News — Four Wheel Drive NSW & ACT Inc.

The Port Hunter 4x4 Club off road race recovery team lent its support to the Hunter Valley Off Road Racing Association at Milbrodale on Sunday 24th May. For the last 22 years, what started out as a couple of club members helping out with crash recoveries, has developed into our own dedicated team which does the recoveries and track marshalling for HVORRA each year. But this event was the inaugural Camp Quality Kids Off Road Race Day and it was a huge success. Kids from just north of Hornsby to the Queensland Border are helped by the Hunter Region Camp Quality Group which operates from its headquarters in Charlestown. It provides a varied program of events throughout the year to give kids with cancer as many happy days as possible and relies on the good will of community groups to put on exciting events for them to participate in. The Kids Race Day was run under full CAMS control, beginning with a safety briefing of our team followed by detailed instructions regarding radio reporting, towing and child returns in the event they could not cope with the conditions of the event. It began with the racing vehicles warming up then doing two laps at race speed as a demonstration for the kids. For the rest of the morning only the kids over 12 years old were allowed to ride around the track. The littlies were given a hay ride behind a tractor and watched the radio controlled nitro cars do their thing in the paddock. When the kids aged 12 and over were togged up in racing overalls and helmets, they were strapped into the navigator’s seats and then driven around the track for two laps at half race speed. Provisions were made for frightened kids to be driven back to the start by our Port Hunter team but the racing drivers’ initial concerns were soon put to rest by the fantastic reactions of the kids as they thoroughly enjoyed some bumps and jumps in the dust along the way. As track marshals, we could hear the kids’ squeals of delight and the drivers told us of them urging them to go faster. The drivers were very professional in their craft and the whole day went with no kids being anything but delighted with their rides in race cars. After the BBQ lunch plus trimmings which were put on by HVORRA, It was the Port Hunter 4x4 team’s turn to drive the under twelves and any mums & dads game enough, for their two laps around the track. This was then followed by the remainder of the over 12’s being taken around the track in these potent race machines. Right to the end, the track marshals saw many grins on faces and returned their happy thumbs up signals. It was apparent at the end of the day, that the event had been a great success. The Port Hunter Team was thanked by the Event Secretary, Marion Baxter for our assistance, and we parted with her stating that she was looking forward to us returning in a couple of months to the next race as the recovery team.