Swan Hill Short Course Club
The Swan Hill Sporting Car Club is a small family based club who conduct club competition meetings monthly, generally the second Sunday in the month, weather permitting. We don’t compete on days of Total Fire Ban, or when the Event Director and the President consider the weather too hot and windy resulting in increased fire risk. In the hotter months we start early in the morning.
The age groups represented in our club membership are from fourteen to approximately twenty five and then forty years and above. We encourage young people to become involved and mentor them when they are participating. We see this as a way of educating them in vehicle handling, recognising their limitations, and hopefully they will be safer drivers when they are licenced to drive on the roads.
We have a variety of cars that are driven by members from older standard cars with no modifications to home constructed buggies. The club has two club cars- a Laser and a Sigma - for use by potential new drivers who are interested in taking up the sport. This allows them to see if they like the sport before they need to commit to purchasing a car and a trailer.
A number of years ago we started having a two day race meeting on the long weekend in June; Saturday, Saturday night and Sunday morning. We had participants from all parts of Victoria and southern NSW. Most of these competitors participated in the Victorian Club Autocross Series – VCAS – and were very keen for our club to become involved. As a result of that we hosted our first VCAS event in October 2011. In 2012 we hosted two VCAS meetings, in June and October and hope to continue our association with VCAS in 2013.
With the establishment of the national standard quarter mile drag strip there will be substantial redevelopment of the complex. Our clubhouse and part of our tracks will need to be moved to make way for car parking. Our bridge flyover will be retained. We are looking forward to the development but until we move any clubhouse and surrounds improvements are limited.
In our promotions we maintain that Autocross is the cheapest form of motorsport and is a good way to get into motorsport. We are keen to have more members as we only have twenty five at the moment comprising competitors and support. We are looking forward to seeing what CAMS can offer in the way of promotion and are keen to become involved in CAMS Junior Development Program.