Over a cup of coffee at his Ivory Street shop, Don
told me that he was flat out down the long straight
at Heit Park, near Ipswich, when a little yellow bike
screamed past and disappeared into the distance.
It was Ray Owen on a 4-speed 250 Bultaco Metisse.
Don decided there and then to seek a Bultaco
distributorship direct from the factory. The only
employment Don had ever known, apart from a
short stint as a truckie with the Gatton council,
was the motorcycle business.
Don soon moved from Ivory Street to larger prem-
ises in Wickham Street, Fortitude Valley. Fred Sams
looked after the workshop, Don’s wife Marie handled
the spares business, their daughter Jenny took care of
the books, Rob Olsen, Graham Gates and others took
turns as Sales Manager and Don oversaw everything.
The shop became a meeting place for Bultaco enthu-
siasts, particularly on Saturday mornings, and Don
offered me a part-time job selling mainly Bultacos, an
arrangement which lasted 12 years. I found that Don
was an astute but cautious businessman, who drove
a hard bargain, but was scrupulously honest and
stood by the product he was selling.
In the late sixties, Don had sold a few Pursangs to
motocross riders in New Guinea, and they invited
Don up to ride in their annual Championships. Don
asked me if I would like to come along to help him
in the pits. Would I ever! I arranged for a few days
leave from my weekday job and we were away. In
Port Moresby, Don was hard pressed by the local
champ, a giant of a man named Marshall Paull,
who rode an unlikely motocrosser, a CB350 Honda
meticulously prepared and modified by the local
Honda dealership. Don eventually prevailed and
won the championship.
In the nineteen eighties, a couple of stalwarts from
the East Malvern MCC, Laurie Saunders and NormLindsay, organised a
two-week desert trail
ride, from Broken Hill
to Birdsville and back,
using some lesser
known desert tracks. As
a life member of the club, I was invited to participate,
and extended the invitation to Don. There was a total
of 17 bikes, plus three 4WDs to carry the fuel spares,
camping gear, and freezers for the food and beer. The
organisation was first class. Don decided to ride a
Yamaha XT 500 from his floor stock, and Mayfair
Motorcycles kindly lent me a new SP370 Suzuki for
the publicity benefit. Both bikes completed the trip
with no breakages or falls, and no maintenance other
than chain adjustment. Sharing a tent for two weeks
is one way to get to know someone thoroughly, and
for any personality clashes to show up. We survived
the journey without the hint of an argument. Don
was a down-to-earth sort of bloke, with no pretences,
but this final anecdote reveals that there was a softer
side to his personality.
In 1972, Don and Rob Olsen travelled overseas to
visit the Bultaco factory and meet the Bulto family,
see the Isle of Man TT, and Don went on to visit his
parent’s birthplace in Wales, which he had never
previously visited. He told me that on the first day
there, he felt completely at home in the little
village. While he was looking in a shop window, a
stranger approached him and asked the way to the
Post Office. Without thinking, Don said that you go
to the next intersection, turn left, and the Post
Office was on the right. After the stranger had left,
Don realised that he had never seen the Post Office,
and had no idea how he was able to give
instructions to the stranger. There is more to Don
Newell than just motorcycles.From Paul ReedOLD BIKE AUSTRALASIA: 21UNDER THE CHEQUERED FLAG
Laurie Fox
LAURIE FOX,who passed away in Mount
Gambier on August 27, aged 90, lived for
motorcycling.
Born and bred in the South Australian city,
Laurie began his working life at 14 years of age at
Walker’s Garage. He bought his first motorcycle in
1943, a small BSA. Laurie was a prolific competitor
on both solos and sidecars, on and off road, and
operated a successful motorcycle and car business
from 1947. For a time he raced both a 250
Triumph solo and a 596cc Manx Norton outfit in
South Australian and Victorian road races. On the
Norton, he became a top sidecar competitor and
a regular at Bathurst.
From the time the Mount Gambier MCC
re-formed in 1946 following WW2, Laurie served
as club secretary, and in 1957 was made a life
member. He was highly instrumental in the club
acquiring property on which to build its own road
race circuit, named McNamara Park, which is today
the backbone of the sport in the area. And ever
since that circuit opened, Laurie has played
numerous roles in official capacity, notably that of
handicapper for that event on each program. Every
meeting, Laurie would be seen wandering about
with his clipboard and stopwatch, calculating
handicap times, and he was usually spot-on. He
was in that very role on the day he died, suffering
a massive stroke while preparing to time riders for
the Sidecar Handicap. He was quickly attended to
by the medical crew at the circuit and rushed to
hospital, but passed away soon after.
While the grief over Laurie’s death was felt uni-
versally, all agreed that this was the way he would
have wished to go. He was awarded an OAM in
2003 for 60 years of service to motor sports. For 40
years he wrote a motor sport column in the Border
Watchnewspaper, the last published just days
before his death. A testament to the man’s univer-
sal popularity and esteem was the massive turnout
for his funeral in Mount Gambier on Monday 4th
September, with a large contingent of motorcycles
despite the very wet conditions.From Colin Thompson
Don Newell 1931 – 2017
I first met DON NEWELLin January 1967. I had just moved up from
Melbourne to Queensland with my family and was keen to establish
contact with the local motorcycle community. Don was one of the top local
motocross and short circuit stars on his BSA.Don Newell at the
Queensland riders
reunion in 2012.Laurie Fox in action
on his Manx Norton
outfit at Fishermen’s
Bend in 1957.Laurie (left) presenting an award at Mac Park to
his long term friend John Wilkinson. Photo: Rob Lewis