8 fastlane
people would go to lean on the car and we were begging them not too in case the whole thing fell apart !
“ In all seriousness , it was totally fine , but it sure wasn ’ t put together like it is now and it was funny as we were trying to save ourselves as much work as possible knowing we were going to have to pull it all apart again straight after the event . We hung it all together to get there , won it , and then took it back to the panel beaters for its overhaul .”
With such a long on-track career , you would be forgiven for thinking there were likely periods where this cult-figure of a car has endured a low season or two . You would however , be wrong .
“ It has been a winner virtually all the time , and that has only been because we just go to the events and keep going , keep trying and trying , and keep swinging the old axe !” Cooper explained .
“ Everyone knows the story of grandfather ’ s axe – it has had 10 new heads and six new handles , but it is the same axe … well that is the Bricklayer and we just keep on swinging it and keep coming up with wins now and then . We have been on a real roll lately , but in the early 90s especially it was very dominant .
“ At the end of the day we just go racing for the sheer pleasure of it . It is nice to win of course but it is also nice to come away with a car that is not broken !”
While fun might be the aim of the game , Cooper has too many wins in the bank to deny the talent and capability of this winning combination .
“ Over the years we have won 37 National Titles and more than 120 events . We were the National Champions in Super Sedan for the 1985 / 1986 season and in 1993 and 1995 titles as well ,” Cooper explained .
“ Through the recession , I was in concrete trucking and the work was just not there . With the ANDRA contingency program of the time you got 100 dollars for every win sticker you got on the car – for instance it was $ 900 for a win at the Winternats , and then I got another 12-1300 dollars for the contingency program , so it was working really well for us – we were paying the house payments with that !”
With such success , ultimately came some ruffled feathers
– although these were sometimes helped along by cheeky crew mates as Cooper found out .
“ I won my first Australian Championship in 1985 and it soon became a funny story because the car had Mr Blue plates on it for Bluey who had fitted the motor and done all the work on it . At the time , we had won the Winternationals , the South Australian Championships and the Victorian Championships – we had pretty much won in every state !
“ So , Mr Blue put ‘ winning in any state ’ on the bottom of the number plate and man , did people get riled up about that ! I just thought it was a bit of a laugh .
“ Our crew chief Rick Strange at the time probably didn ’ t help things either – especially when we had won nine or ten events in a row , it got to the stage where he would walk out to the lanes with a shirt on that said , ‘ Who ’ s First ?’
“ So here I would be belted in and having no idea , and he would walk out in front of the car with this shirt on , and then we would get through that round and he would come back to the next one with another shirt on , this one saying , ‘ Who ’ s Next ?’
“ We went through a lot of grief because of that , our DD even came and had a talk to us about it as well . I wouldn ’ t even know he was going to do it , but I would see the shirt from the car and just know what was going to happen when I got back to the pits , I would have all the people in my ear ! Fortunately , that stopped when he stopped coming to races back in 1991 – it was probably a good thing , as that is about when people really started talking to us again !” laughed Cooper .
Forty years of continuous action have earned the Bricklayer plenty of adulation , which unsurprisingly has not been limited to the race track , such is its fame . Indeed , the car has somewhat of a cult following amongst the racing community and car enthusiasts alike .
“ We were pulling up to a service station going to Mildura and this B Double came past us and then did a U-turn , you could hear him chewing up the road to come back . He pulls up to us and jumps out all excited , asking ‘ is this the original car ? I remember seeing this 35 years ago !’” Cooper remembered .