New Year Honours: Bob Clarkson

"If this is what you have to go through to get an honour, I'd rather have given it a miss!"

Bob "the Builder" Clarkson is characteristically blunt.

While he is chuffed to have been made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to philanthropy, he would rather have done without the angst of the past fourteen months.

The 63-year-old developer, who ploughed about $15 million of his own cash into the 17,500-seat Baypark Speedway remains irked by local and regional "democracy" that apparently puts the gripes of the few ahead of the hi-octane dreams of the many.

"I did something for my own satisfaction, that I thought might just make a lot of people happy... but I never dreamed of the backlash. I just would have loved to have made everyone happy."

He is speaking of the staunch, on-going opposition from some Bayfair residents opposed to the noise of super saloons and street stocks as they thunder around the track.

However, to Mr Clarkson -- and thousands of other speedway fans -- the commotion is music to his ears.

"My idea of music is to back my V8 out of the garage, take it up to 6000 revs and listen to it."

Since Baypark opened to an enthralled crowd in October 2001, that "music" has cost him dearly. He's shelled out thousands in monitoring equipment and legal fees.

Perhaps it's his age, but the man from Gisborne finds that he is a bit less tolerant these days.

"There were 18,400 people there on opening night... every one of them full of laughs and smiles. Why should bureaucratic process allow one or two people to interfere with that."

It's 40 years since the then fitter and turner left Gisborne for Matamata, where he began a tractor importing company and cut his teeth in the property development business.

"That's also where I went into stockcar racing and that's where my silly dreams started."

A decade ago, restlessness -- and a yearning to return to coastal climes -- set in once more. So Mr Clarkson packed up his dreams and headed for Tauranga.

A few years later, he fronted up at a local speedway meeting, demanding to know why there was no new track following the closure of the old Baypark Speedway in 1994.

He was told there was no appropriate land.

Three months later, he discovered the Te Maunga, Bayfair, site and the rest is history.

Now, he's garnering his strength, his wits and his chequebook to take up a new challenge -- the building of an exhibition complex adjacent to the speedway.

"I think my brain is programmed wrong. I've got no desire to cruise the world in a boat, I hate holidays, I can't spell and I struggle with words: You can't be brilliant at everything.

"But I'm an achiever and quite often all achievers want is a thank you.

"I just hope that at some time in the future, someone is wide-eyed enough to realise that entrepreneurs and dreamers are the future."

And yes, Mr Clarkson is genuinely pleased to have made the New Year's honours list: "I guess it's recognition that you're doing your part and -- at this stage -- you've exceeded expectations."

- BAY OF PLENTY TIMES