CAMS – THE OFFICIAL HISTORY

It was a mammoth task -512 pages, 170,000 words, 1100 illustrations, working as managing editor with some of the finest motoring journalists and discovering for the first time some of the documents and history which created the platform for motorsport in Australia.

Donald K. Thomson, the man who drafted the constitution, created the acronym CAMS, and ran the organization like his own fiefdom until he was unceremoniously flung from the role, wrote some of the book himself, from the grave. His daughter Jo, moving house, was about to dispose of his old papers – nothing important – when we made contact on the week before the move.

They contained the original minutes of the Confederation, the background to the formation of the organization and volumes of letters by Thomson providing a road map to his struggles and tribulations.

The massive volume chronicles motor sport from its very beginning – the opening stanza written beautifully by automotive historian Pedr Davis OAM. A CAMS editorial committee headed by Garry Connelly AM determined groups of 20 officials, administrators, local racers and overseas Australian stars to be profiled.

“I’d known Sir Jack Brabham for many years and we’d had many chats, “John Smailes said. “But on one day , only shortly before his death , we sat knee to knee facing each other at his home on the Gold Coast and he gave me insight I’d never had. Jack was acutely deaf so it was necessary to work in extremely and uncomfortably close proximity. And I learned so much. He was called Black Jack by car owner John Cooper not because of what would now be his fashionable five o’clock shadow or his stubborn aggression, but because he came from Black Fella country. And his views on CAMS? To their credit, they respected Jack and ran his copy verbatim, but it was hardly positive and definitely not constructive.”

The book tells the story of CAMS’ wars, the various organization-threatening clashes which have been the stepping stones to the organization as it now stands. Peter McKay’s fearless and factual account of the battle for Bathurst and the attacks on CAMS by the now late Bob Jane, will stand as permanent record, never to be erased.

Pictorially, the book is a masterpiece. Ray Berghouse, photographer, publisher, archivist and influencer and his designer Chris Currie brought the words to life in a way that was well beyond CAMS’ expectation or that of their managing editor. Berghouse, one day ,deserves a book of his own.

The CAMS Official History was produced in limited edition and is today out of print. Perhaps in 2028 on the 75th anniversary it can be updated.