EDDIE Battistello's life was a journey that started in Italy and ended in his Warrnambool home 92 years later.

He made the best of opportunity and adversity and left a legacy as a hard worker, self-taught engineer and champion motorcycling and speedway racer.

Born in Molvena on September 29, 1922, as the eldest of eight children, Eraldo Battistello moved Down Under in 1933 with his mother Vittoria and two sisters, Lea and Anna, to reunite with his father Modesto who had migrated in 1926.

In keeping with Aussie custom the name was shortened to Ed, Eddie, Pecca and Batti as he fitted into his new community and culture.

Outside class time at Ayrford Primary School he helped his father cut firewood and cart it to the former Trufood factory at Noorat before venturing into business by purchasing a bulldozer to clear soldier settlement land.

He married Alice (Sue) Barrand in 1942 and lived at Ecklin and later Timboon

Their first child, Terry, died at seven months from diphtheria before Robert was born in 1945, Gloria a year later, and Anita in 1964.

Outside his work and family, Eddie developed a passion for motorsport, starting with motorcycle scramble racing on grass tracks at Mortlake, Cobden, Caramut, Tower Hill, and other venues around Victoria.

"He used to go to the tracks with a trailer-load of bikes - they had rigid frames with girder forks," his son Robert told The Standard.

"He was a Velocette man - there are a few remains of his machines still around."

Road circuits also took his fancy and he raced at Little River, Ballarat, Fisherman's Bend and once at Bathurst until a breakdown forced him to withdraw, but it was TQ midget car racing that took his racing career to a new level.

Starting in 1958 he quickly rose through the ranks and was regularly among the place-getters at national and state title races powered by engines he had built.

"Everything he did he learnt himself," Robert said.

Eddie was among the local pioneers of speedway racing on improvised circuits at the Warrnambool showgrounds and racecourse long before Premier Speedway was built at Allansford.

With his bulldozer he helped construct Laang speedway and was also a volunteer at Premier.

His road cars included several exotic models and he could recall major events by linking them to the type of car he owned at the time.

Business interests expanded after he moved into Warrnambool in the 1960s, firstly in the old Ken Goyen engineering workshop in Banyan Street where he grew into a dealership for Fiat tractors, farm machinery and motorcycles. In the 1970s his business moved to Raglan Parade until selling in 1988.

He remarried and spent the next 20-plus years with Margie in Warrnambool, where he died on June 13.