It’s about halfway through the working day and Mr Crack has a blue beanie pulled down over his head, a thick white mustache rests prominently on his upper lip.

Classical music spills low onto the quiet streets from the car radio.

“Not a bad morning this one,” he said.

“There’s no wind, the papers are a bit bigger too.”

The back seat of the car is strewn with them – copies of the day’s Examiner spilling from large black bags, individually wrapped in their own clear plastic to protect them from the elements until keen subscribers shuffle onto their lawns, driveways, and porches a little later in the morning.

Perhaps once the sun is up.

Crack rearranges some of the cargo for easier access and sits back in the driver seat, heading down through the city centre and out across the North Esk River towards Newnham – his run, and one of many that weave their way across Launceston and its surrounds seven days a week.

“This used to be a second job for someone when I was say a kid… and a bit older,” he said as the indicator flicked right to turn off the East Tamar Highway.

“I came to the industry, say 20 years ago, and it turned into a full-time job.

“I was a contractor and I turned it into a full-time job.

“Whereas in the past people would pick up a paper run out of a news agency, do it for six months – get enough to go on a holiday, buy a couch, or do what they want to do – we don’t turn over our drivers like we used to.

“And they’re hard to get... good ones are hard to get.”

Crack himself has been throwing papers for 24 years now, starting out as a contractor for local news agencies in 1994.

It’s been even longer if you count the time he spent doing it as a boy.

Now he works as a distribution supervisor, collecting bags of papers from the print centre after 1am to deliver himself, coordinating with other drivers to ensure papers get to where they need to go, and dropping off the few that may have been missed.

Those initial contracting years were tough, he said.

“I worked six days a week from ‘94 – 2006 without break.

“It was pretty hard socially.”

Prior to that Crack worked as cable joiner with the Postmaster General's Department, which would later become Telstra.

In 2006 he came on board with The Examiner – four weeks of annual leave a big draw card.

He plans to use some of that time soon to take a new teardrop caravan down to Cockle Creek at the edge of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area.

“I do dabble in leadlights too.”

The car passes another sitting stranded on the shoulder: it’s been there over a week.

Then, suddenly, the run is on.

Pulling off the road Crack drops a paper onto a driveway, checks his mirrors, reverses out, and throws a second over the roof into another yard.

“This one here that I’m going to go and do now is a Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday only paper,” he said.

“There is no right or wrong way to do a paper run, what you got to do is get them out.”

There may be no right or wrong way in general, but every driver develops their own methods.

“I’ve got a preference for throwing out the right-hand side of my car.”

Part of Crack’s method is a certain flow – a kind of rhythm – scored by soft classical music today, but sometimes a favourite artist like Nick Cave or Tom Waits.

“I can’t be driving around listening to them all the time though,” he said.

As the car weaves through the darkened streets, he is looking for markers: particular coloured cars, elaborate gates, a camper van, a substation mounted high on a power pole.

Too early and you might hit a guide wire, dropping the paper onto the footpath or into the gutter – vulnerable to be pinched by anybody; too late and you might land it in a tree or a neighbouring yard.

He knows the street numbers but he doesn’t think of them as he drives.

“When you get to know your run it becomes habit.”

“How do you know when to throw it?” he asked.

“It’s like the spot just opens up.”

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