Bill Pearson

You couldn’t get a weirder mix of a bloke than Bill Pearson. Raised at Homebush in what at that time, in the 1960s, was considered the extremities of the Western Suburbs of Sydney, it took only one attendance at a race meeting to set him on the path of lifelong race car follower, participant and motor racing photographer. His jobs included copy boy, newsreel film editor and cameraman, videotape editor and TV workshop manager, ordained Baptist minister serving 14 years in two states (Rev Head), then a full-time professional award-winning taxidermist. (The connection between the last two occupations is life after death!) Next came drug and alcohol counsellor, family community services manager, ending with services manager with a large fiberglass supplies manufacturer.

He taught himself how to do things by himself, sculpt and make his own fiberglass race car parts, all the automotive mechanics those projects involve, and was a skilled photographer with work published on the covers of Auto Sportsman and most other Australian car magazines. He was also a hunter/journalist, becoming a well-known and regular contributing journalist to Australian Sporting Shooter with regular articles and colour covers yet again.

Supposedly retired, he’s just finished building his own two-storey house in the mountains, virtually single-handedly over four years, which has formed just 58 of the over 250 videos uploaded to his WJP004 YouTube channel that is literally watched around the world. Having recently switched from dirt to only tar, his current racing goal is to keep on winning state championships alongside his even more successful son.