South Australian sidecar ace Alf Goodwin won three Australian Sidecar Championships with passenger Wayne Kearvell in the seventies, including the Junior/Unlimited double at Tivoli Park in Ipswich (QLD) on 23 August 1970.

Goodwin-Kearvell dominated the sidecars at the start of the seventies on an Arab-framed Jawa outfit, winning back-to-back Junior Australian Sidecar titles at Clarendon on 12 September 1971.

What’s amazing is that the pair beat Australian sidecar legend Murray Williams for these titles, who went on to win a record nine Australian motocross championships in the sidecar class.

And when Goodwin-Kearvell beat Williams, he was in top form having just won the Junior/Senior double at Collie in 1968 with Herb Castle in the chair to notch up four Australian Championships.

But possibly William’s slide during Goodwin’s reign highlighted the importance of teamwork in sidecar racing, with Williams changing his passenger three times in three years after Herb Castle retired from the sport – Michael Trevena (1969), R.Courtenay (1970) and his brother-in-law – the late Des Rettig (1971).

Goodwin-Kearvell absolutely blitzed the sidecar fields at the 1970 National Championships in Queensland, tearing away from the field at the start on their Jawa to easily win both classes.

While two-strokes such as Bultaco were tried in outfits around this time, so too were the larger four-stroke vertical twins which were to eventually take over the sidecar class in the late seventies and eighties, including the British Triumph and Norton engines.

Victorians Robert McDonough and Don Denver were second in the Unlimited and third in the Junior Sidecar classes on a Bultaco, respectively, with Williams – Courteney finishing third in the Unlimited on a Jawa.