Greg Crick started racing at Symmons Plains in 1971, when he was 17, in an FX Holden, before switching to the ex-Gene Cook Falcon sports sedan, which had been rebuilt from a wreck.

From there he progressed to a Torana XU1, which was followed by a Ford Capri, and then a turbocharged Torana XU1, which proved to be somewhat troublesome.

Using a borrowed non-turbo engine from Clive Stafford and Paul Minehan, Greg won the 1986 Wynns Tasmanian Sports Sedan championship in a brilliant drive at Baskerville in wet conditions on slick tyres.

A second championship was to follow in a Mazda RX7 SS built by Gene Cook, before Greg took delivery of a state of the art Chevrolet powered Honda Prelude SS in 1990 and built by Elfin Sports Cars in Adelaide.

After some early issues were sorted out with the car, Greg went onto win the Australian Sports Sedan Championship in 1991 and then after two rounds in 1992, sold the car.

In 1992 Greg won the inaugural Targa Tasmania with navigator Greg Preece in a Honda NSX, beating 1967 World Formula One Champion Denny Hulme in a BMW M5, and then backed it up in 1993, beating Jim Richards and Barry Oliver in a Porsche 968 CS.

Greg made the first of 14 starts in the Bathurst 1000 race in 1989 with Chris Lambden in a Nissan Skyline, and over the years until 2009, scored four top 10 results in different cars with different drivers.

As a measure of his ability, Greg drove the second Dick Johnson Shell Ford Sierra with Terry Shiel in the controversial 1992 event and they would have finished much better than 11th if the race hadn’t been stopped by a multi-car crash.

After a break from racing, Greg won the 2006 Australian GT championship in a Dodge Viper GT3 ACR and followed up with 7th in 2010, 3rd in 2011, and 5th in 2012.

In addition, he finished second in the Australian Tourist Trophy in both 2008 and 2011 and also finished fourth in the 2011 Bathurst 12-Hour GT Race in a Porsche GT3 Cup S.

In 2014, Greg lined up for the Bathurst 12-hour race in the Erebus Motor Sport Mercedes Benz SLS AMG GT3, to finish an outstanding third against the odds, co-driving with Will Davison and Jack Le Brocq.

During the race, the car hit an errant kangaroo, which badly damaged the front spoiler and tore the right front guard off, not only upsetting the car’s aerodynamics dramatically, but causing Greg to suffer serious carbon monoxide poisoning.

It took some months to get back to being able to race and later that year Greg won the feature Touring Car Masters race in his V8 Valiant Charger at the Bathurst 1000 meeting.

Also in 2014, Greg was invited to drive with Audi GT3 works driver Christopher Mies and they won the Phillip Island 101 Endurance Race.

Sadly, ongoing health issues from the 2014 Bathurst race have curtailed any further serious competition driving, but Greg maintains his involvement as a respected driving standards observer for several categories.

 Profile by Barry Oliver

Photos by Bruce Smart, Ray Berghouse, and Dirk Klynsmith