It is with extreme pleasure that the Committee announces tonight, that our new mystery location on the Race Calendar this year is going to be Dargle Motocross Park at Lower Portland on the Hawkesbury River, just an hour out of Sydney. We will be running round 5 and round 8 there.
For those of you who don’t know Dargle’s history, during the 70s & 80s it was one of, if not the best natural terrain motocross track in NSW, situated in a picturesque valley, right on the Hawkesbury river. Many of our club members who raced motocross around Eastern NSW back then, spent many a happy day ripping around this great track. It was home to many open meetings and championships, including the National Motocross titles in the early 80s, and a favourite of many riders. Unfortunately, in the late 80s, the Smith family who own the land, decided for family reasons to close the track to the public, and it was only used now and then for an occasional motocross school, with that main track falling into disrepair over the years.
The great news is that the Smith family have been gracious enough to agree to allow some of our members assist them in bringing this track back to its former glory, have it re-licensed by MNSW and run a select number of race meetings per year on it. Utilising 70% of the ‘original’ track layout, and adding a large grass track section, the new Dargle track layout will be longer than the original, with a combination of loamy dirt, sand and grass, and the obstacles will be as they were back in the 70s and 80s.
This is a ‘breakthough development for VMX in NSW, bringing back to life ‘The Spiritual Home of NSW Motocross’, and the first competition meeting at this new venue will fittingly be a Vintage Motocross Race, that being Heaven VMX rnd 5 this year.
We have to give a huge thanks to ‘Middo’ David Middleton (24), for his role in making this possible. David has been working tirelessly with the owners of the property for some months now, planning how this might happen and assisting them in investigating what was involved. He introduced the opportunity to Heaven mid last year, and has been instrumental in Heaven VMX getting involved where we now have this unbelievable opportunity.
We’ll keep you posted as to the developments. The restoration work has begun, the irrigation system is in place, earthworks has begun, the old control tower is almost restored and MNSW have been assisting in the planning. There is quite a list of tasks to be done in the next 5 months for the track to be ready for licensing. The building of a start gate, preparation of the track markers, building of the marshaling, fencing repairs & the 100s of other jobs required to have it ready. If anyone wants to assist, let us know, and we will put you on the list for when we arrange working bees.
Vintage Motocross is alive and well in NSW!
Our very own Vice President Bob Beverly riding it as a Junior
