Mappo’s magic on Australian motorcycle sidecar circuit

Malcolm Mapperson was a household name in Australian motorcycle sport in the 1960s and 1970s.

The daring Premer rider, widely known as Mappo, and his Collarenebri swinger (passenger), Rusty Scrivener, were headline competitors on the Australian motorcycle sidecar circuit, winning titles on major tracks in every state, except Western Australia.

In the 1960s the duo won 25 major championships in four years, including the Australian and NSW sidecar championships three years in a row.

They “did it tough” too, competing at the top level with engines and bikes that Mapperson designed and adapted, with very little sponsorship.

Malcolm Mapperson had two careers – the first as a sidecar rider in the 1960s, and then, after a tree-felling accident, which almost took his life – as a road racer on a machine he designed and built.

Born at Trundle, on May 15, 1938, the son of Mavis and Robert Mapperson, he grew up on the family property, Hartwood, near Tambar Springs, his early schooling was by correspondence with his mother as his teacher. He completed his education at Coolah Central School and returned to Hartwood to work on the property, later becoming a mechanic and sleeper cutter.

He was always passionately interested in mechanics – as a youngster he was making parts for machinery out of scrap, because they were too expensive to buy.

His skill was bolstered by a close association with Gunnedah’s Ted Porter, who was renowned as a motorbike mechanic and engineer.

Malcolm Mapperson (2001) donating his engines and memorabilia to the Gunnedah Rural Museum.

Keen to race, Mappo built his first racing machine from a Triumph frame, with a 12-inch Putch scooter front wheel, a 10-inch Mini back wheel and a six-inch go-kart sidecar wheel. The machine was fitted out with a 1950 Triumph Thunderbird 6500cc twin-cylinder four-stroke motor, finely tuned by Mappo and Ted Porter.

It was the first short-circuit outfit in Australia where the passenger swung behind the sidecar wheel instead of in front of the wheel.

In the tiny Blue Machine, Mapperson and Scrivener burst onto the Australian circuit, setting lap records at almost every major track in Australia, including Oran Park and Amaroo in Sydney, Surfers Paradise and Adelaide and Melbourne International raceways. In one season they won 35 races from 36 starts, finishing second in the other one.

Mappo was living at Premer and working as a sleeper-cutter in 1967 when a tree fell on him, bringing an end to his motorcycling career. He was in hospital for almost nine months.

“I had a broken back, pelvis and right leg and they didn’t think I would ever walk again,” he said in a newspaper interview.

“But as I started getting better, I thought I wouldn’t mind another crack at it.

“I realised I wouldn’t be able to compete on dirt tracks again so I started thinking about designing and building a sidecar for road racing.”

In 1974 he spent around 1000 hours developing and testing his Green Machine. It was fitted with a 1972 H2 750cc three-cylinder and two-stroke Kawasaki engine, tuned on racing fuel, with 36mm carburettors, special porting and exhaust chambers and running on 10-inch wheels and slick tyres.

With ‘Trusty Rusty’ Scrivener as his swinger, the irrepressible Mappo roared back into the big league of sidecar racing.

They won the Oran Park (Sydney), NSW, Victorian, South Australian and Queensland Grand Prix titles and finished third in the Australian Grand Prix at Bathurst’s Mt Panorama, where the Green Machine was clocked at 230kph.

Mappo continued competing until 1982 when he retired at the age of 44, citing the growing expense associated with the sport as a determining factor in his decision.

“Living in the bush, it was always hard to find sponsorship, and although the sponsors I had stuck with me for years, I just couldn’t continue,” he recalled in the interview.

“I remember that to win the Queensland championship, Rusty and I had to compete three times up there – and when we won it, we shared $90. When I retired it took me years to pay back the credit card.”

Acknowledging that racing is a dangerous business, Mappo always believed that racing had a limit as far as risk-taking was concerned, it was better to lose a race or miss a place than to go beyond the limit.

Malcolm Mapperson continued working as a mechanic at Premer, where he and his wife Dorothy raised sons Steven, Barry and David and daughters Linda and Carol.

Mappo and his wife Dorothy moved into Gunnedah in 1998 and in 2001 he donated his road racer, motors and other memorabilia to the Gunnedah Rural Museum.

At the time of Malcolm Mapperson’s death on November 24, 2004, the couple had 13 grandchildren and one great-grandson.