Don’t take this the wrong way, but the Speedway seems like a very likely way for a Gosnells bogan to familiarise himself with the Claremont area than him becoming part of the western suburbs social scene.
I say familiarise because from what we read the CSK appeared to be comfortable with the area, and if it is BRE, Claremont and Gosnells were polar opposites.
As someone who was around the same age as the missing girls but who grew up with and mostly socialised with others from a low socio-economic area south east of the river, for me frequenting Claremont was as foreign to me as visiting a different country, and on the rare occasions I did, it was with people I didn’t know well but who had at least one connection in that area and every time I felt exceptionally out of place.
I didn’t belong, I wasn’t part of that western suburbs set, I didn’t have a private school education or nice car, none of my family went to uni etc. in fact, I remember being stopped an RBT near UWA one night around the mid-90s and the cop looked at my licence and said words to the effect of, what are YOU doing HERE? You’re a long way from home. I wasn’t really ( certainly not as far as Gosnells) but I was from a very ‘different’ area.
As someone from Gosnells, to go to one of those pubs, even as a bloke on your own, would have been very odd. Why would you go there? (Well, we know why he might have, but yeah).
Even just a couple of weeks ago a friend asked if I wanted to check out the Claremont Quarter, a relatively newish, very upmarket shopping development.
Now I’m grown up with a job and a degree and a house and I immediately found myself laughing off her suggestion that we go there (esp after she told me we couldn’t just wear tracksuit pants, that everyone there had had plastic surgery and wore designer clothes to do their shopping) and I was like “no, no, I’m not worthy! Can’t go there! Belmont Forum for me methinks!”
The point of this is the speedway suggestion seems to be an excellent possible factor. Gosh, they even moved the speedway cos Claremont people didn’t want it there anymore lol can’t have that dirty noisy place in OUR neighbourhood!