By Luke Voogt
Geelong Revival organiser Nick Heath remembers a time when the waterfront car races were notorious for nasty crashes.
“In those days there were just a few hay bales on the track – there were no safety barriers or anything,” the 52-year-old said.
“The old man and I, and sometimes my brother, would just cruise down there to have a look.”
Nick would watch cars zoom down the makeshift course in the Geelong Sprints from the waterfront lawns alongside hundreds of locals.
“(I was) slightly bored, to be honest, because I was 12 and didn’t know what was going on.”
But safety had come a long way since the shoddy standards of decades past, he said.
“The cars are better, the barriers are better and safety is a long way better.”
Nick was the right man to bring the event back in 2012, after a nine-year absence – racing runs in his veins.
His father Daryl, who died last year, was a long-time racer and local Ford dealer.
“Being the son of a car dealer you’re always around cars,” he said.
Nick has followed in his father’s footsteps and still races today.
He spoke to the Indy fresh off competing in the Historic Sandown race meeting on Friday.
“I’m no great shakes as a racer, but I didn’t crash so it was a good weekend.”
After the racing stopped on the waterfront in 2003, David approached the previous organisers to get it going again.
But after a few years liaising with them he realised “I had no option but to do it myself”.
A year of planning went into reviving the iconic event, Nick said.
“Just putting the event on is huge – it’s a bit crazy. If I had known then what I know now I probably wouldn’t have done it – so it’s lucky I didn’t.”
But it was worth the effort to again take to the track in his Jensen Interceptor.
“It sounds like an angry god, and that’s in street-legal form.”
The racing genes have passed onto Nick’s only son James, who recently acquired a racing licence.
“He likes cars,” Nick said. “His favourites are the 1969 Mustang and Ford GT40, both of which are pretty acceptable cars.
“He can race the Jensen, he just can’t drive it on the road due to P-plate rules.”
V8 Supercar driver Dean Canto will join Nick on the track in a Renault Megane Trophy during this year’s Geelong Revival Motoring Festival.
Canto will put the V6 through its paces on the quarter-mile track for the Saturday and Sunday of the event.
The motoring festival runs from 24 to 26 November and features food and vintage cars, caravans and outfits for revheads and the general public alike.
