SAVING LIVES
1955
Dr Peter Crooke was a successful rally driver in the 50's, winning the 'open class' in the blue ribbon event of the year, the 1955 Sun Rally.
1962
Peter became the CAMS Victorian Medical Officer in 1962, and succeeded Dr Lloyd Buley as CAMS National Medical Advisor in 1966, a position he held for 15 years.
1971
Peter lead an Australian initiative which introduced the motor racing safety standards that we enjoy today, ie; modern helmet design, seat belts, fire proof suits etc. He introduced these standards along with a set of international medical standards to the rest of the world at an FIA meeting in 1971 in Milan. The FIA adopted these standards and Jackie Stewart, and others, then ran with his recommendations in Europe.
1982
Peter was awarded CAMS highest honour, the Award of Merit, in 1982.
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1955 Open Class 'Sun Rally' winner.
Above: Crooke sets the outright fastest time, in the special test stage at Albert Park.
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James Robert Crooke
Bushranger, master marksman, champion jockey, successful horse breeder and trainer, race promotor and track owner and racing driver.
Picture 1915
Born in 1847, JR Crooke was an adventurous young man, who in his late teens and early 20's, rode with the infamous bushranger, Captain Moonlight and was involved in some very dubious adventures and some very close calls with the law. Someone has to hold the horses while the Captain robs the bank!
By his late 20's and with Moonlight hanging at the end of a rope, JR had seen the error of his ways and had devoted himself to legitimate horse trading and training. He became a champion jockey and one of Australia's premier horse breeders, trainers and promotors. By 1884 he had built Aspendale Racecourse in Victoria.
1904 - Australia's first car race winner.
James Robert Crooke staged, and then won, Australia's first motor race on 12 March 1904 on the horse racing track at Sandown Park. The first race of the day was a voiturette race (for cars with engines of 6hp or less) and the Australian Motorist magazine reported that "Crooke tied down the pressure valve of his steam car and obtained about 1,000,000lbs (!!) of pressure to start with and made hacks of the other cars, travelling nearly 30mph."
7 weeks later, on the 30 April 1904, the second motor race meeting in Australia was held at the Maribyrnong Racecourse. This time the race meeting was organised by the ACV. JR was again on form, winning the voiturette race, the feature race of the day.
JR's winning ribbon from the April 1904 ACV Maribyrnong race.
The ACV would become the RACV in 1916.
1905 - 1906 The world's first race purpose built racing car track.
In 1905, James built the world's first motor racing track inside his pear shaped horse racing track at Aspendale Park. The new track was acknowledged as Australia’s “first commercial (race car) track”.
On 28 October 1905, there was a report in the Moorabbin News that "the steam roller was at work on the motor cycle track on Mr Crooke’s prettily situated and popular race course. The path is in excellent condition and the motorists should be able to put [in] some fast [times]." A History of Australian Speedway states that, "(Crooke) laid down a crushed white gravel circuit, a project which reportedly cost a then enormous 1700 pounds."
James ran the first car race meeting on the track, on behalf of the ACV on 29 January 1906, in front of an estimated 1,000 spectators.
James, an aggressive entrepreneur, had built at his own cost, his own railway station beside the government owned railway line that ran past his Aspendale property. The track facilities were extensive and 'state of the art' for the time, with an impressive grandstand and gardens designed by William Guilfoyle, the director of the Botanical Gardens in Melbourne, who has been described as ‘a landscape architect of genius’.
The ACV invitation to the January 1906 race meeting, to be held on the "Special Racing Motor Track at Aspendale".
The race program from the January 1906 race meeting.
1907
A year and a half later, on the 17 June 1907, Brooklands race track in England was opened. Owing to the complications of laying tarmacadam on banking, and the expense of laying asphalt, the track was built in uncoated concrete. The Brooklands Society and the Brooklands Museum claim that Brooklands was "the world's first purpose built racing circuit." Lesson - never let the British write history.
1921
Aspendale underwent many changes in the first 15 years, including the track banking being systematically built up, but in 1921 a new banked concrete track, a mile in circumference, was built at Aspendale over the old track.
The History of Australian Speedway describes it as; consisting of two straight runs, each about a quarter of a mile long with a width of 60ft and “banked on the outside to a height of 27 feet” permitting competitors to travel at speeds of more than 100 miles an hour.
The James Flood book describes it as a bitumen (concrete)-coated track, a few yards short of a mile with a width of 45 feet, designed to permit racing cars to negotiate the banked turns at 90mph.
In 1928 the concrete surface was pulled up and replaced with the original crushed white granite surface.
The horse racing track closed for racing in 1931, but was still used for training. Car and motor cycle racing continued on the car racing circuit until the late 1940s, when Aspendale was finally closed to make way for residential housing.
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Australia's first racing car, a 1902 Locomobile 4.5hp steam car with a tiller steering. JR dropped the roof down for racing.
The ACV's first car rally at Aspendale on the 31 January 1904.
In this picture, the cars are driving on the horse track.
The white gravel track in the background is the motor cycle track that was laid around circa 1903. The car track was laid over this in late 1905 and opened for racing in January 1906.
JR rounds the last turn at Sandown Park on the 12 March 1904
to win Australia's first motor race.
Aerial photo of Aspendale Park.
The racing car track was built inside the horse race track in 1905,
almost 2 years before Brooklands was built in the UK.
The horse track was closed in 1931, but motor racing continued into the late 1940's. Photo 1945.
Competitors enter the straight three wide in the
"JR Crooke Cup" race in the January 1906 race meeting.
The original grandstand at Aspendale Racecourse.
Picture circa 1908.
The banked track at Aspendale.
This picture was taken in 1920, a year before the new concrete track was opened.
The extended grandstand at Aspendale Racecourse.
The grandstand was 10 bays long. Circa 1920.
FOOTNOTE: Henry James and Peter Brock
In recent years, some journalists have promoted a notable speedway rider, Henry James, as the 'Father' of Australian motor car racing. This had no basis in historic reality, but was due mainly to the fact that he was the great great uncle of the late Peter Brock, a famous Australian racing driver. The offending journalists ran with the story and the Brock connection, obviously believed that you shouldn't ruin a good story with the truth.
The facts are that Henry James, a pioneering motorcyclist, can possibly lay claim to being the 'Father' of Australian Motorcycle Racing, but played only a very small part in the first race car meetings.
JR Crooke, a founding member of the ACV, conceived, promoted and organised both the the first ACV event in January 1904, a car rally on his horse track at Aspendale for the ACV, and the first motor race in Australia, the February 1904 Sandown race for the Commercial Traveller's Association of Victoria. He then won the first motor race in Australia and went on to build the world's first motor racing track at his Aspendale venue.
Henry participated in the 1904 events, but not as promotor and organizer. JR invited his friend Henry, a sales executive for Dunlop at the time and a founding member of the ACV, to organize an ACV rally to drive down to Aspendale and Sandown to participate in JR's events and, with many other club members, help out with the ACV's side of things. However, Henry was a fast learner and in 1905, the ACV put him in charge of organising the Sydney to Melbourne reliability trial.
As for 'Father' of Australian motor car racing?
JR had already ticked that box.
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