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Leyburn Sprints are back.

Legends on track

Some of the most popular personalities of Australia’s motor-racing past will be honoured at the Leyburn Legends Weekend during 25th anniversary celebrations for the Historic Leyburn Sprints in August.

The Sprints will return to the rural township on the Queensland Southern Darling Downs on 21-22 August after the 2020 event was cancelled because of Covid-19.

It will be the 25th event since the Sprints were launched to commemorate the 1949 Australian Grand Prix at Leyburn.

The Legends were a big attraction in their first appearance in Leyburn in 2019 and Sprints President Tricia Chant said the organisers were keen to invite them back.

“In 2019 we welcomed great drivers including Dick Johnson, Colin Bond, Fred Gibson, Bruce Garland, Kevin Bartlett, John French and Bob Holden and they were enormously popular with our spectators, who remembered their achievements in the sixties, seventies and eighties,” Mrs Chant said. “We’re going to offer another opportunity for fans to meet their heroes again this year. Some of the drivers have already confirmed their return and as well we hope to have some new names, which this time will also include some of the top mechanics of the era who put the winning cars on track. “All these special guests at the Leyburn Legends Weekend will add another level of attraction for fans at the 2021 Sprints and we’re hoping there’s a company out there that would like to put its name as sponsor to this highlight.”

The Sprints time-trials, voted Queensland’s Motor Sport Event of the Year, are run on a 1.0 kilometre course around the closed streets of Leyburn, a town of 480 residents 60 kilometres north-west of Warwick.

Along with a 200-plus entry of historic and classic racing cars, the event will feature the always-popular Shannons Show ‘n’ Shine, a Vintage Caravan Show and country markets.

Tourism and Events Queensland’s Queensland Destination Events Program and Southern Downs Regional Council provide financial assistance to help promote the Sprints and attract visitors to the Southern Downs region. Proceeds from the Sprints benefit a wide variety of community organisations and projects.

The Queensland Government’s Queensland Destination Events Program and the Southern Downs Regional Council provide financial assistance to help promote the Sprints and attract visitors to the Southern Downs region. The Leyburn Historic Sprints were named 2017 Queensland Motor Sport Event of the Year.

Applications for camp site bookings are expected to open shortly on the event website historicleyburnsprints. com.au.

Trackside at Leyburn

The best way to experience the excitement and beauty of the Historic Leyburn Sprints is being there!

With more than 200 cars of all types and vintages competing one-at-a-time against the clock on a 1.0 kilometre closed-street course around the township the noise and smell encapsulates the excitement.

We have 4 x 1 Day double passes to give away to lucky readers so they can get up and personal to the action.

To enter simply go to: warwickstanthorpetoday.com.au/competitions and click on Historic Leyburn Sprints.

The event will be staged for the 25th time in the little Darling Downs township on 21-22 August.

Racing again in ‘stolen’ car

Retired Bribie Island flying instructor Peter Lefrancke, 78, has had a long and interesting love affair with his 1962 Centaur Streamliner Mk1B sports car.

Lefrancke is set to drive the little red Centaur at the Historic Leyburn Sprints in the Southern Downs later this year but it’s a drive he thought may never happen when his beloved car was lost for nearly 40 years.

The car – one of 11 racing specials was designed and built in Queensland by university engineer Tim Harlock and was first owned by Lefrancke until 1971 when it was stolen on its trailer.

It was lost for 40 years until various surviving parts found their way back to Harlock and Lefrancke was able to buy the parts from him. In 2013 he commissioned another Centaur owner – Warwick’s Bevan Batham - to undertake the full restoration.

In 2019 Peter and his Centaur returned to the Lakeside track after a 48 year absence.

And now, 50 years after it was stolen, the little red car will contest Leyburn for first time.

The Centaur sports racing cars were the brainchild of Tim Harlock, a Queenslander, and qualified mechanical engineer.

The first two built were the Mk1, Tim’s original Centaur and the Mk1b.

The Mk1b was designed and built as a collaboration between great friends, engineer Tim Harlock and Keith Turner (deceased), a technical representative of the Shell Oil Company.

Keith Turner first debuted this car, the Mk1b in the early 1960s at Lakeside.

The general specifications of the Centaur Mk1b in 1962 were a Ford 105e Ford Anglia 997cc engine connected to a four speed Ford Anglia gearbox, nine inch Morris Major front drum brakes and seven inch Morris Minor rear drum brakes – all driven through an “A” series BMC rear differential.

The Centaur was upgraded several times during its life and finished with a Ford Cortina Pushrod 1500cc motor prepared by Dick Johnson – and it was in this configuration Peter and the Centaur won the Australian 1.5 Litre Sports Car Championship at the Surfers Paradise International Motor Racing circuit in 1967.

Peter Lefrancke started the restoration of his Centaur in 2014 after getting the wrecked Centaur parts back from Tim Harlock in the summer of 2013.

He said he wanted to honour the memory of the owner/builder Keith Turner and configure it as it was when it first hit the Lakeside International Circuit in February 1962.

“It took four-plus years to complete the project and great thanks goes to Bevan Batham who just coincidentally restored and owns the third Centaur built the John French Centaur GT,” he said.

Peter started motor racing in 1964 in an Austin Healey Mk11a Sprite before he was selected by the Toyota AMI Racing Team to drive a factory Toyota alongside Leonard Teale, Bob Morris, Dick Thurston and others until the company withdrew from sponsorship in 1974.

Peter raced both the Centaur Mk1b and the Factory Toyota at the same time up until the Centaur was stolen in 1971.

So after a hiatus nearly 50 years the two were reunited on the Lakeside circuit in 2019.

Since 2019 Peter has run the car in GEAR Days, mid-week sprints at both Lakeside and QR, and last year ran her in the HRCCQ Historic meeting at Morgan Park.

As for 2021 and beyond – he has entered the Grafton Hillclimb in June, Morgan Park in July and is entering the Centaur in the HSRCA’s 2021 Summer Festival Historic Meeting in November at Sydney Motor Sport Park in Sydney and will continue to run the Centaur in GEAR Days and some mid-week sprint meetings.

One man and his car - Peter Lefrancke is back on track with his Centaur.

Active lifestyle dividends: Staying fit and healthy over 55

By Tania Phillips

Sunshine Coast’s Healthy Sunshine Coast’s initiative is introducing new activities all the time with a whole slew coming online in recent weeks.

Exciting new classes have been added to the free and low cost program including active seniors (over-55s) at the Coolum Civic Centre and Little Mountain, plus circuit-style group fitness for over-45s at Baringa Community Centre and the Coolum Civic Centre. There’s also extra aquatic fitness in Nambour and community yoga in Maleny.

Jacinta from Jacfit has been teaching aerobics on and off as a profession since she was 18 – even when she was out of the industry she continued to teach as a hobby. Now in her 50s herself she believes she is well-placed to be running fitness classes for Over 55s.

She is heading up the active seniors program at Coolum which began back in early April.

“This week, the age group I’ve had through is probably early 50s through to mid 70s and I’ve trained seniors up to the age of eighty, it’s how they look after themselves and it’s really important they keep moving, keep the joints moving, help with the arthritis, help with normal daily functional movements such as picking up the grand kids being able to put things in the cupboard away,” she explained.

“Obviously its important for heart health.

“I’ve been in the fitness industry for more than 25 years, I’ve done other jobs as well but overall I’ve got that sort of experience and there’s a gap in the market up here and a friend of mine just mentioned they were looking at running some classes with the Sunshine Coast Council active seniors and so that’s how it came about.

“And it’s not just the Coolum area I know they are running classes in other parts of the Sunshine Coast as well. They are really trying to get everybody healthy and active and out and about a lot more. The other thing too a lot of the ladies (and there are some gentlemen coming into the class as well, they get to meet other people so it’s a social thing as well.”

She said it was a low impact class to music with very basic movements.

“It is a scalable type of class so it’s a class where some of the participants can do things like squats, some can’t so we’ve got to scale it to individual needs,” Jacinta said.

“You might have people with lower back problems it’s like anyone who goes to a fitness class, I have some young participants that struggle, they’ve had knee operations or back problems. Its one of those classes where a beginner right through to an advanced fit person could participate because they can scale it to their fitness level or what their capabilities are. And it’s definitely fun.

“I had one lady who said – I’ll try anything, they are really embracing it because they want to be able to keep moving and functioning well and keep healthy.

“Living up here we’ve had a really hot summer so where the classes are, they are in the Civic Centre, it’s got airconditioning we’re basically got ourselves covered with the weather. It’s a great venue – big and spacious – which important because we still have to comply with the Covid issues.”

Sunshine Coast Council Community Portfolio Councillor David Law said he was pleased to announce a new Pilates introductory class would be on offer and guided bushwalking was back.

“As we rebuild our program’s schedule this year, Pilates is brand new to this dynamic and evolving program and is held every Thursday at the YMCA Caloundra,” Cr Law said.

ACTIVE SENIORS

·Caloundra in YMCA hall – Tuesdays 11.15am · Caloundra Indoor Stadium –

Wednesdays 8.15am · Mooloolah at the All in One Fitness gym – Tuesdays 8am · Yandina Hall with BodyPepper Fitness – Wednesdays 10.15am · Mapleton at The Range Community

Gym – choice of four weekly classes · Nambour Gym & Fitness Studio–

Tuesdays 8.30am · Beerwah Community Hall with All in

One Fitness – Mon, Tues, Thurs and

Fri at 8am · NEW – Little Mountain Churches of

Christ facility – Tuesdays at 9.15am · NEW – Coolum Civic Centre – Tuesdays & Wednesdays at 11.30am

Check out the program of FREE and LOW COST Community Yoga and Introductory Tai Chi.

For more information visit www. sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au/healthysunshinecoast.