Mike Hatchers...Gone

[Ticketyman]

After fighting to keep "Mike Hatchers" Raceway on the Gold Coast open for the last 12 months council in their wisdom decided that the last day of operation would be 12/12/09. Even though in the last 12 months we have complied with councils wishes in the capacity of 1. No more speedway
2. No more senior riders or 450 machines
3. Every junior motorcycle noise tested and made compliant
4. Only limited numbers of bikes on the track at one time.
5. Move to Saturday instead of Sunday
6. Only one training day during the week
7. Shortened the track to remove the bottom corner away from nearest properties
8. And only recently agreed to putting an 8 metre high earth mound around the entire track

As you can see nothing we tried to do was enough for the GC city council led by the all time b;'.*h Margaret Grummit.

This is a track steeped in history having had all of the following spending time on the track, Chris Vermeulen, Mick Doohan, Anthony West, Casey Stoner, Jason Crump and I'm sure plenty more of note. I would like to mention Dawn Critchlow who fought tirelessly for heritage rights to save the club, also Mike Findlay and the clubs president Phil Sherd. All good people fighting for the kids right to ride.

We felt secure 12 months ago as we had binding legislation that said if council were to close the track then another must be given before doing so, guess what as Mayors change apparently so do documents in council, this legislation was no longer available...go figure.

[aardvark]

Poor little critters...

It really burns my arse when people move in next to something that creates a shit load of noise and then they fucken complain about it!

We live under the flight path for the airforce base and it doesn't bother me one bit.

[Stretchy]

This sucks big time, hope something happens as far as a new track soon.

[mike-s]

It's a shame the whole "first come first served" thing doesn't work in society. If it did then there would be a lot more places for raceways, dragways, r/c airfields and other noisy as hell activities.

[Glen]

I feel for your club mate. It sucks when bloody blow in officials/politicians who are probably there for no more than a couple of years make decisions that stuff up clubs etc for life.

When Chris was doing MX the local council promised to find another place for the club so that they could grab the land for an AFL ground (in Sydney ) No one wanted it near them so they now share a track with another club but it's not the same.