Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip is from a documentary about the Indigenous participants in the 2005 Tattersall’s Finke Desert Race. It starts with aerial footage of cars and buggies (quads) racing on a dirt road to a soundtrack of heavy metal music. The next scene shows competitor Warwick Thornton speaking to camera about his strategy for racing, his pleasure in participating in the race and his awareness of the need to become healthier, particularly because, as he explains, Indigenous men are at risk of heart attack from their 30s, the youngest of any group worldwide.

Educational value points

• The 460-km two-day race held on the Queen’s Birthday long weekend is an off-road car, motorcycle and buggy race through desert country from south of Alice Springs to the small Aputula (Finke) community and back again. Up to 10,000 spectators camp along the track as more than 300 motorcycles and 90 cars compete at speeds of up to 200 km an hour over rough terrain of ‘thousands of corrugations, dips, washouts and rises, known colloquially as “whoops”’ (http://www.nt.gov.au).

• Top riders take about 4 hours in total to complete what has been called the richest and most difficult off-road race in the southern hemisphere, which now awards two prizes annually, one for bikes and one for cars and buggies, each of $10,000. As well as the publicity generated by the race, local businesses have ownership of the event, which generates income for the region.

• Warwick Thornton (Kaytetye), interviewed in the clip, is also a filmmaker. He is the director and writer of Green Bush, winner of Best Short Film in the Panorama Section of the 2005 Berlin International Film Festival. Thornton’s mother was one of the founders of Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA) and as a young man Thornton worked on a number of the organisation’s radio and film productions.

• Thornton’s awareness of the prevalence of heart attacks within the Indigenous community is borne out by The Health and Welfare of Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Report (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2005), which indicates that the death rate for Indigenous people aged 25 to 44 from cardiovascular disease (coronary heart disease, stroke and hypertensive disease) is 12 to 17 times higher than for non-Indigenous people. Across all age groups cardiovascular disease accounts for 27 per cent of Indigenous male deaths.

• The Australian Bureau of Statistics 2005 report found that while the risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease are the same for the Indigenous and non-Indigenous population, the prevalence of risks was much higher in Indigenous people, reflecting their broader social and economic disadvantages. The risk factors include smoking, physical inactivity, social isolation, depression and lack of social support.

• Black and Dusty (2005) was produced by CAAMA, an organisation established in 1980 to promote Indigenous culture, language, dance and music and to provide training and employment opportunities for Indigenous people. CAAMA includes a film and television production company, radio network, recording studios, a record label and is a major shareholder in the Alice Springs-based Imparja Television.

This clip starts approximately 15 minutes into the documentary.

We see a vehicle racing through the Finke track. There is metal music playing in the background. Cut to a man unloading bikes from the back of a ute. Warwick Thornton is interviewed trackside.

Warwick Thornton I’m getting really excited eh. This is going to be fun. I’ve just got to get there. I’m going to ride down, nice and easy, just at my own pace so I don’t get a snitch or an out pump or fall off my back, and then on my way back I’ll see what position I’m in and then I’ll see how I go. See how I feel, see how I go, so you know, what’s the point not finishing it? 500kms. Bloody $5,000 later, so I want to finish it. So we can all go and have a beer later. Though, you know, that’s what I’m trying to stop – smoking cigarettes, drinking beer, try and get fit. All that sort of stuff. 34 years of age. Heart attack time now for black fellas. For us mob, for male black fellas. We have heart attacks at 30. We are the youngest people in the world to have heart attacks so I think I’ve been abusing my body for 34 years now, so it’s time to get fit. And I’m that mad, I’ll probably have another cigarette (laughs).