Excerpt from historical Club Newsletter Here is some more Karting History with a few of the gaps from last month filled in. Early Karting in New Zealand took a different path from other countries due in part to our isolation but mainly due to the strict government import restrictions we had to endure. The first kart built in the United States around 1956 used a two stroke lawn mower motor and small wheels. The first karts built in New Zealand used wheel barrow wheels and usually motor cycle motors. In other countries the karts were run on sealed parking lots until permanent tracks were built but in New Zealand we used paddocks until lime or dirt tracks were formed. I had brought a “high wheeler” (wheel barrow wheels) kart off Denis Churcher for $36.00 with a 70cc Villiers lawn mower motor on it. Denis had upgraded to a ‘space frame’ high wheeler with a 197cc Villiers motor and slick tyres! The club members spent most weekends repairing and preparing the track for a race day that was held once a month. One day Denis and I towed our karts out from town using our push bikes and the willing assistance of a couple of friends who steered them on the end of ropes and helped lift them over the kart club fence. This little prank nearly saw our short memberships come to a premature end after we were “squealed on” by Bill Hawkins (the dump bulldozer driver). We received a severe dressing down from the Club President! In those days a young chap named Dave Waugh used to come up from Wellington to race. He shared his kart with his brother Warren who lived in Napier. Also a horse truck would arrive from the Abbotsford Children’s home in Waipawa with several karts and willing drivers onboard. Nigel Heighway used to pinch the farm water pump motor on his way out the gate, fit it to his kart at the track and return it on his way back home! With ongoing work on the track and the influx of “low wheeled” karts, many with McCulloch motors that didn’t like the lime dust, the club started to make plans for a sealed track. The first Blossom Meeting was held in 1969. It was a Road Race in Mayfair. Some of you will have seen the movie which includes the old girl with the hand bag who walks across the track in front of the karts as they are racing and the kart which catches fire. Denis and I had our entries returned to us the night before the meeting The “Feds” arrived and made it clear that “Juniors weren’t permitted in Road Races!” We raced for the Leopard Junior Cup at the opening meeting on the sealed track and I still have the Trophy. As Laurie has mentioned in the July Newsletter, apart from a rough long drop the only building in those days was a tin shed which was painted in black and white checkers. This was “Race Control” and if the weather permitted we gathered around it at the end of the day for the presentation of the certificates and usually a crate of flagons was picked up from the Fernhill Pub. You hired your glass and brought the beer! At bigger meetings Tony Wallace would get out the 12 string guitar and play the ditties that he’s still amusing us with to this day. The pits were limestone and were over in the corner where the hairpin is now. The first extension to the track was to move the pits to their present position so the hairpin corner could be extended into the corner of the property. We were loathed to spend money on updating the facilities as the lease was a short term one. The problem being that the council could at any time have moved us off to extend the landfill operation. The final closure of the dump (bought about mainly due to leachate concerns over the aquifer) was certainly in our favour. Up until then we had seriously considered buying one of the 10 acre blocks around the corner in Mere Road. These were for sale at the time for $1800.00 each. Peter Fraser and his Company ‘Fraser Shingle’ provided the initiative for most of our major track extensions, curbing work and a complete track re-surfacing. The last extension that was undertaken in more recent times saw the formation of what is now the main straight and the alterations to the pit entry. The concrete block toilets that we are still using today were built by Russell Grant and Brian Gutteridge and the ‘tractor shed’ evolved into the kitchen, bar and clubhouse. This was funded by a striptease night which included the local chief of police. I was told not to insist on him paying the entry fee. There was even a raffle with the stripper as the prize! The current clubhouse was the store and amenities building at the Pan Pac Mill in Whirinaki. It was shifted to it’s present site as separate walls, roof and floor. We relayed the floor and after a club day we all gathered together and stood the walls up. Russell then put the roof on it. There was also a limestone track in Waipawa that was again beside their rubbish dump! When that track closed the land adjacent to the Railway Bridge at the south end of the Main Street was made available and a limestone track was built there. Before this was used Bob Turner of the Napier Rovers Kart Club joined forces with Brian Lawton who drove a kart around the North Island to promote karting and raised enough money to seal the track. The track was sealed and high wheelers were then banned. This caused a rift involving most of the members so they formed the Central Hawkes Bay Kart Club and built a limestone track on Skim Hutt’s property beside the Tikokino Bridge. This … Continue reading Part two of a two part story compiled by Mark Jenkinson