Reverse direction reaction

Oran Park Raceway held a one-off reverse direction meeting on June 8, 1986. This truly unique occasion saw five racing categories race clockwise around the southwest Sydney venue’s short circuit – Group E production cars, the Ford Laser Series (featuring a young Mark Skaife), Queensland Geminis (making a NSW cameo), Group N Historic touring cars and Sports Sedans. On the same weekend, two other classes competed in the ‘right’ direction (anti-clockwise) on the full Grand Prix circuit – Formula 2 and Formula Ford.

The reverse direction race meeting was the brainchild of Jim Ferguson, the circuit's promoter. It was a simple-enough idea, but making it a reality involved overcoming a series of administrative and political hurdles.
“As circuit promoter at the time I assure you turning the dream into reality involved a lot a thought, political jostling with CAMS and hard work and planning," Ferguson told AMC. "For several weeks, once I had closed the circuit for the day, I would do several laps in my road car looking at safety aspects and logistics.
“What I was endeavouring to achieve was to provide a different racing circuit for competitors and entertainment for the spectators. The majority of spectators would sit on the grass around Castrol Corner, (mostly remembered as BP Bend), which provided the best viewing of the circuit, and the thought of watching cars coming at you at Castrol Corner, weaving under brakes rather than disappearing in the traditional direction appealed to my challenge of trying to do things differently.

“From memory, we only had to modify three flag points to provide extra safety for officials and also the pit entry. The long GP circuit was never an option (for reversing the direction of racing).
“Now whether I was brave or foolish I am not sure, but the feedback I received, both from competitors and spectators, certainly satisfied my need for the challenge.
“I hope you receive some feedback from competitors of that race meeting.
“I’m sure many of them will have treasured memories of the event.”
Among those competitors who shared their recollections were long-time Appendix J competitor Greg Toepfer, who’s still racing in Group N today, in a Mustang. Three decades ago Toepfer was aboard an EH Holden.
“I personally thought it was great racing that way,” Toepfer said. “Robin Orlando Corner (aka Yamaha) was fairly exciting and if you didn’t get it right you would understeer off towards the go-kart track. It was something a little different.”
Greg sent us a pic (above) of his EH battling two Minis that day, an image clipped from the 1987 Goodyear calendar. Greg (aka ‘Mr May’) highlights that the photo is erroneously captioned on the calendar as being taken at Amaroo Park - we can see the similarities to the other Sydney circuit’s loop.

Another competitor to contact AMC was Gemini Sports Sedan runner Richard Golding, who kindly sent us the programme and his own Certificate of Participation.
“It was indeed challenging to race in the opposite direction,” Golding wrote. “Uphill corners became corners that dropped away. The Dogleg was definitely blind, with the flaggies post there (and in The Esses) being a concrete pipe, you were heading straight at them – just to add a bit of interest! If you look through the programme of the day, some famous names appeared such as Leo Geoghegan, (the late cricketer) Tony Greig, Mark Skaife (as noted earlier), Brad Jones and David Brabham. Mike Raymond came out on practice day to record a story for Channel Seven.

Despite Jim Ferguson’s efforts, the novel concept and pre-event publicity didn’t lead to a bumper crowd and the first ever reverse direction race meeting was also the last.
Perhaps the new One Raceway will be able to take on some of the lessons learned at Oran Park when the Goulburn circuit goes racing in the wrong direction in 2024.