While it is oftentimes overlooked, north of the equator, Australia and New Zealand have a long and rich motor racing tradition that stretches back as early as the ’20s. However, it wasn’t until after World War II that Australian motorsport really came into its own. This month’s featured Web site is an amazingly vast repository of Australian motorsport photography dating as far back as the ’50s.
With a stunning 3000 photos and 460,000 negatives (!), one can get lost for days surfing through this site. Fortunately, it is well organized by first being broken down by racing category, and then within each category, sub-sections devoted to a specific decade. Some of the many subjects covered include racecars, formula cars, sports cars, F5000, bikes, drag racing, trials, historics, rally cross, hillclimbs and the famed races at Bathurst. While only a portion of the collection can be viewed directly on the Web site, it also features an efficient search engine that allows the visitor to search the entire archive for a specific car, driver or race. But perhaps best of all, every image is available for purchase in several different sizes and at reasonable prices. Whether you’re looking for images of a specific car, driver or just want to learn more about the racing world “down under” this site amounts to time well spent.
