Boy racer grew into a gentleman driver

It began nine years ago with an old, beat-up HQ Holden.

Aged just 18 and straight out of high school, Ashley Cooper stumbled across it at the Oran Park truck races selling for $3000.

“What do you reckon we buy it?” he asked his dad.

A year later, with little more than a full tank of petrol, Cooper and his Holden finished second in the NSW HQ racing championships.

It would start a love affair with motor racing that this week left not just a family, but an entire community, devastated by the tragic loss of one of their favourite sons.

“He was a thorough gentleman,” father Alan Cooper said from Royal Adelaide Hospital yesterday.

“He was not only my son, he was my best friend. He changed my life. I model myself as a father off him — that is how much he impacted me.”

Mr Cooper last night revealed his family had donated Ashley's organs, potentially saving the lives of seven gravely-ill people.

The 27-year-old father of two died on Monday after sustaining head injuries in a high-speed accident during the first race of the Clipsal 500 V8 Supercar series in Adelaide on Saturday. The rookie had taken his first steps to becoming a national star but he was still an Ulladulla boy to the core.

He went to the local primary and high schools where he made friends that became some of his most dedicated crew members.

At Ulladulla High he also met his future love. Partner Casey and their two children, Ella, 5, and Bailey, 3, were the only loves he placed more highly, and was more dedicated to, than his passion for V8 Supercars.

He got a brief taste of that dream at the weekend. On Friday night, after the qualifying rounds, he was itching to get back on the track. To do better. To push the car harder and faster.

After graduating from the HQs, Cooper moved on to the Saloon class before going into the Commodore Cup. In 2006 he became Rookie of the Year in the V8 Utes. He raced in the 2007 Fujitsu series before buying his own car — the Paul Morris Motorsport-built VZ Commodore called Astro.

The Clipsal 500 in Adelaide was his first race in the new car. Afterwards, he was to have flown back to Ulladulla in time to play in Oz-Tag semi-finals on Monday night in a local competition he helped run for almost 10 years.

While chasing his V8 Supercar dream Cooper managed the family business in credit control.

His dad was the team manager, his mum Maree the caterer and brother Aaron, 21, was perhaps the biggest team supporter.

A funeral will be held in the park next to the Mollymook Surf Club next Wednesday, around the corner from the house he built with Casey.