Fun Trivia
Official Soundtrack
The Soul Purpose is a weekly show aired on Radio Fremantle 107.9 FM. It invariably provides the background music played during our weekly sessions of Fast5! and has thus been designated the Official Soundtrack.
The Soul Purpose presenters Jim Peas, Dan Dalton and The Tea King play 100% vinyl across all the groove-based genres of Funk, Afro, House, Disco, Hip Hop, Latin, Soul, Jungle, Reggae & Dub.
Catch it if you can. The show airs from 5pm to 7pm on Saturdays, but you can listen to previous episodes of the show by accessing the website: radiofremantle.com.au.
​Special characters
Benny & the Jets
​Benny is a complex character – one who has evolved over the years – and ranks fourth in seniority behind the three founders of Fast5! Originally, he was an old Mercedes ride-on toy car, semi-parked under one side of the table in order to catch stray balls, usually balls that hit the net and rolled off the table. When the historic venue at The Hilton was refurbished, Benny morphed into a small but impressive brown leather armchair, and his role soon became multi-faceted. Benny still indulges us founders by catching stray balls (indeed, more effectively than in his previous incarnation), but he also serves as a butler (by generously accommodating the sweat towel of one of the players) and a subtle adjudicator: the exact position of a ball coming to rest along the join between Benny’s backrest and the seat can be interpreted in a number of ways, and can potentially settle an argument over the outcome of a rally.​
The Jets, the two uprights supporting the net, are Benny’s offsiders, and materially contribute to the game when the base of one of the Jets prevents a netted ball from falling to the floor. It is possible for an exotic Tonnay to occur if a mishit ball strikes a Jet on the full before ricocheting on to the opponent’s side of the table. In five-plus years of Fast5! competition, however, such a Jettay is yet to happen. Honour-board recognition awaits.
Gaz
Though not a founding member of Fast5! guest player
Gaz made such an impression in his first appearance
that he had a shot named after him. Gaz was inclined to
take summary advantage of a weak shot dished up to
him early in the rally, and punished the shot severely, despite it being too early in the rally to score a point. Refer to the Gaz shot in the Terminology page.
Astrid
The founders of Fast5! do not have the luxury of an official statistician, and therefore record mainly the noteworthy events such as Tonnays, Classics and Siddowns (refer the sample Weekly Scoreboard described below). However, there exists a fictional Scandinavian backpacker called Astrid who also keeps track of incidental happenings during weekly sessions of Fast5! such as underperforming players making unforced errors on the third shot of a rally where there is no penalty. Astrid keeps track of the number of consecutive Tonnays scored by a player. (The Prince, the host at The Hilton, holds the current record of six.)
Pedro
When Fast5! is played at The Gee, a young player called Pedro is usually available to provide a brief warm-up to each of the three participants. Pedro is too young to become a fully-fledged member of the Fast5! crew, but is expected to qualify with the requisite standard well before he comes of age.
Charity points
Occasionally, a player will reluctantly agree to a borderline rally being awarded against them, sarcastically adding that it was a charity point. This has led to accusations that players occupy fictional positions in an Australian company called Silverchain, a not-for-profit that provides in-home health and aged care services. Initially an ironic comment directed at the oldest of the founding members of Fast5! such charity was often sought by the younger founders, in particular one who was subsequently given the status of Sales Manager, one who was forever chasing his monthly bonus. In 2025, he was promoted to the board, and the charity he now receives is called the Director’s Cut.​
Weekly scoreboard
A Weekly Scoreboard has been developed to keep track of notable statistics, especially Tonnays. In the attached sample you will see a typical scoreboard which has carried-forward numbers for Tonnays etc. Without the services of Astrid, there is insufficient time to record all the various happenings, of instances of official Terminology occurring. Ideally, the scoreboard should also serve as a blog, with suggested improvements and potential new Terminology recorded, such as the recently-incorporated "Keep it moving", whereby the loser of a rally sarcastically concedes a point, ostensibly to progress the score of a slow-moving game.
As mentioned above, there is no time to record all Terminology happenings, not unless we acquire a dedicated scorer such as Astrid. The Ceremonial start (the throwing of the ball across the net to begin the first rally) as shown on the top right of the scoreboard is an important part of any Fast5! session, as it is a regular and formal remembrance to the death of the serve.
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A relatively recent innovation, the Weekly Scoreboard is continually evolving, and we expect that other garage environments will adopt a much simpler format.
