Gregory Clarke

Inducted into the Shell Rimula Wall of Fame at ReUnion 2011.

Born in February L948, the third child in a brood of eight, and the first boy of Earl and Una Clarke, Greg was probably always destined to become a "truckie". He actually started to drive his father's Bedford milk truck at the age of 11.

ln 1966 Earl began his dream of establishing Clarke and Sons Transport when he purchased his first semi, a red Dodge with a 210 Cummins on board. At age 19, Greg acquired his semi-trailer licence.Those early days were carting timber from Thora to Brisbane, out to the Darling Downs to load grain for the return trip to Wauchope. One night while overnighting at the Rocklea Pub in Brisbane, Earl and Greg heard that Colliers and Davies had the first 2 f86 Volvos in Australia. They left the trailer at the pub, bobtailed to Breakfast Creek and hopped the fence to have a good look with Earl saying, "Nah, you won't be able to get parts for these bloody foreign things". Rather ironic really, because they did buy one of those "foreign" things and at last count have owned a total of 32 Volvos!

ln the aftermath of Cyclone Tracy in 1974, Greg and 2 of his mates were asked to each drive a 1418 Benz and trailer carrying a 38ft x 10ft toilet block from Hughenden to Richmond, a road  with 75kms of black soil. A storm hit and 4 days later they made it to Richmond then on to Darwin. They were the first truckies to make it into Darwin - oh my God what a mess.ln the mid 80s Greg and Therese bought the business from Earl and Una.

These days, after scaling down his business, you will still find Greg driving his new Scania tipper and dog-carting soil and gravel.