Frank Brewer
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday June 22, 2001
Speedway racer, 1906-2001.
The do-or-die driving style of Frank Brewer earned him the nickname of ``Satan" from the admiring American crowds when he moved to California to answer the call of the new sport of midget car racing in the 1930s.
He was one of the rare breed of Australasian speedway racers to have competed in Hollywood.
At one stage Brewer, who has died in Phoenix, Arizona, at the age of 95, was described by a magazine as ``the greatest showman, toughest competitor and most popular driver on the Pacific coast".
New Zealand-born Brewer's first act on arriving in America was to buy a leather jacket.
His daredevil reputation earned him admission into speedway's most exclusive club, for those invited to compete at Gilmore Stadium in the heart of Hollywood. Clark Gable and Lana Turner were regular spectators.
Brewer later toured England as part of a promotion organised by Turner and her husband.
During the immediate prewar period, Brewer was racing seven nights a week, working on his racecar during the day. Speedway was a big money sport in those days, and the top drivers were earning about $US30,000 a season.
They risked their lives for the money, and like every other racer, Brewer had some serious crashes. After hitting the fence at Gilmore he ended up in hospital.
``I'd broken so many bones they didn't discover some of them until my next accident," he recalled. After his next accident, he was sent to get x-rays. These revealed two broken collarbones from his previous crash which had knitted together by themselves.
During the war he worked in flight maintenance in Florida.
In the early '50s Brewer was based in Sydney, racing at the Sydney Sportsground where the Sydney Football Stadium is today. One of his main rivals at the time was a young engineer by the name of Jack Brabham. Brabham went on to become three times world champion in Formula One, but on the speedway dirt tracks it was Brewer who won more often than not.
``Wins? Never counted them. Hundreds I guess," he said in one interview.
Brewer retired from the sport in the mid-'50s to start an earth-moving business in Campbelltown, but made a comeback in 1963 to have a final race in New Zealand. By then close to 60 years of age, he crashed, sustainingfive broken ribs and a punctured lung.
He swore that it was his old leather jacket that saved his life.
Brewer spent his final years living in Phoenix.
He is survived by his three daughters, Madaline, Maureen and Marilyn.
© 2001 Sydney Morning Herald