All Set For The 51st AKA Nationals
| from AKA / karting.net.au | 28 March 2013 |
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As they say in the famous movie Field of Dreams ‘build it and they will come’ and that is exactly what has happened with the Monarto Karting Complex.
Following a decade of planning, hard work, sweat, and sometimes tears, the venue will host the ‘jewel in the crown’ when it comes to Australian karting with the National Championships being contested at the venue this Easter long weekend.
Nathan Burgess is the President of the Go-Kart Club of South Australia, one of two clubs who combined to build the venue last decade, and he’s more excited today than when he was on Christmas Eve as a child.
Above: Go Kart Club of SA's President, Nathan Burgess, at the Monarto circuit
pic - AKA
“It doesn’t get much bigger than this in terms of events for Australian karting, this is the event we’ve been working towards for five years now and it’s all upon us this weekend,” said Burgess.
“Not only does an event like this exposes our sport and our facility to people from all across our state but it also shows to the interstate visitors what the Murray Bridge region has to offer in terms of a tourism destination.
“In the lead up to this event we’ve been able to construct new clubrooms overlooking turn one and make a lot of other improvements around the facility to cater for the requirements of holding such a big event.
“The facility was designed to hold big race meetings. In the five years since it opened we have successfully hosted two State Championships but our focus has been on the Nationals from the beginning. We officially won the right to host the event in August 2011 and it has been all go since then.”
Burgess says that while members who have volunteered their time have carried out a lot of the work, there has been a lot of support from the local business.
“There has been a dedicated band of members who have worked tirelessly to get the venue to where it is today, but also without the assistance of local businesses there’s a lot of things that we just would not have been able to achieve,” said Burgess.
“The list is long but there are a number of local companies that we can not thank enough. These include Carter Property, Alpha Industries, Mollydooker Wines, Crystal Paving, NB Graphikart, Murray Sales, Rin-Pra Produce, G Force Security, Boral Quarries, Longs Sand and Metal, Moore Engineering and Plant Hire, Senwill Civil, Spry Earthmoving and Miller Electrical.”
While the planning and development is one thing, the logistics of such an event also plays an important role. Burgess says this in itself has provided some interesting moments.
“We have ordered 40 boxes of hot chips which works out to 600kg of potato for the weekend, which normally wouldn’t be an issue but then we faced an issue of how we were going to keep everything cold given that the whole world shuts down over Easter. Luckily Coorong wholesalers have allowed us to use some of their freezer space for the weekend,” said Burgess.
“As well as that we have booked out every room at the Adelaide Road Motor Lodge for our travelling race officials. We also had to transport more than 500 metres of temporary fencing that the Murray Bridge Council had kindly supplied for us, as well as portable buildings that we have hired. With out Dave From Rin-Pra Produce this would not have been possible.”
Qualifying at the event, which has attracted some 227 entries from all across Australia across the nine categories, gets underway tomorrow (Friday) and will continue across the weekend before culminating in the championship finals on Sunday. Admission is free for spectators.
The Monarto Karting Complex is located at 3711 Old Princess Highway, approximately 1km towards Murray Bridge from the Monarto Zoo.
