In the latest instalment of the Kincrome Mechanic Series, we cover the journey of sport sedan stalwart and touring car driver Simon Harrex.
Simon Harrex has been around cars for as long as he can remember, with early access to vehicles driving his passion for the automotive industry.
“’I’ve always been interested in cars, I used to steal my mother’s car, an old Austin and drive around the countryside in England at about 13 years old,” Harrex said.
“She also had a Morris Minor, so we used to knock that off and go for a blast in that and then later on my father had a Jaguar, he used to go away on business trips and we used to borrow that and go around the countryside.
“So that’s basically the start of it.”
Harrex moved to Australia in 1963, where a job opportunity at a Shell service station in Double Bay, resulted in an interest in motorsport developing.
“The owner of that used to own a Brabham Formula 2 car and that is when I become interested in motor racing,” he reflected.
“So I bought a Mallock U2 Clubman and race it with my brother.
“I seemed to end up doing all the work, on occasion I got to drive it, I was the slave and he was the driver.
“We didn’t have enough money to run it, so then I ended up getting married and moving to Queensland.”
Shortly afterwards, he went on to establish RX Automotive, a family-owned and operated automotive business which specialises in BMW service, repair and performance in 1975, setting up the first workshop at the Golden Fleece Service Station in Toowong.
“RX Automotive originally started under the house before the council said we couldn’t do that, so I got the first workshop and it just progressed from there,” Harrex recalled.
“During that time, I bought a BMW 635, that I’ve had ever since and that attracted a lot of BMW people into the workshop and all we do now is BMW.”
His mechanical experience and workshop success provided him the opportunity to return to motorsport in 1976.
In his return to motorsport, he teamed up with John English and the late Dr Iain Corness to form the first three-car touring car works team in the country, with the trio driving Ford Mk1 Escorts, each powered by a Lotus Twin Cam engine.
“John English was in a Group C car, while Dr Corness and myself were both in sport sedan variants,” Harrex explained.
When sponsorship ran out, the trio disbanded, resulting in a new path for Harrex.
“I ended up getting a Holden dealer to sponsor my Ford,” he laughed.
“So I ran my Ford MK1 Escort with the backing of Wayne Hill Holden.
“That was the beginning of me deciding to step up a bit, so I designed a full spaceframe Holden Commodore sport sedan.
“It took me 18 months to build it while I was racing and in that 18 months, I drove an ex-Geoff Brabham P6 Formula Ford for a season.
“It was great to get that open-wheeler experience there.”
Harrex went on to race his Commodore against the elite in national sports sedan racing at the time.
“I raced that Commodore will all the top sport sedan drivers of the day from Bryan Thomson in the twin-turbo Mercedes, Allan Grice was driving Bob Jane’s Monza, while John Briggs was in another Monza,” he added.
“I raced with them through the 1980s, it was a good thing.”
In 1984, Harrex teamed up with John Donnelly to steer the ex-Dick Johnson Ford Falcon XD, famously known as the ‘rock car,’ at Bathurst.
“We had a mixed day but I was just determined to finish the race,” he recalled.
“We had a braided clutch line fail and had been vibrating against the bell housing and on the 49th lap just driving into what was then Griffins Bend I went to change down and suddenly there was no clutch.
“We spent time trying to cool the thing down to be able to make another hose put it on, then we carried on and we finished the race.”
That car was later sold to fund the build of a Group A Rover Vitesse to take on Mount Panorama.
“So we spent 85, building the Rover so that we could run it in 86 at Bathurst, which was an experience, but it was a lot of hard work,” Harrex said.
“It was not an enjoyable time, the car came into the pits about three-quarters of the way through the race on seven and a half cylinders and we had a rocker arm failure.
“The problem with the Rover was that there were too many bits on it that weren’t which were sourced from overseas, that wasn’t as good as we probably could have made here.”
As his tenure in touring car racing came to an end, Harrex turned his attention to sport sedans, building a Holden Commodore VL, that weighed 810kg and produced 550 horsepower.
“We made everything on the car, the complete chassis, all the suspension, wishbones, trailing arms, bracketry and what have you and body panels, we made the doors, we made the whole front clip and the whole rear clip,” he detailed.
‘We sort of dissected the old car and thought well we can do away with half this, so we redesigned it and the second car ended up weighing 810 kilos with the same amount of horsepower so it was very quick.”
Unfortunately, the car would go onto meet an untimely end at Lakeside Park Raceway.
“I got punted off into the scenery under the bridge at Lakeside and knocked the fence over,” Harrex recollected.
“So I then decided that I’ve had enough and thought that if I kept on going it wouldn’t have ended well so I pulled the pin and retired from racing.”
Hanging up the helmet, Harrex turned his attention to building cars for others.
One of Harrex’s greatest builds was a BMW E30 Sports Sedan for Danny Menneguzzo in 1995, which Menneguzzo would go on to win the 1996 and 1997 Queensland Sport Sedan Championships in.
“When building this car, I asked Danny how many races he had won and placed in and he said none, I then said you will win races in this car,” he said.
“We had to re-program his driving style because he was driving it like he used to drive his old escort sport sedan before, and this spaceframe chassis car handled totally differently.
“So anyway, after about half a dozen laps at a test day, he got his act together and looked really good in the car.
“At his first race meeting at Lakeside, he broke the lap record and everybody stood up and took notice.
“He went on to win two sport sedan titles in that car.”
Continuing his involvement in building BMWs, he went on to build a BMW 2002 and BMW E30 325i for Speedcafe.com co-owner Richard Gresham.
“Richard happened to be driving past the workshop and saw Danny’s car out the front, he came into the shop, looked at the car and two weeks later I was building a car for him,” Harrex recalled.
“We built the BMW 2002 which was a lovely little car and progressed from there to a BMW E30 M3 and then another silver BMW 2002.
“I went on to spend 28 years as Richard’s chief mechanic.”
Cars and motorsport is also a family passion for Harrex, continued by his son Pierz, who runs the RX Automotive business and has raced in Improved Production, Queensland Touring Car Championship, sports sedans and is an Australian and Queensland Hill Climb champion in the Improved Production (2000-3000cc) class.
“My son started racing in a BMW E30 and he came second in the Queensland Touring Car Championship outright two years ago, in that which has been a very, very competitive car,” Harrex said.
“It’s only a three-litre car racing against six-litre 600 horsepower, Commodores, Falcons, things like that and he knocks them off so he’s doing pretty well.
“He is also involved with the running of RX Automotive to this day.”
At 76 years old, Harrex shows no signs of slowing down and continues to enjoy his passion for the automotive industry and motorsport.
“I’ve enjoyed every moment of it,” he enthused.
“I still have a race now and again, in the car I’m sharing the car with Richard Gresham.
“A lot of my compatriots have all passed away, so I just feel that I’m going to make the most of what I’ve got left, so that’s my plan.
“I’m not going to fall off the perch, I’m not going to turn my toes up, I’m going to keep going and doing what I’m doing.”
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