Ep 218 - Gary Brook - Birdsville Races - Keeping the show on the road

In the first of four podcasts celebrating Birdsville Races 2023 I was joined by Birdsville Races Vice President Gary Brook, who previously featured in Ep 148 – The Birdsville Cup – The Melbourne Cup of the outback. The podcast in two halves begins with an interview in late October 2022 after last year’s meeting, which was severely affected by torrential rain. Gary explains how he and his team managed the monumental task of keeping the two-day meeting on. Although the original opening day was postponed and moved forward to the next day all the races were complete before the sun set on Sunday at the iconic venue. 2nd Half A few grey hairs later Gary recently joined me ahead of Birdsville 2023 to update us on this year’s two-day meeting which is due to start on Friday 1 September with the Birdsville Cup set for Saturday 2 September. With many road closures in 2022 due to the weather Gary is hoping for a larger crowd this year and bigger field sizes.  Plus, Gary explained to me what the Birdsville Races Roadies means. In part 2 coming up in our next podcast you will be hearing from some of those Roadies, 93-year-old Bob Potts, known as Pottsy, and his son and daughter Reggie and Lyn, who are currently on their 900-mile journey to the races. Please subscribe to us on Apple podcasts, Amazon music, Google or Spotify. Connect with us on X, Facebook & Instagram @ThePaddandPav www.stephenwallismedia.com   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices