Dubbo & the Gilgandra Speedway

With the move overseas coming up later this year, Tarz wanted to do some more visits to the relos and this time it was off to Dubbo for the weekend. Now as stinking hot as Canberra has been, Dubbo was much hotter and heaps drier. This of course makes sense given Dubbo’s location in central-west New South Wales, but just because it was expected it doesn’t make it any easier to tolerate.

Anyway enough ranting about the weather since its something I can’t change anyway…..yet.

So in a nutshell, we spent the weekend hanging out with Tarz’s sister Melissa and her hubby John and the two boys, Joe and Tom. Nice and relaxing and pretty fun getting to muck around with two little guys aged 4 and 2. Just like playing with my nephews!!!!

The highlight of the trip was the Saturday night trip to the Gilgandra Speedway. As a born and bred Canberran, I had ample opportunity when younger to attend the speedway at Fairbairn Park or Tralee or wherever the hell it used to be, however not once did I head out there. Car racing has never really been the peak of excitement for me let alone watching cars scream around a 400m oval track made of mud and dirt.

Anyway, we drove the 50km to the Speedway which is located on the Dubbo side of Gilgandra. On the drive over there I had this vision of a high tech racing stadium with grandstands and replay screens and super facilities etc. Don’t ask why I envisioned this but I did. I should have realised that Gilgandra isn’t really a thriving example of a big city. We pulled off the highway and into the dirt carpark and I saw the ‘grandstand’ which was a grass/dirt hill all the way around the track. Luckily for Tarz and I, Melissa had brought us fold out seats. So there we were sitting on the hill with all the country folk waiting for the racing to begin.

Even though I'm not the biggest car fanatic, I really enjoyed the evening. The track is supposed to be heavily watered to keep dust down but in this drought they could only put a bare minimum of water down. So as the cars went around, dust was churning and these semi-hard mud balls would fly from the rear wheels right into the crowd.

We probably saw about 20-25 different races of all sorts of different classes of car from juniors (13-16 years old) right up to the NSW State Championships for the Super Sedans. My favourite would have to be the Fender Benders. You basically take any car that has less that 8 cylinders, throw a roll cage in it and away you go. Bumping and spinning other cars is allowed and I believe it is encouraged in this class.

So after five hours of country-style racing entertainment, we left the track at around 11pm. I was still in a singlet and boardies and still sweating – that should give you an idea of how hot it is out west in Australia.

In summary – if you get a chance to do something you have never done before go ahead and do it because you never know how much fun you might have. Even if it is stinking hot.