20/05/2025
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CFhWCHo2F/
URGENT RELEASE
Race fans our season has gone from tough to down right miserable, and here's the whole story.
The current promotional team of Barry Pearce, Dave Preston and Sean Butcher have held the lease of the track for the past 6 seasons and have endeavoured through pouring their own sweat, blood, tears and money to facilitate a racetrack in Bundaberg to no gain of their own but the pure love of it.
Last season, part of the concrete wall fell down on the front straight away and after spending $45,000, the wall was back up and we were operating again.
Nearly 12 months later, an identical situation occurred, this time on the back straight away - with another similar bill left in the aftermath.
Speedway Australia visited the venue today to inspect another area of concrete fencing on the front straight away and have deemed it doesn't not meet the requirements of safety for competitors and changes need to be made before we can hold any future events.
We appreciate Speedway Australia's support and respect their decision as we standby the fact that safety is a number one priority.
But with not a lot of time or resources at this point in time, we have called an end to season.
Why are the walls falling? When investigating this ourselves, it would seem that when the concrete was poured in the 90's, it was not done to acceptable standards. No footings, no rio, no mesh.
We are now left with the dilapidated venue and very little money, and as we feared, the lack of future proofing the venue way back when has reared its head once again.
So what does the future look like for Carina Speedway? We are sure it'll be the question on many people's list, however the answer is uncertain.
Our first port of call is assessing the costs for repairing the wall and see what we can do to help improve our venue. But at this stage, we will plan for the future as we fully intend to keep on growing the sport right here in Bundaberg.
We would like to take this time to thank everybody that has and is still supporting us and the speedway.
To our sponsors, who have continually backed and supported us season after season.
To our volunteers who invest so much of their time and passion into this place.
To the fans who show up week in week out, you make this all possible.
And to the drivers, we thank you spending your hard earned money entertaining us on a Saturday night.
We cannot thank you all enough!
End release.
