolled out onto the grid. Great idea, except in the heat while waiting for the start the fuel expanded, poured out of the bikes and flooded at least one engine.

Congratulations to the organisers of this year’s race for reviving the concept.

Like many people who were involved back then I have very fond memories of the Castrol 6 Hour. My Dad worked part time at Amaroo Park Raceway, the race’s home from 1970 to 1983, and would take me to the track. Amaroo was a short, challenging and very unforgiving circuit bound by concrete walls, earth banks and Armco railings. Little did I know that years later I would be out there having a shot at racing myself. It was then that I realised just how challenging it was to throw a big bike around that circuit lap after lap for so long. And by 1984 when the race moved to Oran Park I had become seriously involved as an official and scrutineer. On race day that meant spending the day in pit lane monitoring the teams during pit stops - a fantastic way to get close to some of the best riders of the time.

Congratulations to the organisers of this year’s race for reviving the concept. The race promises to be just as challenging for teams as it was in it’s original days. And for spectators that means it will surely be one of the greatest race meetings in recent years and a fitting goodbye to a circuit that many of us have come to know so well.

The race will be run over the weekend of 21-22 November, 2009. Two classes of motorcycles are being accepted - production bikes with 4 cylinder engines up to 1000cc or 2 and 3 cylinder engines up to 1200cc; 1000cc Superstock and 600cc Superstock.

• Details of the race can be found at www.the6hour.com.au.
• A list of past winners of the Castrol 6 Hour can be found at www.castrol6hour.com.au
• A complete history of the Castrol 6 Hour is covered in Jim Scaysbrook’s book “The Castrol Six Hour Production Race”. Jim was a member of Willoughby District Motorcycle Club and raced in the event.

If you’re in Sydney that weekend be sure to take the trip to Oran Park to watch a great event unfold. And if you’re not, seriously think about finding an excuse to be.

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