Just a heads up on something I have been dragged in to and happy to support. If anyone knows the area of the Westgate shopping centre, it is located at the end of the North Western Motorway. Recently there have been a few "issues" with the local 'car enthusiasts' (tonight recorrected from
'boyracers') with people meeting up in groups to socialise, illegally street race or whatever was on the agenda of the night. It had come to the attention of the management and neighbourhood of the area. In an effort to try and reduce the problems that come with speeding and noise levels etc etc, the management group have decided to try and work something out. As the westgate area will be under very very LARGE development over the next year or so to make it a huge shopping centre, they were confident enough to meet with the surrounding areas neighbours and to try reduce the problem.
In this effort, a few of the younger members who were involved in the west meets or whatever you wish to call them, drags or whatever the case, have come forward also putting their hands up to try and reduce the problems. We all knew that we didn't want to make the oldies jump out of bed at night from the sounds pumping through expensive car audio gear or the shock and waking of crying babies from opening of external wastegates etc, so the problem was to be reduced and here is what has come up.
As the westgate management own a very large part of land and access to a 'descent' whack of money, they are now in research for a proposal of the build of a, shall we say a place to go.
Tonight held the first meeting, organised by one of the younger representatives (by word of mouth, a hell of a lot of texting, and flyers) to invite many of the west auckland youths who were in to cars or came about to meet during the week to "socialise".
This in not such a great effort, brought to the meeting the 'dedicated few' who come out every week to 'socialise' mid week with their cars. So a descent turn out of about 30 youths came about and went in to a meeting involving some of the management staff.
So in short, the proposal of building a successful race venue? was on the cards, although we are not guranteeing any over night dragstrip featuring the best, but we will continue to use this as a very SERIOUS on going project with the help of some good funding and management from the Westgate Centre. Although nothing is official yet, we are yet to do some serious research in order to make sure the foundation is layed with the support of the many out there who wish for this to project!
Land is available and so is a bit of funding, although NO ONE party ever pays for the whole project, so along the way hoping to pick up sponsors and other ways of funding the project, we have come to the beginning of something very very SERIOUS. The same thing that maybe going through your mind was going through mine, whilst sitting there in the meeting, thinking, the governments tried, the auckland city councils tried, the mayor have tried, and many thousands have tried to get something sorted out so that we have some alternative to Meremere - Champion Dragway.
We discussed, a few things, who we are, (in representation to those many aucklanders who go out in the weekends and sit within the car scene and import culture - which also include those so called boyracers or street racers)
Along with what we would be looking at interms of a dragstrip being built, discussion of safety, management, maintenance, and needs of everyone including racers, spectators and neighbouring residents.
So thats it for now, although in the coming weeks, we are to carry out a few surveys, and get as much information as possible, and IF IT DEEMS LIABLE that we have a good team of support (EVERYONE reading these forums), then we have a very strong case as the finance side of things look fairly half happy.
For this reason, I believe with the support of many thousands who want a track out in auckland, we could have some sort of base to a problem solver.
Please feel free to post questions, comments, recommendations, and anything else that we may need to consider. Please dont be shocked if we approach you in coming weekends to hand out you a survey on the streets of friday and saturday night etc.
Your Forum representative
B
"
