Your Life
Get revved up as classic cars sprint to the finish line – again
BRUCE McMAHON takes a spin around a tiny Queensland town that commemorates the year it was a big deal in motorsports.
The rip-roaring Leyburn Sprints fire up again this August with Queensland’s finest collection of classic race cars and motoring memories on show.
Annual sprints through the streets of the one-pub Darling Downs township were inaugurated to celebrate the anniversary of the 1949 Australian Grand Prix (AGP), held on the outskirts.
Today, Leyburn, about 200km from Brisbane, plays host each August to an eclectic grid of race cars – from Model T Fords to Austin Healeys and Holden Toranas – and the likes of motorsport legend Dick Johnson.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of this relaxed, old-fashioned weekend of mingling with stars and cars.
It’s grassroots motorsport at its best, with the sights and sounds and furies of cars and drivers trying to best times around the kilometre-long, temporary street circuit.
Along with competition cars from across the decades, there’s the Vintage Van Village with yesterday’s stylish caravans and tow vehicles, Show ’n’ Shine competition for all manner of cars, autographs to be collected, a swag of food and drink outlets, plus camping facilities.
Leyburn also boasts a wealth of white man’s history from a gold rush in the 1800s through to the Royal Hotel, built in 1863 and said to be the state’s oldest continuously licenced premises.
In World War II, the nearby airfield was a base for RAAF Liberator bombers and the secretive Z Force: commandos flown to behind-the-lines operations against the Japanese in South-East Asia.
And in August 1949, the now disused airfield was used for the AGP, won by John Crouch in a French Delahaye.
In the 21st century, the Leyburn Sprints weekend, organised by dedicated locals and enthusiasts, has become a major tourist attraction and is acknowledged as one of the most enjoyable of motorsport weekends in Australia – often over-subscribed with would-be competitors.
Competing cars run as old as a 1924 Amilcar with drivers such as Bribie Island’s 85-year-old Justin McCarthy in his Austin Seven Sports.
Rare open-wheeler race machines line up behind Austin A40s, behind a full-throated AC Cobra, followed by a special Toyota Yaris and a rasping Mazda RX2.
It takes just over 40 seconds for the quickest of the cars to complete the circuit and there are a number of spectator spots around the six- corner track.
Sprints committee president Tricia Chant says Leyburn is ‘The Little Town That Can’.
“We’ve got something special here: history, horsepower and heart, with a proud community, a pretty little rural town and a grassroots motorsport festival that’s the equal of anything else like it in the country,” Tricia says.
“History features strongly in our story. There’s the history of the 1860s gold rush and covert World War II operations, still evident at various locations, the grand prix history, our own proud history of 29 annual events and not least the histories of some of the older cars contesting the sprints.”
Australian racing champion John Bowe adds: “It’s the best motorsport event I think I’ve been to in my life. If I’d known it was this good, I would have come years ago.”
The 2026 Historic Leyburn Sprints will be held on the weekend of August 15-16. More info is available at leyburnmotorsprints.com.au
