The Rise of a Champion: Gary Neiwand's Victory in the 1984 Forges Wheelrace

The traditional Aussie handicap and it's prestigious track and road races is something that every up and coming young cyclist in this Country wants to win. On track, Latrobe, Burnie, The Austral and going back as far as the Sydney 1000 in the early 1900's when the Great Major Taylor was racing in Australia and the prizemoney was huge. In the 80's and 90's one of those races was the Forges Wheelrace, a 2000 metre event and in 1984 a young up and coming Junior rider by the name of Gary Neiwand was emerging. He would go on to win World Titles and Olympic medals as a sprinter and on this night he held off the strong scratchmen and was one of those who sketched his name in the history books.
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Australia’s love affair with handicap racing on road and track goes back more than a century and in fact in the early 1900’s when Major Taylor was touring Australian racing, the prize money was huge and the sport was as big as tennis and golf is today.
In 1904 a handicap track race called the Sydney Thousand held over a mile was the richest in Australia with $10k for first place. You do the math and convert that to today’s $$$.
In the mid 90’s I was fortunate enough to win the Centenary Latrobe Wheelrace in Tassie also with a purse of $10k to win and also the biggest in Australia at that time. 90 years of inflation killed off any chance of buying a house off those winnings but it couldn’t kill off the most important thing of all which was the prestige of winning one of Australia’s oldest & biggest wheel races.
Until now! Because the prestige of some of our greatest races are dying off with the fall of carnival racing itself. At some stage we have to ask ourselves what has made cycling so great in this Country? I believe our great handicaps of the past century is what has made it great and unique to the Australian culture. And yes the Latrobe Wheelrace has now also fallen by the wayside over an issue between Auscycling and the club.
The fact that any aspiring Junior or Veteran willing to put on a saddlecloth number and can line up amongst World Champions and Olympians and have a fairly even chance at Winning with their handicap is what differentiates being an Aussie cyclist is and what has also made it so exciting for the crowds. The prestige of becoming a Scratchmen is also huge. Aussie cyclists have aspired to this as much as representing their Country.
The Austral and Burnie wheel races are a couple that have stood the test of time but is time running out? Carnival racing is dying, prestigious handicaps are falling by the wayside, prize money is plummeting, participation in track is crumbling and the crowds have evaporated. It begs the question, will we one day only be able to glorify track racing through old videos like the one below?

[@joebob4943]

I haven't seen this particular type of race before🤔 Interesting🙂

[@arthurmchugh5184]

The staff and officials handicap the race ,stronger riders with better results start from the scratch mark, ie starting line. The other riders get a bigger and bigger head start, if they handicap it properly, everyone will get to the finish together 😊

[@planetX15]

Is that Drew Morphett at the beginning?

[@acko2k]

Yeah it is. He was one of the main commentators of the Flashing Pedals series