November 6, 2014
One of the South Burnett’s youngest sporting clubs has built a brand new speedway track in the heart of Kingaroy for junior motorcycle riders.
The Kingaroy Junior Motorcycle Speedway Club, which was formed in March this year, received a $34,100 grant from Jupiters Community Benefit Fund to construct the 133m track at the Kingaroy Showgrounds.
The oval track features two 28m straights and has been built inside the current speedway track.
Work started on Monday – and 32 truckloads of deco later (about 640 cu m) – the track hosted its first motorbike rider on Wednesday afternoon.
And the result? Kingaroy-based junior rider Cordell Rogerson, 12 – who races on tracks all over Australia – gave it a big thumbs up.
Club secretary Tracey Tunstall said the club hoped to establish an avenue for more young motorbike riders like Cordell to become part of the sport of motorcycle speedway racing.
“After speaking with lots of interested people within our community, the idea was born to start our own club,” she said.
“This will enable local riders to ride in front of a home crowd along with bringing riders in from all over Queensland and interstate to compete and race in a rural environment.
“At the moment, any of our riders have to travel up to three hours to do a practice day.”
The track will only host junior riders – 50cc Pee Wees (ages 4-7), Junior Sliders (ages 7-16) and 250cc (ages 14-16) – and has been built to Motorcycling Queensland requirements.
The club has only been running for a short time but already has about 50 members, including parents and supporters.
President is Simon Rogerson with veteran motorbike race Col Rogerson vice-president.
The Kingaroy Showgrounds used to host motorcycle speedway meetings in the past, but Col believes the last was held in the mid-1980s. Since then, only a handful of exhibition runs have been held.
So the return of the bikes to the showground is quite historic – as is the decision by the new club to use as its slogan “the Home of the Bees”, reflecting a lineage of earlier Kingaroy clubs dating back to the 1930s.
Tracey said there had been a very positive reaction to the formation of the club.
“We had a stall at Motors In Motion and we have also attracted a lot of interest on our Facebook page,” she said.
She said the South Burnett Show Society had been very supportive and the South Burnett Speedway Club had also come on board.
There were hopes that on some occasions the two clubs may be able to hold joint days, with the junior bikes racing in the morning before the cars take over in the afternoon.
Boys and girls aged from 4 upwards can join the new club.
It plans to hold “come and try” days for local riders before Christmas as well as practice days to attract riders from outside the area.
The first official race meeting will probably be held in February.
Club president Simon Rogerson said decisions on the dates would be made at the club’s next meeting on November 10.
Meetings are held from 7:00pm at the South Burnett Motorcycle Rider Training facility at 10258 Bunya Highway, Kingaroy, on the second Monday of every month.
Tracey said a big thank you also had to go to Central and Southern Earthmovers, from Wooroolin, who helped to develop the track.
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