Allan Tomlinson, winner of the 1939 Australian Grand Prix and perhaps Western Australia’s best racing driver, has passed away in Perth.
While brief, his motor racing career was very successful. Just 12 months after joining his local car club in Perth during 1935, he was racing a Ford V8 at Lake Perkolilli with his best friend Clem Dwyer providing passenger acrobatics. In 1937 Allan took delivery of a standard MG TA that was continuously updated so as to keep just ahead of the handicapper. Onlookers noted the meticulous care, impeccable preparation of the team consisting of Dwyer “The Manager,” Allan “The Driver” and Bill Smallwood “The Minder.” After initial difficulties and an accident, this is the car that won at least six races in a row, culminating in Allan’s remarkable Australian GP victory in 1939 at Lobethal—his first venture outside his home state. One year later, on his return to Lobethal, it was all over, as the car bounced its way to destruction, flinging the badly damaged driver into Adelaide hospitals for the next six months. He did not race again.
In late 1938 the little Tomlinson team had been frightened by a team of UK speedway riders touring and racing in Australia, when they were told the unknowns from Western Australia had no hope against the eastern states hotshots at Lobethal. They came to see themselves as “Just the Kids from the West.” Fear of failure made them overcompensate, over prepare, arrive in South Australia three weeks before the race, devise a perfect practice and race strategy and win a famous victory.
A ghostly piece of film from Lobethal 1939 shows the long, lean, youthfully earnest form of Allan Tomlinson rushing past a bunch of cars including the fastest car in the race, Jack Saywell’s GP Alfa Romeo, then just three years old. John Snow’s Delahaye was one of the fastest sports/racing cars in the world at the time, and he too found himself outdriven by the little cart-sprung MG from the West.
The 1940 accident and a young family ended Tomlinson’s racing career, although he served his time as an official and was a steward at many major Western Australia events.
Those who met Allan later found a warm, friendly, charming, honest and decent man whose modesty, self-effacing good humor and ready wit endeared him to all. Ever the engineer, Allan was able to recall the most extraordinary details of his great days with that MG, and happily shared them. It was both a privilege and a pleasure to know him
The funeral invitation described him as “A Great West Australian”. While that is true, he was also a great Australian and a great human being.
By John Medley
