IT has been over 18 months since the Junior Motorcycle Club held its final meeting at McNamara Park and the hunt for a replacement home continues into 2020.
The club’s lease at Mount Gambier’s iconic motorsport park ran out at the end of June, 2018 with no chance of renewal and it has not had a permanent venue since.
Richard Humphries has taken over the reins of president and backed by a strong committee is hopeful the club will secure a place to call its home ready for the 2021 season.
Dates and venues have already been locked in for this year, with a grass track series set to kick off on April 19 and run until the first weekend in October.
The season will go out on a high note with its annual two-day event at the Millicent Show on November 6 and 7.
Last year’s stadium cross event was a huge success and feedback received suggests it was the best so far, with motions put in place to improve it even more this year.
The committee has already met in the new year and is ready to push the club to new heights this season.
One big change for the club is a switch of insurer, which Humphries said will cut the costs for families involved in the sport.
“We have just recently signed to a different insurer through Australian Motorcyclists Association,” he said.
“We have moved away from Motorcycling Australia to make it more affordable for families to come and ride.”
But of course the main priority for the club is to secure a location for a new track.
“Obviously it is not ideal doing grass tracks,” Humphries said.
“Ideally we would like to get back to where we were in the Mac Park days and have an actual motocross facility.
“We have already spoken as a committee and this year our priority is to have somewhere we can call our home – that is our biggest thing.”
Humphries said the club has been in contact with Grant District Council and hopes a solution can be found.
“So far Council have been very helpful,” he said.
“Hopefully we can continue a relationship with them and they can help us as well as us helping them in the long run.”
Having a licensed motocross facility in the Mount Gambier district would not only benefit the Junior Motorcycle Club itself.
“One of the key things about having our own track is we could potentially pull down some state and national races,” club treasurer Jon Conti said.
“That would bring great economic benefit to the region.
“People come down and stay for the weekend – booking out hotels and eating at the restaurants – it is a really good stimulus for Mount Gambier.
“It adds a notch to the current extreme sport opportunities you have in Mount Gambier.”
With the popularity of the Legend of the Lakes Hill Climb, Borderline Speedway, downhill mountain-biking and now the pump track facility – to name just a few – the return of a motocrosss track would widen the Blue Lake city’s “extreme” sport demographic even further.
However, establishing such a facility from scratch comes with its difficulties.
“It is pretty hard to find a location because obviously they are noisy, but people have got to understand we only race probably eight to 10 times a year and it is during the hours of 9am to 4pm,” Humphries said.
The club currently has some feelers out regarding potential locations and will push hard for a venue in the early stages of the year, in order to have an established facility by 2021.
Humphries believes that is an achievable goal and is confident in his committee, which has almost doubled this year with 14 members, including himself and vice presidents Kelvin Cook and Rob Marcus.
With ideas from the successful Borderline Speedway committee, Humphries hopes to see similar results for the motorcycle club.
“I have been involved with the (motorcycle) club for two years,” he said.
“I got involved when my son got into motorbikes and pretty much since he started I have been around and been on the committee.
“I am on the committee at Borderline Speedway and I have seen how that runs.
“They have a very well run club and I just wanted to bring a bit of that over to the Mount Gambier Junior Motorcycle Club.”
With membership around the 60-70 mark last year, Humphries is optimistic that can grow even more.
“Hopefully we can boost that to around 100, being now affiliated with the Australian Motorcyclists Association,” he said.
But right now the focus is on finding somewhere to begin a new era for the club and lay the foundations for future generations.
