Hollywood Seven

English lesson

The John English in this story never sang Six Ribbons and doesn’t have a TV Week Logie in his trophy cabinet. Nor did he play Judas Iscariot in Jesus Christ Superstar.
Motorsport’s John English – who doesn’t sport long hair and dark eyes – was a mainstay of Bathurst’s privateer ranks for two decades. His time as Queensland’s leading tin-top privateer spanned the Group C, Group A and V8 Supercar eras.
The fact that he’s kicked on for so long is all the more remarkable given that his first three attempts on the Great Race didn’t even net a race start.
English’s most successful, and most spectacular, Bathurst outings were in XD Falcons sourced from the two biggest Ford legends of the time, Dick Johnson and Allan Moffat. He scored his best result in Dick’s old rock-hitter, while it was in Moff’s ex-Federation Insurance XD that he punched a hole in the concrete wall in The Esses in 1984. No easy task that, and a moment that’s lived on in highlights reels since, much to his chagrin.
‘JE’ can’t claim a long list of top results in the Great Race, but his 44 years in racing mean few drivers have enjoyed overall careers as enduring and successful as the likeable Brisbanite. He’s been an ever-present force on Queensland’s state scene in tourers and sports sedans, with many wins and championships.
It’s been written that “John could charm anyone with his silver tongue.” It’s certainly true that he’s a positive, affable character with infectious enthusiasm. It’s these very traits that have seen the long-time businessman enjoy a continuous involvement in Aussie racing since he made his debut in 1970.
These days English is a leading figure in a fledgling retro racing tribute series, which is thriving off the back of his four decades of racing experience. While he can’t even sing in the bath, he sure can drive, organise, motivate and manage.

It all started with this Capri at Lakeside in 1970. Forty-four years later John English is still turning laps in a Ford at Lakeside. Image: Jeff Neild

English history

English by name, English by birth and Australian by upbringing. John English grew up in Seaforth, Sydney and first ventured to a race track in the late 1960s to help a mate with 302-powered Falcon. He couldn’t afford his own racecar initially, but he did come up with a plan to rectify that.
“I come from an engineering background and I spent 13 months on Christmas Island for work. I was earning good money tax-free, so I’d saved up a fair sum. When I came home all I could think about, unbeknownst to my father, was buying my first race car. He thought I was going to buy a block of land. Instead I bought a little V6 Capri from a Ford dealer in Brookvale and paid cash. That’s what started me off.
“The company I was working for sent me off to Mount Morgan, near Rockhampton, so I lugged the Capri up there and built a rollcage into it.”
English, then 23, and his Capri debuted at Lakeside in March 1970.
“My left foot never stopped shaking, I was that scared.” Then followed a start at Surfers Paradise. He soon moved back to Sydney and raced at the Sydney tracks.
“Everyone thinks, because I made my racing debut at Lakeside and I live here now, that I’m a Queenslander, but I’m actually a New South Welshman. I lived in Queensland since 1973 so I do barrack for the maroons.”
English ran the Capri for two years until, during one wet Amaroo race in ’72, he clobbered an XU-1 “and banana’ed it,”as he puts it
It wasn’t a write-off however. English couldn’t believe his good fortune when a good samaritan, who owned a panel shop, approached him after the race and offered to fix the car.
The Capri was eventually sold, English used the funds to buy a home and felt that his racing days were over. But a mate who wanted to promote his business offered to buy him a car to prepare and race. A succession of Peak Performance-backed Escorts became familiar sights on Queensland’s tracks over the next few years, with countless touring car class victories and a number of sorties interstate.

English’s scrapbook contains an Auto Action clipping with story headlined with the phrase “Up and over she goes!” and depicting his Mk1 Escort leaping an Armco fence.
“I got ankle-tapped one time at Surfers Paradise by a bloke in an XU-1. He owned a panel shop and felt very responsible for what happened. I was leading the under three-litre division of the 1975 Queensland Touring Car Championship at that stage. He took the car away from me and handed it back some time later all repaired at no cost to me. His named was Lee Craig and he felt so guilty about what happened, he gave me his Torana to race while it the Escort was being repaired.”
It was during this era that English made the first of 16 attempts on the Bathurst 1000. We say ‘attempts’ as, incredibly, his first three trips to the October classic resulted in three DNSs. For the uninitiated, that’s Did Not Start.
The first was in 1974, the year of the big wet, with John Wharton in a Mazda RX3.
“The first time out on the track in practice, he (Wharton) managed to smash it into wall at Forrest’s Elbow. We spent the rest of the time trying to repair the car, to no avail.
“The next year Bob Holden offered me a drive with Geoff Leeds in a Mk1 RS2000 Escort. Bob was running with Lyndon Arnel, but both cars had massive oil surge problems and we failed to qualify. We went to see race director Ivan Stibbard after qualifying on Saturday to explain why we were slow and that we had access to a spare engine from another team that would provide an easy fix. Ivan said, ‘Sorry boys, you haven’t qualified and we have more cars than we can start. So you haven’t got a start.’
“So Geoff and I went to the RSL, got pissed and had a great night. The next morning we were walking through the pits with sore heads and feeling sorry for ourselves when there was an announcement for us to come to race control. Ivan said, ‘If you can get your car ready you’re in...’
“But we were in no physical state to start the race, even if we had put the other engine in. So that was that.”
Camshaft dramas robbed he and Gary Scott of a start in 1976 in another Escort.