CONSTRUCTION of Mount Gambier new pump track at Hastings Cunningham Reserve is on schedule for completion in time to host next month’s two-day Red Bull World Championship qualifier event.
It follows the Mount Gambier City Council foreshadowing a commitment of $18,000 towards the event at Monday night’s Economic and Environment Committee meeting.
The event is expected to bring competitors from all over Australia to the city, which will provide a significant economic boost to the region.
Visually, the track is starting to take shape and councillor Ben Hood could hardly contain his excitement when he visited the site yesterday.
“The whole council are pumped about this, we know that this is going to be really great for the city,” he said.
“To have those two world championship qualifying events here just cements Mount Gambier as a place where adventure tourism is taking off.”
Cr Hood said he could not believe how quickly the pump track had gathered momentum since it was first floated as an idea.
“When I first thought got wind of it, I thought I’d just get on the phone and have a chat with the Velosolutions guys and before you know it, it was all ready to go,” he said.
“They came on board really quickly and were really excited to bring it to Mount Gambier and now we are almost there.”
Velosolutions Australian director Jason Cousins said everything was on schedule to have the track ready for the major event.
“We have been really lucky with the weather, it has only rained on the weekend, so everything has been pretty smooth lately,” he said.
“We are all bike riders, so we are building something we love to ride on and we are at the most rewarding stage where we see it all come together.”
It is the first Velosolutions track built in the country and Mr Cousins said he was excited to see a world-class event held there almost straight away.
“Red Bull has a massive audience and everything they do is good quality, there’s going to be big screens, good sound systems and viewing areas, it’s going to be great,”
What excited Mr Cousins most was the long-term benefits the track would have for the region.
“The long-term recreational use is the biggest benefit because they just get so much use and there is no maintenance,” he said.
“You are going to have families coming here to enjoy it and I think that’s probably the greatest return on the investment lies.”
Mount Gambier Mountain Bike Club president Andrew Jones said the extreme sports community could not wait until the track was finished.
“We started a Mount Gambier pump track Facebook page on Monday night and within 20 minutes we had over 300 likes, so that just shows you how much interest there is,” Mr Jones said.
He said next month’s world cup qualifiers are expected to attract people from all over Australia to try and secure a chance to compete overseas.
“It is a crazy opportunity because the winners get a flight to the world championships in the end and we already have 55 entries for our event and it only opened last week,” he said.
“Red Bull is a successful name and everything with extreme sports or motor sports has Red Bull involved so that should excite people.”
Council have foreshadowed an $18,000 cash and $5000 in kind contribution for the event.
The motion will be voted on at the full council meeting later this month.
