Motor club to celebrate ride of century

GET AIR: Trent McKinley, 16, does a jump on his 125cc bike at the July round of the 2014 Moto-X Club Championships up at the Wanganui Motorsport Domain on Landguard Rd yesterday. Next month's final round will be part of the Wanganui Motorcycle Club's centenary celebrations. Photo/Lewis Gardner

It has been 100 years since a group of motorcycle enthusiasts figured mid-August would be a good time to have a get-together and group ride down to Palmerston North.

A century later, Wanganui Motorcycle Club will honour that moment and the many more that followed when they have their official centenary festivities on the August 16-17 weekend.

At 10am on the Saturday, a special ride will be held to commemorate the birth of the club with that trip on August 15, 1914, by having a "re-run" leaving from The Big Orange on Victoria Ave.

"They're going up inland on the old roads and then heading out onto State Highway 1, back to Palmerston," said club spokesman Terry Casserly.

Anyone with a road-legal bike is welcome to take part.

Festivities will continue that evening with a function in the Eulogy Lounge at Wanganui Racecourse, starting from 5.30pm.

Then on Sunday the club will hold the fifth and final round of its Winter Series of the 2014 Moto-X Club Championships at its Greg Coleman Memorial Pavilion clubrooms at the Wanganui Motorsport Domain beside Oceanview Speedway.

There will be a luncheon during the event.

Casserly said it is hoped a number of the influential Coleman family will be able to attend the weekend, while interest has come from others at all points of the compass, including up to third generation club members.

No doubt up for discussion will be the classic events of the past, where the club was involved in road trials, beach racing, and 'Hare' scrambles - aka long off-road racing.

"It was a pretty vibrant sort of sport in those days," Casserly said.

Today, the club has a membership of around 210, although that will swell to 300 come the spring race events and finally the Cemetery Circuit Boxing Day races in December.

The club also has plans to make a revamp of their clubrooms.

Registration for the August 16 dinner can be downloaded from the Cemetery Circuit of Motorcycling NZ websites.