IT was smoking hot action at this year’s Malanda Lions Queensland Titles Billy Cart Race with enthusiastic crowds coming from far and wide to experience the ‘gravity of the occasion’.
Now in its sixth year, the hugely popular event was held at Malanda on the Atherton Tableland over the weekend of August 16-17, 2014.
Competitors came from as far away as Townsville, Cairns, Mossman and all over the Tablelands to enjoy fantastic weather and join in on all the excitement at the aptly named English Road “Gravity Dome”.
Tablelands Regional Council Deputy Mayor Councillor Geoff Stocker officially opened the event and welcomed all the crowds and competitors including young contenders and the “ones who should know better”, in reference to more senior competitors. This year’s oldest race participant was 77 while the youngest was just six year old.
The strong attendance of competitors and spectators was even better than last year.
Made of wood, pipe and even fibreglass, billy carts of all shapes and sizes were there in full force, from the simpler basic constructions to the more elaborate, with some billy carts containing so much metal that you could have constructed a full set of cattle yards out of them!
New to this year’s gravity racing program was ‘Stand Up’ in which competitors can choose either a long or a cruiser board to compete with, standing as you race down the track. Stand Up is just one of the five sections of gravity sports, the others being - Billy Carts, G Bikes (Gravity Bikes), Luge, and Racing Trikes.
As well, there was a new section this year - ‘Match Racing’ which enabled competitors to select who they wanted to race against. This section proved to be very popular because competitors got many opportunities to race down the track.
Police armed with their radar gun were eager to clock official speeds with Liz Schmidt being the fastest for the billy carts with 54 km/hr and the fastest luge being 78 km/hr from a rolling start.
Local Glynn Morice originally kicked off the idea of having a billy cart race six years ago. Since then the concept has gathered momentum. Glynn was President of the Malanda Billy Cart Racing Committee for four years, followed by Barry Young. This year Denny Arsic has taken over as Race Coordinator.
The Malanda Lions have the Queensland Billy Cart Titles, there is no other billy cart race in Queensland that has the title event. Malanda Lions member Barry Young first had a billy cart when he was thirteen years old. Such was the popularity of the ‘up and coming” Queensland Titles event this year that his billy cart was stolen on the Saturday of the Malanda Show, and taken for a joyride. It was fortunately found on the following Tuesday with only minor damage.
Crowd favourite seven year old Malik Smith is the youngest competitor in the world for Street Luge.
Malik has done the National Street Luge Tour with the Queensland Titles in Malanda being the fifth event that he has competed in this year. Earlier this year he competed at the Snowy
Mountains, the Blue Mountains, Gold Coast, and the BTB in Townsville in which 90 riders raised $35,000 over the June long weekend for Camp Quality.
Malik’s Dad, Aych “Herman” Smith is fifth in Australia for Street Luge and third in Australia for Classic Luge.
The whole family came up from Cairns especially for the Malanda Queensland Titles.
“It’s our second year here and we’re really excited, this is awesome!” Malik’s mother Kay Smith said.
“It’s a really good bonding sport.”
Liz Schmidt won this year’s Celebrity Cup. It was Liz’s first time ever in a billy cart.
“It’s very exciting, it’s a wonderful event for the community and has been very well run. I will be back next year,” she said.
