TECT Park Updates

Tauranga Motorcycle Club has a new home.

It’s noisy, full of dirt and nestled in the TECT All Terrain Park and most importantly, it’s a place the Tauranga Motorcycle Club can call home.

The club happily marked the end of a long journey with a special open day on 1st February 2015 with Tauranga City and Western Bay of Plenty mayors Stuart Crosby and Ross Paterson cutting the official ribbon.  From start to finish the club has spent nearly two years planning and developing the track after signing the lease of the 40-hectare section of land from Western Bay of Plenty District Council in February 2013.

It’s really exciting to finally have a home base,” says Tauranga Motorcycle Club treasurer Nicki Blake. “A huge amount of hard work has gone in behind the scenes.”

“For the last four years, since I joined the committee, the club was hiring Maddix Park to run events and for two years the Tauranga club hasn’t held any race rounds.”

Since signing the lease it’s taken a fair amount of effort and time to bring the vision to fruition, including bulldozer time to clear scrub and push out dozens of stumps, building the start lines, rollers sections, drop offs and table tops not to forget an awesome mini track. But the club believes the end result will become one of the premier motocross venues in the country.  Nicki says Sunday’s fun day and official opening was a great event with 175 riders testing out both the purpose built mini and senior motocross tracks.

The day got off to an emotional start with the club members paying their respects to 14-year-old rider “Trent Haywood” #323, who tragically died last June at the Godfrey Memorial Motocross event, with all mini, junior and senior riders completing a slow lap of the new tracks.

Looking forward, the club will now offer a spring-summer racing series along with racing one Sunday per month coupled with a practice session on a Saturday.

TECT All Terrain Park manager Bill Wheeler says it’s an “absolutely fantastic” addition to the park’s overall makeup.  “It’s an awesome track and purpose built,” says Bill. “Everybody had a wow of a time at the opening, even though there was the odd shower throughout the day.”  Tauranga City and Western Bay of Plenty mayors Stuart Crosby and Ross Paterson Photos: Jody Beattie.

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