Fantastic doco, Good to have the police view as well.. I turned up in Newcastle in 97. Went looking for work and was told by a few "spray shops" to move on, nothing in Newcastle. Cars Van's Hot Rods, and bikes I airbrushed won Rickshaws, Auto Saloon and Summer Nats for 5 years. There was also a Fast 4's show near Kotara ( It's a shame about the Wool Store, it was a good venue ) Painted the Great Northern, the old Tatts next door. Surf boards to many to remember. Rebel and Nomad Bikes.... And Christmas boards. There was always talk of having the V8's, had been since the 80's, shame it took so long for it to happen but now it's golden..

Bought back heaps of memories of the island . Great to see the old footage . Pity no story told of a car that was to be impounded that got the heads up . Story I was told the fast motor was swapped out before it got towed and impounded

Brings back so many memories of a Sunday cruise in the foreshore. Some of the best times of my life definitely was better than sitting home watching TV out, make a new friends ❤❤❤

I loved the memory of sneaking onto the hillclimb track the night before (totally used to do that with my dad), was also so sad driving past after the rock. I can remember the NBN ads for the motor drome till this day. Awesome work chit chat!

Amazing work, absolutely awesome. Bought back a lot of memories growing up here, the smell and sounds of the drome, and uh, especially memories of *ahem* Kooragang. Great to see some familiar faces to put to the cars too. And everyone is right, we really need some more facilities around here! Top production guys!

I was a member of the Newcastle MG Car Club in the 60s and 70s. Had heaps of fun on our dirt track north of town, as well as helping with the Mattara hillclimb. Learnt how to drive fast and safe which has served me well all these years.

Puggs king of the island when I was a kid good times

Exactly, Newcastle does need a full-time track like Eastern Creek. We also need to bring back Speedway to Newy. Motordrome was my outlet every fortnight. Come on Newy Council, really put Newcastle on the map.

This is the best guys brings back some awsome memories of kooragang,hunter st & the foreshore cutn laps,i used to own a bronze vj chager with a pretty healthy DOCTOR MAC built 360 s/b me & a few mates would pile in on a fri sat or sundy nite head strate to kooragang from the bay hav a few runs then head in town & luvd cruisen up hunter street setn car alarms off,WE NEED A DRAG STRIP/BURNOUT PAD,shoulda got some motordrome burnouts on there to mate,awsome doco mate LEGENDS

God this brought back memories. As a younger guy I raced the Mattara Hill Climb at King Edward Park, raced at Ringwood hill climb just north of Raymond Terrace, watched events at the Motordrome in Tomago, was in awe of the cars at the Rickshaws Show and Shines at the Woolsheds on Hannel St Maryville, and yes…. even had a single run on Kooragang Island in my 4cyl car vs another car exactly like it. I remember many Sundays parked along the foreshore watching all the nice cars drive by and 99% were abiding by the law and were just cruising. It always took just one d**khead to do a burnout and ruin it for everybody. The scene died and my 500hp fully engineered and road legal and street registered car has spent most it’s life garaged, except for a few drives now and then and runs down the drag strip in Sydney. I’m talking driving there along the Motorway, have up to 10 runs down the quarter without overheating and then drive back to Newcastle. That’s how you build a car properly on 30psi boost where every single bolt and modification to the car was researched, planned and fitted, then probably changed again 😅. Thank you for making this documentary. I just forwarded it to my son who now also has fuel running through his veins.

Absolute top video. Definitely miss the good old days. Big v8s drag racing over the island. Only got into cars because of pugs.

Best time's of my life, and I was from the Central Coast! Thanks for the upload and the memories, great work!!

Kudos to everyone involved with this doco. Superb job!!! I was mad about the Motordrome and Rickshaws Hot Rod Shows as a kid and this brought those feelings flooding back. Quick story... As soon as my mates and I were given a worksheet at school, we'd turn it over and draw a custom car on the back. The teacher finally got us to stop for a couple of weeks by organising for a lady she knew with a hot Chrysler Charger to take us for a drive at the end as a reward. Sorry for that self-indulgence, but I thought it might give others a chuckle :-)

Thank you for the effort that you put into this. Great doco

A true record of motorsport in Newcastle with all the characters of the past. Newcastle has produced many champions over the years. This doco shows the grass roots where they all came from.

This was a top notch doco!!!

That was awesome , I grew up in qld .never thought I'd say I wish I grew up somewhere down there lmao

Brings back so many memories!! But have to admit I’m still a hoon👍

We used to spend a lot of time in the wattigans rallying too.

The last hillclimb I went to I was sitting on a park bench right near where they whip it round to start the winding climb up the hill. Sat there all day then decided I go and get a drink bout 2 mins later a guy in an evo lancer came smashing thru the barriers and landed right in the park bench id been sitting on haha

Holy shit mattara the motordrome rickshaws and above all KOORAGANG ,the memories ,hundreds of people could vanish with one word ,COPS

That was a great watch, plenty of memories there 😎👌 Well done on the vid 👍

My FG in the background of one of the shots 😍

Holy shit that was an amazing watch. Beautifully shot, harnessed the passion of the humans involved. Captured the whole "reason". Cheers.

That was awesome

I enjoyed that, thanks to all involved 🏁🏆🏎

Great summary. We also have a long history of organised off street club racing in Newcastle and lower Hunter.. Westlakes car club Toronto from late 60's still runs Awabawac Park at Awaba with upto 15 events a year. MG had Nelsons Plains near Raymond Terrace before they moved to Ringwood. Rallies in the Watagon forest into the 80's and still the odd one up at Taree and Buledelah.

Sensational job on the video. Really captured the atmosphere of the scene. Wish there was a similar vid covering the Qld stuff like Broadwater carpark, M1 shenanigans etc from the 90's and 00's.

Newy Represent ❤

Brings back some memories, I was a regular on the island had a ZK Fairlane (2 tone blue shaker hanging out the bonnet) with a worked BOSS engine (which never should have been in it), funny story I got done for speeding home one night after being on the island, copper never said a word to me about the engine, took my licence though.. LOL, how the times have changed..

Still at intro and u guys rock

My stepdad ran a hemi powered Datsun 1200 at the gang and later on I had a torana, r31 skyline and a few commodores down there and around Newcastle foreshore and Nobby's.

What a great production capturing the essence of what the car culture in all its forms meant to Newcastle. Well done!

Yep. Lived here all my life. Mechanic of 30yrs. Had a 12sec car... raced kooragang. Still have a fast LJ torana. It don't leave the shed. Just nowhere to go local. Sad for Australia's home of the hoon.

Bloody Awesome. I think i was in a clip or two lol

Awesome

Ahhh the memories. But no Dino Martinelli

I used to street race at Kooragang Island in the 80's and my dad a couple of times back k in the day and I know Tony Webster and I new my dad as well, I live in the American, I have been drag racing over jhere and I ran a super drive late model for 10 years, I do miss Newcastle and Kooragaing Island

I was going over to the Island in the 60's and it had been going for a good while then we had to watch out for the Police and all of the races were next to very large Naptha storage tanks. Also as an Apprentice we you used go up to Mattara track and we would do the track at lunch time in our old cars great times

Used to do regular rat drags out at Koorangang, either that or high speed races from the Toole Street Bridge to the other side of the Stocko bridge. Some ridiculous speeds attained on that run by all. Late 80's - early 90's.

That was brilliant

If Council was upfront about the costs we have probably thrown enough money down the toilet on Supercars to have made a start on a track. Maybe we should change our name to Sydney 2.

Dale bugging, haven’t heard that name in a long time.

There’s still some street scene around. Some of the footage was newer and I recognise a few of the cars. There’s more locations people street race around Newcastle, but ‘The Gang’ as my friends have named it still runs on the weekends whenever word goes around, and we all flee as soon as there is a tip off about police 🤣

I remember a whole heap of hot cars getting around town when I was a kid rocking around with grampa and Brett and bec, they had a purple n red lj torana. Zaloof in his yellow mitsabishi evo and 7 sinns rx7 the blue falcon xd to xf turboed I think hawkins owned it. Traxx1 the night it went up the gutter on Wallsend link Rd and 7 sins up the round about the same night from memory. You gotta remember I was 9 or 10 years old. Gramps had a tiger orange sigma and the shit hot black gsr neither were quick though it got us out to watch you lot go racing. No mention of lennigans drive freeman waterhole either. Effeys datto 180b has been around for over 30 years. Every night we would be in that way.

Puggs ya effwit!!!

Back in the day some seriose qiuck cars hit that spot

MG car club has been trying to build a track for decades. Councils knocked them back every time for some stupid reason each time.

Supercars was the point where you lost me. Great to have a race but not there. We lose too many other facilities plus we don't know what it really costs us. I hate to think what it must be like for the residents.

There's no skill in hooning Just the same old issues over *The Middle-aged school teacher with the Freaky neck* 👩🏻‍🏫 ⬇️ *The 90 year old granny with dementia* 👵🏻 ⬇️ *The Jolly old man with the* 👓👞👞 ⬇️ *The* 👬🏻👨‍👨‍👦‍👦🏳️‍🌈🩲 ⬇️ *The Shelia lifeguard at swimming lessons* 🩱 ⬇️ *The Multicultural Moral understandings over every continent around the world* 🌍🌎🌏 ⬇️ *The certain popularity over the Aussie 🧼 Operas* ⬇️ *That emulates The Harry Potter series* 🪄 ⬇️ *And Emulates the Lord of the Rings trilogy* 🧝‍♂️🧙🏻‍♂️💍 ⬇️ *The Blood, Sweat and Tears that gets them into the legal world they CRAVE* 🛹🏂🏄🏀🏎️🏍️🏁 They NEVER learn how to mix in the Social Skill Codes with those certain issues to feel much more comfortable with

This brought a tear to my eye watching this, I used to basically live at kooragang on Thursday to Sunday night in the late 80's, it brought back so many memories of cruising hunter St and racing up the hill climb every night of the week. I remember one old fella that used to turn up occasionally in a sky blue Datsun 1200 with a 360 Chrysler in it have a few races blow the doors of most of the young guys and then just cruise off. The guy that had probably one of the fastest cars I think from memory was called dallas gradwell, he had a white hj (I think) monaro ,l don't think I ever seen him lose, Good times

Kooragang island was awesome. I was there the night the police killed it for good.

Another doco most people watching this would probably like if you haven't heard of it is called WIDE OPEN ROAD ,it was a 3 part doco on Aussie car culture, it has a bit on newcastle, it also mentions Swansea bends which used to be awesome to race if it can't be found online, comment here and I will try to put it here on KZfaq

I killed 2 Michal Schumacher rim's on my VN out the island

Don't worry officers They don't know anything about the moral understandings of motor sports And They only hoon cause they think it's gonna give them extra credit 💳 to the World that Tony Hawk represents 🛹 along with sled racing and surfing When they don't even know what moral blood, sweat and tears that goes into earning such a title They ALWAYS *MAKE & CONVINCE & TELL* themselves they're doing nothing Wrong just to sleep better at night And the ONLY reason they don't get a single scratch by being such a drag is cause *Bad is ALWAYS Easy* They just *MAKE* themselves believe it's skill when they don't even know the blood, sweat and tears for that