"The TV commentators mention Con-Rod Straight maybe 200 times during the day and I bet that none of them knows how it got its name."
    Clive Gibson is probably right. He also knows how Con-Rod straight got its name. Gibson was there when the first race meeting was held on Mount Panorama in 1938, as a teenager, and after World war 2 he worked on Frank Kleinigs race cars in the 1940s and 1950s.
    According to clive, the straight had initially been referred to as 'Main Straight'. But at the second race meeting, Easter weekend 1939, Frank Kleinig in his Kleinig Hudson started near the rear of the field and about three quarters of the way through the 150 mile (241.4 km) race had passed all but one car, which he was catching fast, when a piston collapsed. The connecting rod then punched a big hole in the side of the block.
    Thereafter, the straight was known as Con-Rod Straight. The printed race programs of the time confirm it: by the easter 1940 meeting (but not before) it bore that title, spelt with a hyphen, not 'Con-rod' as it has come to be used over the years.
    Gibson says the con rod was 'bent like an eight' and it was chrome-plated to keep as a souvineer. He also said that in the early 70's, when the Bathurst Touring Car race had become known to any and every Australian, Kleinig (who died in 1976) brought the rod along to the pub they drank at every week to show it to Clive.
    "A couple of drunks nearby started talking about Bathurst," says Clive. So Frank Produced the rod and Clive told them this was the rod after which the straight had been named, adding ". . . and this man here," pointing to Frank, "is the man who was driving the car."
    "But," Clive told me, "they didn't believe us."
    Some people wouldn't recognise a piece of history even if it jumped up and bit them on the nose.