Coffs Harbour Kart Racing Club reveals grand designs to create marquee complex
A multimillion dollar cash injection is set to make Coffs Harbour’s kart racing complex the best in the nation, and the ambition doesn’t stop there. Find out more.
Coffs Harbour
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The long-established Coffs Harbour Kart Racing Club has temporarily shut down while work begins on a facility which will make it the envy of the national karting community.
The club won a $2.165 million state government grant and construction is now underway on a clubhouse and substantial track improvements.
The new clubhouse will include a canteen, change rooms, toilet facilities and a second-storey viewing deck capable of giving as many as 200 people a bird’s eye view of the action.
The track will be lengthened to a full circuit of 1060 metres (up from the current 904m).
Crucially, the track will be widened from seven to eight metres.
“That will mean we can have 40 go-karts racing. It will bring us up to international standard,” club president James Morrison said.
The new clubrooms will include a lift, making the facility accessible to all.
Mr Morrison said the upgrade – expected to be complete by late February next year – would add impetus to the club’s bid to secure a round of the 2024 national championship.
“If we can secure that it will see about 400 competitors here for five to six days,” he said.
“It’s a fairly big thing for the town.”
And for the Coffs Kart Racing members too, including eldest competitor, 73-year-old Winston Heywood.
“I’ve always liked speed and the guy who painted my house in Moree talked me into buying a kart,” he said.
Coffs Harbour MP Gurmesh Singh was on hand for today’s obligatory sod turning to signal the start of building works.
“It’s all systems go for this major revamp which will deliver much-anticipated improvements including a grid cover, track extension and resurface, and a pit area upgrade,” he said.
“This is a huge win for the Coffs Harbour karting community and the sporting community as a whole.”
Mr Morrison said the new Coffs facility would be “the best in the country – there’ll be nothing better than what we’re building”.
The Coffs track has long been a tourist attraction in its own right, though the hire kart business at the site wound up about four years ago.
Today, the club caters for its members, who can race from as young as seven years of age.
Mr Morrison said the new track would see gearbox karts reach speeds of up to 140kmh.
“You’ll even see nine-year-old kids doing 100kmh,” he said.
“We’re looking to build something that will take people from karting to whatever they want to do (in motorsport).”
The club’s grant came through the former Coalition government’s Multi-Sport Community Facility Fund.
Mr Morrison has flagged plans to also build two grandstands at the South Coffs sports precinct.
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