Bob Jane was a Ford Mustang pioneer and was the first Australian racer to give these cars a serious crash test when a wheel broke and he lost control at the tricky Catalina Park circuit in the Blue Mountains. His 1965 accident was big enough to make the daily newspapers.
Still, he was lucky there was a fence to hit. Parts of the Catalina circuit were surrounded by open bush where out-of-control cars tended to disappear into the gum trees and not be found for a few weeks. The ghostly remains of Catalina are still there and if you know where to look, the spot where Bob’s white Mustang hit the fence can still be found, now overgrown by trees.
The problem was that the wheels on Jane's car were cracking under the strains of racing. A little later on when racing against the Don Elliott-owned Mustang driven by Robin Pare, Jane noticed that Elliott's Mustang had the same wheels Jane had been running.
As explained in the feature on Don Elliott in the latest issue of AMC (AMC #157), Jane walked up to Elliott's Mustang in the pits, kicking one of its wheels and telling Elliott those same type wheels were what caused the crash. Elliott took heed, promptly changing wheels brands before the next race meeting.
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