WARRNAMBOOL BMX Club unveiled its new Jetty Flat Reserve track on Sunday with an eye to future additions.
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The club used its annual classic to showcase the state-of-the-art facility.
More than 120 riders competed in the classic, including 26 entrants in a bumper 14+ male class.
Warrnambool club president Luke Pretlove said the start gate was the first of its kind in the southern hemisphere.
“It’s an imported gate system from the Netherlands,” he said.
“It is sold all through Europe and from what the club could read into getting a gate system, this was the safest one we could find in the world and the most efficient.
“Today is its first really big test after only getting the power on Thursday. So far it’s all good.
“It has an air ram on it which lifts it up and and also pulls it down. It is hooked up from a control box which has voice commands which is all UCI regulated with the random starts, so it is the same as you’d have at the Olympics or world championships.
“We found something that was a bit safer than our old system and also very well priced and we worked out we could fit it in our budget.”
The Jetty Flat Reserve track features a traditional layout with 180-degree turns.
Ex-Warrnambool club member and former BMX world champion Ash McCutcheon designed the 370-metre track.
Pretlove said it was modernised.
“It is all run on a transponder timing system which is probably another big advancement from the old track,” Pretlove said.
“I think we are the only track which runs three transponder loops in Australia.
“It used to be all by pencil, people used to pencil in the numbers as people cross the line or we’d have pointers.
“For a bigger event we’ll run transponders and for our club days go back to the old system.”
Pretlove said the BMX club, which still has to demolish buildings at its former Queens Road track, would now turn its attention to landscaping, hand rails, lights, bitumen turns and a car park.
“There is still lots of work to do but we are up and running as a club again I suppose,” he said.
“We can get practice and racing under way and all the other things will come along.”
justine.mc@standard.fairfax.com.au
