Combined Districts Karting Club

Presidents Report August 2016

There has been a lot going on at Lithgow.

Repairs to the clubhouse roof have been carried out to solve some leakage issues, Thanks to club members Dave Freeburn and Mark Lowing for volunteering to help.

Quite a few dangerous trees have been tidied up around the clubhouse thanks to the efforts of new club and committee member Corey Gurney with the help of Ben and Graeme.

There have been some recent improvements carried out on out IT system to make it more stable (thanks Dallas Beatie) and some more cabling work is planned.

Tenders have been sent to prospective contractors to re surface out race track, dependent on the outcome of this process we hope to have the track re surfaced in November this year.

From the July race meeting we have decided to keep some consistency with the race order. We will try to keep the race order the same every meeting (where possible) while rotating the first class to last at the next meeting. For the remainder of this year we will rotate between qualifying and computer grid each alternate meeting.

There are now 4 rounds to go for the club championship with the Cadet, Junior and Senior Champions all receiving a great prize, free entry to all CDKC club days in 2017 plus free lunch and morning tea. Please don’t forget you must do (or have a delegate do) a full days volunteer work for the club and fill in the Club Champion sign on sheet, this will be in the canteen on race days.

One of my goals as CDKC President is to increase the number of Karter’s racing at our meetings, we would love to get back to the point that we need to run on both Saturday and Sunday for club days.

I believe that the introduction of new engines and their now proven performance, reliability and consistency will be a solid platform to build Karting numbers and be more sustainable long term. Replacing of the 1980s technology has caused Karting some pain but was long overdue.

As always we need your lots of helpers to run efficient race meetings and keep our venue in good condition. We are currently in desperate need or some more people to help with timing, leaning to use the CMS system is not difficult but does take a bit of time (great place to watch the racing from though).

We always need some volunteers for the canteen and if there is any other job that you would like to take on with any of our projects please let me know.

As I was elected President recently I thought it may be a good idea to let you know who I am.

I have been around karts from the late 60s when my dad Col Becker was racing. I started racing in 1977 in Junior International and raced at the first meeting held in NSW for Juniors. I raced karts until 1987, and along the way I was lucky enough to win 3 Australian Championships and had the opportunity to race in Hong Kong and New Zealand. I then decided I wanted to be a “racing car driver”, I had a moderate level of success in Formula Ford, HQ’s and Production Cars before returning to Karts again from 1998 to 2003. I again came back as a “Kart Dad” in 2008.

From a Governance and management point of view, I have run a successful mechanical repair business since 1991 and also have held several Non executive roles; I am currently the Chairman of Capricorn Society Ltd and a Director of Capricorn Mutual and I am a fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. I hope I can put some of these skills to good use as President.

See you at the track

Russell Becker