1976 Australian TT Debacle…from the inside

The 1976 Australian TT held on a purpose-built track at the Laverton airbase, near Melbourne, was set to be the biggest motorsport event ever held in Australia. A plethora of international riders, including three world champions, were contracted to race against the best Australia had to offer. It turned out to be a star-studded event. Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser and Industrial Relations Minister Tony Street, both with motorcycle heritage, attended.  It was a big deal. The racing itself lived up to the hype but unfortunately the big deal fell into a big heap with the company established to promote the event going into receivership immediately afterwards, despite a crowd broadly estimated as between 30,000 to 40,000 filing through the gates.

Part 1: The Big Deal fell into a Big Heap

The TT was the brainchild of newly elected Hartwell MCC president, Murray Nankervis. Murray was an architect of buildings and was involved with charitable group, the Rotary Club, which, it seems, had some initial involvement in the TT. Murray became the architect of the grandest promotion ever devised for Australian motorcycle racing. Unfortunately, ultimately, he became the architect of the greatest fall from grace that Australian motorcycle racing had ever experienced. Australian motorcycling’s name was Mud for a decade in international circles because contracts with some of the biggest names in grand prix racing were not honoured.

The basics of all this and the racing itself have been well covered. It lived up to the hype. This is not a race report.

First question; why am I in any position to have known stuff that may not already have been made public? Having gained a reputation for making media stuff about motorcycling happen, when the big idea of The Big Event came along, I was asked to handle the publicity, plus a few peripheral things related to looking after some of the international riders.

You may ask, if there is stuff that has not been made public, why has it taken me so long to getting around to revealing it? Good question. I can’t give you a definitive reason. I’d written bits and pieces about it over the years but had done nothing with them. My stepping away from motorcycling work is another story but I’ve had another life away from Australia and motorcycle racing for decades, so it was easy to shove all my TT notes to a back-up hard drive.

In the week after being appointed to handle the promotion I received a request to attend a clandestine meeting being held in the city without the knowledge of Nankervis. I was intrigued. What moves were afoot and why? More on that shortly.

I need to reveal now that I’m not going to give you the 100 per cent full story. After much anguish and consultation with some colleagues, I decided that nothing was going to be gained by ‘naming names.’ In fact, the reverse could be true. I’m at the age now where I don’t want anguish in my life other that what bottle of red I need to have for tonight’s dinner. So, forgive me on that score.

The BIG Question

To begin: The one thing that screamed for an investigation was the simple fact that any reliable accounting for income from ticket sales was non-existent. This was not an accident.

The security company hired to handle everything from ticket sales at the gate to general crowd control was sacked two days before the meeting. The official reason was the cost of the contract but it’s weird that nobody appears to have tried to officially join the dots when things went belly up. The cost of the security had been known about for months. Everyone seemed happy with that right up until just before the meeting?

We’ll be brief here, but let’s look at some basic figures to see the picture better. If you calculate the ticket price of $5.00, ignoring the extra many paid for grandstand seats (and probably couldn’t get a seat), and the official claimed attendance that varied, depending on who you spoke to, of 12-13,000 – we’ll call it the higher, you get $65,000. The story in The Sun following the races, suggested 30,000. Let’s call it 25,000. That gives us $125,000. The security organisation was going to cost about $2,000. By any stretch of the imagination, with any budgeting, the organisation that was going to ensure very necessary openness, general security and crowd control was not going to be the item that was going to break the bank. The security company was was not sacked because it was costing too much.

When the security organisation was sacked, who took charge of the gate takings? ‘Private Individuals,’ was an explanation. Really? Which individuals and how private?

A reputable security organisation at a minor cost in the overall scheme of things was vital to success. I believe Murray Nankervis, regardless of his shortcomings, dearly wanted it to be a success. Something beyond his control happened. It affected his behaviour. Hugely.

At the time I was appointed, there was no discussion about any company being set up other than the working title of ‘TT Promotions.’ Initially I thought I was being contracted by the Hartwell MCC, via its President.

The Hartwell Motorcycle Club had been a force on the local scene for many years and Wes Brown, Secretary at the time, had been the backbone of the club, organisationally, spiritually and morally; that was Wes. They ran the bigger events among the myriad of club events that occupied its large membership. Wes had his loyal henchpeople and the club ran pretty well.

A couple of years ago I caught up with Wes and we talked about the TT. He was at pains to point out that he had nothing to do with the company Nankervis had set up with its three-man board. Murray had asked him to be on the board, but Wes refused, saying it was not appropriate that members of the club committee would be on the board of the promoting company. Murray Nankervis and Thomas Coffey (dec.), the latter also on the club committee, apparently did not see any conflict. Clearly this disturbed Wes. Several times during our talk he firmly stated that Nankervis was a man full of big ideas but expected others to make them happen.

So, technically, Hartwell MCC was appointed by the new company, BESA P/L, to do the race meeting groundwork – handle all dealings with the Auto Cycle Union of Victoria, prepare the track and provide corner marshalls, machine examiners et al. The actual organisation of this fell to Wes Brown and clearly it was important that he and Nankervis had a harmonious relationship. Unfortunately, that relationship started to fall apart from very early in the piece. I suspect, this was initially based around Wes’ view of what constituted a conflict of interest. Wes was passionate about what was right and wrong and this would have grated him from the outset. Because all my dealings were with Murray Nankervis, it wasn’t until well into proceedings that I was aware of issues between them.

Ago and the TV promo

During the week before the meeting, with Murray’s okay, I took Giacomo Agostini and his brother out to the track to do a promo session for the TV programme, A Current Affair. I was led to believe the track was ready, otherwise I would have made other arrangements. Unfortunately, Wes Brown, being a very hands-on sort of bloke, and his crew were still out on the airfield carting straw bales about. Fortunately, there was sufficient work done to clearly show the track. After initially agreeing, Wes was furious that he and his crew were being held up from doing their vital work and he pulled the plug on us and demanded that we leave after just a couple of laps. I thought he was being ridiculous, after all, weren’t we all working together for the success of the meeting? I didn’t know then that other issues were in play.

Fortunately, we got some very nice footage that ACA used on that night’s programme. For me, that’s what it was all about. For Ago he was more interested in checking out the track and showing his brother the way around. For Wes, we were just a bloody nuisance and I bore the brunt of his frustration. I was annoyed but what I saw as his lack of empathy was soon to be explained.

A couple of days before the meeting, the large Italian Veneto club at Doncaster was the venue for a big dinner with all the riders attending to bathe in the adoration of their countrymen. The place was packed. So many things suddenly fell into place for me when I saw that Murray’s attitude towards Wes was toxic. He treated him off-handily and angrily. Wes was clearly upset. By this time, I was avoiding Nankervis when I could as he had become a tad irrational and distant. Initially I just put this down to him being very busy but before long I had lost confidence in him and seriously considered walking out. With wise words and encouragement from someone in the PR business I hadn’t expected to be working with (explained later), I saw it through to the end. Most of my promotional work was done by then anyway. I just needed to polish it off, so I just got on with it. ‘Head down, arse up,’ as my dear old mum used to say, when she wanted us to concentrate on something.

The final act in their race meeting relationship came on race day. Wes, all dressed up, wife in tow, clearly pleased to be going to attend the lunch with Prime Minister Fraser, was angrily stopped by Murray who, for no apparent reason, told him he couldn’t attend. Again, Wes was terribly upset and had clearly not expected to be so summarily dismissed. I thought Murray’s treatment of Wes was a disgrace. He was being an outright bully.

My first exposure to unusual behaviour by Nankervis came a couple of days after he’d contacted me about handling the publicity. He invited me to his office and we discussed a few general issues. Out of the blue he announced that he was going to ring Giacomo Agostini. He rang Italy, talked about a few procedural things then, without any introduction or explanation of who I was, handed the phone to me. I would have liked to have been a little prepared to talk to Giacomo. It wasn’t every day you get to chat with a 15 times world champ. But I bumbled through, just introduced myself and told him what my job was and asked if he was cool about media events plus a bit of general stuff; what bike was he bringing etc. Somewhat different to what we talked about after the meeting went belly up.

Murray’s action of surprising me with the call appeared to be his modus operandi. There were a few things that seemed to be spur of the moment decisions and this did unsettle me a little when I needed to make adjustments to some aspect of my work. At that stage, I hadn’t joined all the dots that painted a picture of his personality. He could be absolutely charming, though that’s not what I thought of him a little further down the track. It seemed that the pressure he’d placed on himself was beyond his ability to handle. Or maybe it was the pressure others had placed on him.

Part 2. next blog.