The Gladiator

We all know that life isn’t a bed of roses and, sometimes, we are dealt the cruelest of blows. Don Simpson had spent three years of his life rebuilding a 20-year-old Australian special racing car, the Gladiator Holden. He finally got it performing and was looking forward to the historic race meeting set down for January 30, 1977, at Amaroo Park, northwest of Sydney.

It was the morning of January 18, and Don Simpson was on his way to work in Sydney from his home in the Blue Mountains, west of the city. A normal morning like so many others and, no doubt, Don was considering what else he had to do to his car before the meeting, just twelve days hence. Then, while traveling through the suburbs of Sydney, the train he was riding jumped the rails and hit the stanchions of a vehicular overhead bridge, causing it to collapse onto the latter carriages of the train.