Second career down under for GP greats
Equipped with his trusty Leica IIIF, Jim Stratmann was an 1960s regular spectator at his local South Australian track, ex-RAAF airbase Mallala, north of Adelaide. There, 1962-65 Gold Star champion Bib Stillwell was the local hero. Thanks to the Tasman Internationals, Jim got to see current F1 cars and the 1959-1970 world F1 champions
Bib Stillwell’s mechanic guards his Cooper T53 Climax and Cooper-Monaco, 1961-62 Australian TT winner, at Mallala in October 1962.
Bib Stillwell in ex-Stirling Moss-Keele Engineering assembled kit-of-parts Cooper T49 Monaco at Mallala in 1962
Bill ‘Patto’ Patterson, Melbourne Holden dealer/racer, competed in a dozen or so Coopers in Australia, here in his 1961 Gold Star-winning T51 Climax during the AGP at Mallala
After an F1 season many cars raced in the Tasman Internationals, then went to locals. John Youl’s Cooper T55 2.5 Climax is being tended by mechanic/engineer Geoff Smedley. This was Jack Brabham’s works GP car in 1961, and his 1962 Tasman mount
Jack Brabham in his F1-BT3-derived Brabham BT4 2.7 FPF in the 1963 Sandown Park International, DNF. Bruce McLaren’s T62 won
Stillwell won two Gold Star rounds in his Cooper T53 en route to his first Australian Championship in 1962, here at Mallala, and at Bathurst
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