THE Wimmera Kart Racing Club is gearing up to hold its first club day in roughly three decades.
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Club president Shane Souter said a club day had been scheduled for September 30.
“We are hoping we can get a successful club day. After we have one off the ground we are hoping it can become a permanent thing and we can have one every couple of months,” he said.
“I think the talks have always been there and we just needed someone to drive it. We have some members in the club now who have jumped on board and done a stewards course. That was part of the reason we haven’t been able to run these in the past because we haven’t had our own stewards.”
Souter said the club had started to take an exciting new direction.
“The club has taken a bit of a new direction recently and people are interested and excited in where we are headed,” he said.
“Because we haven’t done one for about 30 years we are hoping to get a fair bit of support from the community.”
Racing club legend Remo Luciani remembers the last time club days were held.
“It would have been close to 30 years since we had a club day,” he said.
“It was probably the late ‘80s or early ‘ 90s. It’s all due to a lack of members and the cost for permits to put a race event on. We didn’t think it was viable. With the restructure of Karting Australia it is making it possible for us to give it another go. We want to have another sporting attraction once a month for people who are interested in go karts in the Wimmera.”
Luciani said he hopes to see racers gain experience and said that club days are a way to grow membership base.
“The membership base has started to grow and other neighbouring clubs have shown interest in being involved too,” he said
“Club days are always about your own club and its members. We used to have 50 or 60 at club days in the past, and that was quite big then. We are hoping to see those similar numbers and that would be quite good.
“It’s more about the interaction and teaching people, giving those guys the experience and a taste of racing. We want to get more people interested in the sport.”
Souter said he hoped the first club day would be a way to build momentum moving forward.
“Once we get one going we definitely want to run it permanently and grow our membership base in our club,” he said.
“We want to have something locally to offer our members so they don’t have to travel around and so they have locals to compete against. It’s only a $25 registration fee, which is nice and cheap compared to a race meeting.”
Registrations will be available online and on the day.