The Queensland Microsprint Club is celebrating 35 years of racing that start back in 1975 as 250cc Speedcars.

Over the years the 250 Speedcars evolved, sometimes be grudgingly and other times with open arms with an engine increase to become 260 Speedcars and then in 1998 the Qld Club voted for the addition of a top wing and a new direction under the name of Microsprints. But in essence their heart beat is still a 250cc engine with the same goals as back in 1975 as entry level class with that real speedway experience.

Until recently the 250 Speedcars and now Microsprints have mainly raced in Qld and NSW but in 2009 they become a true national class with Victoria and Western Australia both starting up clubs and the formation of a National body.

With all this rich history and the passing of 35 years the Qld Micros felt it’s time to reunite all the past driver, crews, officials and spectators who at one stage in their Speedway life had a fascination with these little cars.

A special 35 year Anniversary dinner that will include the 2009-2010 season presentation is planned for the 31st July 2010 at the Country Comfort Motel Ipswich.

There will be some of the original 250 Speedcars from the 70’s and 80’s through to a few of today’s Microsprints on display as well as plenty of memorabilia and a host of presentations and awards to people who have given to this wonderful class over all those years. We have a few special guest speakers and a special segment called “This is your racing Life” to be presented to a person who has stuck by the little cars most of there racing career.

So come along and join us as we take a trip down memory lane, there will be plenty of laughs, a weekend away for two as the door prize and a chance to catch up with people you may have not seen for some time.

If you have any Photo’s or memorabilia that you would like to loan for display we would truly appreciate it. All items will be recorded and photographed on arrival and will be handed back in the same condition we received them as we want to preserver our history as well.

For Bookings or further information please call;
Tim Napper on 0407 555 096 or email tim.napper@bigpond.com ,or Steve Thompson on 0400 422 644

A1 EXHAUSTS QLD TITLE AT ROMA

The 2009 A1 Exhaust sponsored QLD Title was run and won on the weekend and what a title it was, it had every thing a good title should have speed, crashes and straight out good fast, clean racing.
The weekend started out with a great static display in the middle of the township of Roma, the local speedway guy’s had just about organised everything but the kitchen sink and I’m sure if we had asked they would have got that as well, nothing was to much trouble for these guy’s and they went out of their way to make this title one of the best titles for the Microsprints, just have a look at the pictures that have been posted and you will see what a great display it was and a huge thank you must go to the teams who arrived early to do the display and believe me some had no sleep just to get there and others drove all night so thanks again.

Mark and Diane Lewis from A1 Exhaust had driven all the way from Brisbane to join in with the display with their A1 Exhausts Ute and signage that added colour and pizzazz to the whole deal.
Throw in local radio station ZINC ZR and their stand to broadcast live on site with the colourful local announcer Gazza pushing the Microsprints like you would not believe. So much so I had a phone call from a local in Roma wanting to know what was a Microsprint as he had been bombarded all week on the radio that the Microsprints were coming to the Roma speedway.

What a track the guys had prepared, hooky would be the understatement and to best described the track which would be an extreme egg shape with one set of tight corners and another set of very open sweeping corners which made for very fast and interesting racing.

Heat one and what a draw for the first race, the master of going fast Les Nelson on pole and on the out side out of position two was the new Qld gun of speed Mark Van Giersbergen tucked in behind on row two was Adrian Farrell “Don’t think your leaving me behind” and along side was Glen Lindenberg “I’m going to be in trouble with bro later” out of 4. Steve (Macca) McCullough “I’ll show the boss how good I am’ starting 6th with Smiley himself John Van Giersbergen out of 7th and Darren Holstein “I’m the new kid please don’t hurt me” out of 8th with Greg Painter “Please no more bad luck” would have rounded out the eight but succumbed to gremlins raising their ugly head again having blown a hose in warm up laps and took not further part.

As the guys took the chance to do some track packing before race start they had all warmed their motors and were race ready, the flag dropped and it was on Nelson jumping out front but no way was he having all his own way as M. Geirsbergen kept up a great show of speed and Farrell who has found more speed out of his car was keeping close while down the back there was a battle royal for the miner places. Heat one results seen Nelson 1st across the line followed by Mark G. in 2nd, Farrell 3rd, Macca 4th, John G. 5thth and new comer Holstein in 6th.

Reverse grid for Heat two put John G. on pole with happy jack Macca on two, if you were to take a close up of these two, you would have seen two of the biggest sets of pearlies, as smiley (John G.) and happy jack (Macca) fronted the start line, with Lindenberg out of 3, Farrell out of 4 Mark G out of 5th, Nelson out of 6 and Holstein rounding out the pack.

This heat was a continuation of the first heat with battles being fort all over the place as each driver struggled to round up the guy in front all with the aim to go into the feature with the biggest bag of points and man of the race has to go to Mark G. as he carved his way through the rest like a old seasoned pro as he rounded up the whole field to take 1st  and showing a clean pair of heals to his team mate Nelson who had no answer for McCullough and Farrell, finishing order 1st Mark G 2nd Macca 2nd, Nelson 3rd, Farrell 4th, Holstein 5th. John G. Missed the heat with his car back in town being repaired after a shock mount broke and Lindenberg were hunting an electrical problem.

A1 EXHAUSTS QLD TITLE AT ROMA "cont"

Heat three was a case highest point scorer to the front, so it was 1st Mark G 2nd Nelson, 3rd Macca, 4th Farrell, 5th John G., 6th Lindenberg, and 7th Holstein.
Nelson the old master caught the young bloke Mark G. sleeping on the start and he had to work hard to keep pace with Nelson.  Being the true showman he is, Nelson turned it on with blinding speed and wheel stands out of the corners in the style only Nelson can do, again it was a case of battles being fought all over the track even the Micmuncher was having trouble keeping up with all the action that was happening, the track was getting faster every time the cars came out and this heat was ran at a blistering speed and the track crowd could not believe the speed been carried by the Microsprints, I kept getting comments from other drivers as to were they can get one.
Heat three was taken out by Nelson 1st Mark G 2nd Farrell 3rd John G 4th Macca 5th Holstein 6th Lindenberg 7th.

Feature time with a line up of Nelson off pole, along side Mark G. along side. Second row was Farrell and McCullough, Third row made up of John G. and Lindenberg with Holstein from the back.
As they came around for their start Les ever the showman put on a show for the crown wheel standing #55 at will and lifting the front wheels a good two feet of the ground and changing gear at the same time, I wonder what poor Mark G. was thinking as his team mate was doing all this beside him at the start of the race, let’s face it what a demonstration of power to be able to do wheel stands of that size at will, But believe me when the green came out the showman disappeared and the wily old racer took over.

Nelson let loose all of the mighty power of #55 and was not headed for the rest of the race and that is not taking anything away from Mark G. who had the race of his life as he rang the neck out of his #9 car and was keeping Nelson at a close distance all Nelson had to do was sneeze and Mark G. would have had him, Lindenburg not wanting Nelson to have it all to himself put on a great show of his own, while coming out of turn four did a great set of very fast pirouettes and landed on his side not aware he had landed on top of the wall, thanks Lindy for the demonstration on how safe these cars are as I had only just mentioned this to the crowd, Lindenburg being the true race got out of his car with a huge grin on his face more than can be said for his brother Ron.  All he could see was more work to be done.

When racing resumed Nelson once again demonstrated the power of his car by walking away from the rest of the field with no one having a answer to his speed and ability to put the car any were he chose, that is one hell of a motor strapped to the Grizzly chassis which is made by Billy Roberts in Sydney (Plug, Plug) and bad luck struck Mark G when the chain let go robbing him of a second place, Farrell who had drove one of his best race yet slowed because of steering issue’s and Holstein also had a steering issue when something let go and he did the one thing you don’t do and turned right into the wall and ended his race for the night, the finishing order was 1st and new QLD champion Les Nelson followed by Steve McCullough 2nd, who fort of a hard charge John G who had to accept 3rd. Farrell hanging on with a wounded car to come home 4th.

Although numbers were down the guys put on a show befitting of a QLD title and the Microsprints have become the talk of the Town in Roma, all drivers and crew agreed that we will return bigger and better next season.

Les Nelson winner of the QLD Title with Mark Lewis of A1 Exhausts
Les Nelson 1st	John Van Giersbergen 3rd	Steve McCullough 2nd

Tiny Memorial Gaining in Reputation and Prestige
By QLD PR Machine                          

The sixth annual Graham “Tiny” Barber memorial is set the 25th April at the high speed dirt track at Gatton in Qld.

Tiny was dedicated life long Speedway lover who start out his racing career in the ultra competitive Super Modified’s of the early seventies and a bit of a legend at the old Toowoomba show grounds for using every part of the track and them some. If it meant going fast and the top fence boards was all that was left than he ran there.

Once is his family started to grow he hung the helmet up and move his passion for the sport to behind the scenes dedicating many years of service to the Charlton Speedway Club and at one stage was one of the most colourful flag marshals around with his self sawn chequered flag jacket.

In the six year history of the event drivers take to the track with pride and passion to be able to race in the honor of someone who gave their time to keeping the Speedway dream alive.

Last year seen the arm wrestle between Queenslanders John Giersbergen and Tim Napper who have won the converted trophy twice only to be broken by N.S.Welshman Jay Hall taking an impressive win in debuting a 450cc powered Microsprint.
In the true spirit of Microsprints and Speedway Jay offered the Trophy back to Dawn Barber the widower of Tiny to keep on her mantle shelf for the next twelve months. This gesture had the most harden Qld Micro member eye’s near on welling up with tears.

The 2009 running of the Tiny Memorial is wide open affair with many drivers suffering a real lack of seat time due to all the problems created by the weather and the opportunity to run the event has come only after a mammoth effort by the LVSA to repair the flood damaged fence to salvage the 2009 season.

If any money was to be put down on the even as too who might be a front running favorite to take it out, it would be hard to go past Mark Geirsbergen.

Who better to start with writing driver histories about than the man himself who has been around since the ark got stuck on a mountain.

We would have to say he is the senior driver of the QLD Micro sprints club; the man who I refer to as the old fox, this man has more race tricks in his large shoes than Houdini, and have you seen the size of those shoes, I borrowed his shoe’s once and I’m size thirteen and there still was another six inches to fill, I felt like Bozo the clown walking around the pits.

JOHN VAN GIERSBERGEN

Age 55

Married to ANNE

Resides in   TOOWOOMBA

Occupation   SMALL ENGINE MECHANIC

Children MARK and MARIE.

 
John started his racing history in a chariot before roman times, (whoops I don’t think that is quite right)

Start again, John or gezzy as he is mostly know, started his racing as a bike rider (push bike that is, they didn’t have motors when he started) and true to form he pushed the limits as he always does when he takes up a challenge and was quite successful at it, early in the 1970’s, at a Queensland championship he won gold in the furlong event and silver in the tandem and was successful in beating a gold medallist from the Edinburgh Games at the Toowoomba velodrome.

 John then had a need for speed, so moved into karts in the late seventy’s working his way up through the classes to 200cc Super class, racing against some of Australia’s motor sport legends such as Dick Johnson.

The peak of his karting portfolio was in 1985 when he finished second in the Australian Title at his home track at Greer Park.

It was while at a speedway meeting in 1985 that he first set eyes on a 250-speed car as they were known back then, turned to his wife and said, “That’s for me”.

His first car was a air cooled Suzuki powered home made chassis, running a leaf spring front end with ride-on mower tyres all the way around.

In his rookie season he clinched the club championship and point score championship. In Rockhampton in the early 90’s he returned after a break to compete in the Queensland title. He drove around the field to win with 12” of stagger, and did the same again the following year in Maryborough. In today’s terms a Micro sprint usually runs only 6” of stagger.

John has always been a front runner in advancing the division to new things, first came the water cooled motor, than he came up with a twin combo all well within the rules of the day, this was then followed by the wings on top.

Never one to back down from a good debate when it comes to his beloved (Microsprints as they are known today) John has always pushed the boundaries of anything he takes on and drags the rest of us along screaming and kicking in protest only to agree in the long run that he is mostly right. His passion is so great for what ever he is doing he even left his long suffering wife Anne at home and went racing in the Australian Micro sprint titles at Gilgandra on her 40th birthday were he finish third in his twin, with the throttle stuck half way open on one of his carbies. Now I’m not certain whether that is dedication or plain stupidity leaving the wife behind on her birthday.

John’s has race track history is as follows, Queensland, Gatton, Charlton, Rockhampton, Maryborough, Gympie, Kingaroy, and Archerfield.

New South Wales tracks,

Lismore, Gilgandra, Cullen Bullen, Nowra, Goulburn and Sydney Motor drome.

STUMP ,    ROBERT GORDON STEVENS

Stump or stumpy as he was known by every one, loved life to the fullest even though it could be hard at times, tough man on the outside but a very loving kind and gentle man on the inside which he did not show to many people except his family and close friends.
Stump knew a wide range of people he had meet over his life time, and I have never meet anyone who’s life he had touched have a bad word to say about him.

There were many things Stump loved in life, his love of wide-open space, and his beloved lathe, his work shop he had built himself, BJ and the rest of his sheep too whom he spoke another language and only the sheep understood, built a house to get the council of his back but kept on living in the shed that he called home, ask him why and his quick whit answer was, “all I have to do is open the back and front doors when the wind is strong enough and that way I don’t have to sweep the shed out, the wind does it for me”, having tried marriage a couple of times ask him if he would do it again, his quick whit answer was always the same,  “why buy a car if you can borrow it”.

And then there was the great loves of his life, family, children and race cars. All of these things were what made him the happiest, his love for his family particularly Bob his son, Louise his Daughter in law and his grandchildren Josh and Nathan, his ever ending ability to help and understand children was endless, no matter how often they would do the wrong thing he stood by them and gently guide them back on the straight and narrow. If he failed he always blamed himself for not getting it right, and then came the one thing that he lived for speedway, he ate it, he dreamed it and he built it.
Speedway was everything to him after his family, but not only did he spent countless years helping others reach for their dreams as well, even if he ended up paying for it himself, and most times he did.
He would spend many happy hours in his work shop building something for a race car, his or most times someone else’s, many happy hours were spent working at his lathe and if he could not sleep at night regardless of the time he would wander of down to his workshop and work on his lathe till the sun came up.

Stump knew all the big names in motor sport and was loved by all in the game of motor sport. It was not unusual for the steward (me) to be greeted by a foot stuck out the side of his car, how he would manage this was beyond belief, but most times you were greeted by a wave or salute of some kind, but it would depend on what sort of race he had, it was not unusual to get a salute of a different kind if he was upset with the race or more so the steward. He was from the old school of drivers who would not eat or drink on race day in case they had a accident and needed a operation, so come to the end of a race meeting he always had a one track mind, first a hamburger then to the bar for a beer and that was when he was at his best at telling a good story on his nights racing.

Stump was known for yarns he could tell, but he was better known for his feet, picture this a small thin man with wavy long grey hair and a beard to match and holding all this up was the hardest cracked pair of feet you would ever see, these feet had very rarely seen a pair of shoes and this was stump the speedway character that every one loved and knew.

Stump and his old mate Trevor (the odd couple if ever there was) were the backbone of the Gatton speedway when it first started out and remained so till the passing of Trevor, these two would spend days fixing the old wooden fence just so every one had some were to go racing.
After the passing of his mate, Stump carried on doing the repairs on his own repairing painting and most times out of his own pocket just because of his love of speedway and having some were to go racing.

There are many funny storeys that are still being told about our little mate, and I believe they will never end, for in his life time even if it was cut short our little mate will out live us all. He loved life and lived it to the fullest; his eye’s always sparkling with mischief and his infectious laugh which always meant he was up to something.

He loved nothing better than to build race cars for kids and teach them how to drive and work on their own cars, many a happy hour was spent in his work shop or in his back paddock teaching kids to drive their race cars.