Bob Barnard Track Engineering

On the tenth anniversary of his passing Barry is having a lot written about his life, so as I was fortunate to call him a friend I thought I would add some of my recollections. Barry moved to Australia around the time I started my brief career in motorsport in Australia. I was The Engineering Manager for the first Adelaide F1 race in 1985 and heavily involved in all aspects of the event, and eventually as the Operations Manager for the race. Now as most people know Adelaide set a new standard for turning a race into a carnival involving the whole city. One event was the Grand Prix Ball at the Hilton Hotel on I think the Thursday evening. Now I was a bit busy as you can imagine, and a lot tired, having worked for nearly twelve months to get the track built and operating. So the last thing I wanted to do was to go to the ball, but it was mandated that we should go and host a table. The organizers stupidly believed that the teams would attend, and had tables arranged for each of them hosted by a staff member. In my case I had the Lotus Team, who of course did not turn up. So my wife and I sat at this empty table until a couple of derelicts headed our way surrounded by cameras and the press.

Now Barry was renowned for not dressing as required for these type of functions, and his friendship with George Harrison was also well known, but not by me at the time. So imagine my surprise when these two under dressed individuals turn out to be Barry and George. They sat at the other side of the circular table and never spoke a word to us. So much for my fifteen minutes with fame.

After this Barry and I did get to meet with George in pit lane for the GP, and in his role as a Channel Nine commentator we met often, and travelled to overseas races on the same planes with Darrel Eastlake. Their presence livened many a trip as you can imagine, especially to Japan as Barry hated them with a passion. He would purposely start a line at some unattended counter in Narita airport with his baggage cart just to see how many of them would line up behind him. He had a line right across the concourse one day. It was always fun to let Barry go through the metal detector first as he had so much in him it would always set if off.

Small things come to mind, like him smoking Gauloise but always biting off the filter. One trip he had a bunch of CDs just loose in his inside jacket pocket that he got Mamasan to play in the "Rog Cabin" in Suzuka. He always had at least on female in tow, and often two. Stephanie must have been a very understanding wife.

My lasting impression is of someone who was just fun to be around. He loved and lived life. He may have seemed like he played the fool, but he certainly was not one. He managed himself and cultivated his image to make himself one of the most recognized personalities, even in Oz. He managed his own affairs, and was one of probably very few sportsmen who end up with money put away at the end of their career. His love of Gauloise finally got to him, but we can all learn from him about how to live it while we have it. RIP Barry.