TOOWOOMBA SPEEDWAY: VALE BARRY LACK

Media release by: David Budden.

Toowoomba Speedway recently (Saturday, April 12) lost one of its most respected identities.

Barry Lack passed away peacefully after a five year battle with Vascular Dementia.

Barry was one of the nicest people in speedway, humble and quietly spoken. A true gentleman.

Barry Lack . . . always remembered as a damn, good bloke.

He would always greet you with a “What do you know, yah, hmm.” You could sit down with Barry and talk speedway for hours and not hear the same story twice.

He loved his speedway and all things about it. I don’t recall him ever getting angry with anyone or criticising anybody after a crash – he just accepted it as hard racing! He would just simply say, “Better fix it I suppose”. It would be hard to find anybody who didn’t like Barry.

Mick Mulhare was quoted as saying: “Barry is one of a kind he could turn his hand to anything if it needed repairing he would repair it.  Nothing was thrown out, it was fixed or repaired.  Barry made all the pulleys and various components for the race cars on the lathe; he was a clever man and all self taught”.  

Peter (Lack) remembers the engine on the Victa lawn mower blowing up. So Dad took the spare motor for the Go-kart out of the trailer and put it on the mower. We then had an av gas powered mower.  He remembers a school working bee, everybody was having trouble pushing through the long grass Dad came through no effort at all.  Someone asked: “Barry what did you do to that mower”?

In 1955 Barry had his first taste of Speedway, he came in from the family farm at Felton just South of Toowoomba with his father to the Old Toowoomba  Showgrounds  to watch the Stockcars he was 12 years old at the time.

They hadn’t seen Stockcars before so they thought they would come to town and have a look and see what all the fuss was about. After hearing people say: “You have to go and watch these Stockcars”. From that time on, all Barry wanted to do was race.  They came to town in the family’s 1948 Ford Mercury.  Keith Blicharski and Dutton Stibbard were the leading drivers then. 

Barry, like most in his era, started racing in 1966 although for him it was closer to 1967 before he got started driving a Mark I Zephyr.  He remembers the Carnival of Flowers meeting every year being huge.  Straight after the procession, you went straight to the Showgrounds or you wouldn’t get a seat.

The Zephyr was shared with a friend, Kerry Griesheimer, and after 18 months he bought another  Zephyr.   

It had a lot of trouble with the gearbox and diff but it did go well when it was going he laughed.  Barry recalls being amongst a field of 33 cars, mainly FJ Holdens as well as a few Zephyrs in the race, and they were three wide.  One of the first drivers he took notice of was Bryan Burke he was fast and smooth he raced standard class then.  Barry raced a Super Modified for two years with  Peter Collins and Neil Mansell on occasions. On the 20th of September 20, 1970 Barry broke the track record at the former Toowoomba Showgrounds 20.1 seconds.  He retired from racing  to work on the farm in 1973. 

When Sam and Peter were old enough they raced Go-Karts.  Barry prepared the Karts and built the engines, Peter finishing second in the Club Championship. When Peter turned 15 they went back to speedway the whole family was racing by then. Wendy won a Club Championship.   Sam  won two Club Championships and Peter five titles.

The next step was a Speedcar, after the Australian Speedcar Championship at Toowoomba in April of the 1994/95 season  Darryl Bonell liked what he saw and bought a Speedcar.

Peter and Barry, looking for a new challenge, stepped into a Speedcar, too.  Barry often said: “I enjoyed the Speedcars. We did quite well for what we had. We ran a sigma motor, Peter drove for Terry Holland for a while and set the 8 lap record at the Brisbane Exhibition Grounds that was set by AJ Foyt and won the 1995/96 Queensland Speedcar Racing Association Rookie of the Year after he finished third in the Club Championship. 

Then an opportunity came up to drive Graham and Wendy Erhart’s Modified Production car and they never looked back.  Winning three back-to-back Australian Titles from 2003 and then into Sprintcars winning numerous feature races including the Inaugural Will Power 500 in 2015 and the Kalgoorlie World Series Sprintcar round in 2007. Barry played a pivotal role in all of that. “The years with Graham and Wendy were good years. We raced all over Australia. I miss that.   They are good people Graham and Wendy,” Barry said.

Barry was a racer through and through and those who knew him would never question that. Barry had the ability to solve problems logically and would never give up until the desired goal was achieved.   An accomplished driver, mechanic, engine builder, Crew Chief committee member of the Downs Speedway Club but first and foremost a Dad immensely proud of his children’s achievements happy in the knowledge  that he played a part in their success. 

The Toowoomba Speedway family sends its sincere condolences to the Lack family at this sad time.

To spend 65 years in one sport is an amazing effort . There were many highs and lows along the way, Barry taking it all in his stride, a true indication of his passion for the sport. Five years ago  he was diagnosed with Vascular Dementia.  

He faced this situation head-on determined to fight it as long as he could. Unfortunately, he deteriorated over the last 12 months as the Dementia finally took hold. 

I knew him as a friend, someone that I looked up to and respected as a true gentleman.

I will certainly miss the conversations we had about the early days of Toowoomba Speedway. Barry had a quality about him seldom seen these days: a quick wit, solid work ethic backed up with years of knowledge and the ability to turn a box of nuts and bolts into a race winning engine.  Barry you will be missed, often thought of, never forgotten.

Barry will be laid to rest on Wednesday, April 23 at 9.30am at Burstows Funerals. 1020 Ruthven Street, Toowoomba – his last lap to the chequered flag completed.

Rest in peace Barry.