Motorsport is traditionally a male dominated arena, but Kurri Kurri Speedway Club are committed to changing that with a program just for girls and women.
A week into the new year they hosted an Empower Ride Day, with participants coming from as far as Tamworth and Gunnedah to take part.
“The girls can come here to ride bikes without any stress or pressure, and to learn or develop their skills to be able to ride motorbikes,” Michelle Lawler, club secretary, explained.
“It’s been really good, we’ve had one of the little girls who started out with us from day one and she’s slowly progressing, just getting time on the track, and the other girls that have got a little bit more experience come to help the ones that have got no experience and put them on track.”
This is the third of a series of female ride days the club has hosted, thanks to funding from the Federal Governments Play Our Way initiative.
Guidance throughout the day was provided by Sharnelle Sippel, an experienced dirt track rider with New South Wales Track Championship titles to her name.
“I’ve been racing since I was four and I’ve only ever really raced against males, and then the girls class come along in about 2011 and we’ve had to build from there,” she said.
“We started out with two to four riders, and now we sometimes have two grids of women, it’s pretty good, but there’s gaps in between.”
These gaps are what the club hopes to help fill by giving younger female riders the confidence to race and hopefully attract numbers enough to have their own class, and maybe even be able to run a full female race meeting.
The structure of the day depends on the attendees, with riders going out grouped by their age and motorbike size.
Some of the riders are working on their balance and throttle control, while others need advice on what lines to take and how to execute the perfect race start.
Kurri Kurri Speedway Club hope to run more of these events throughout the year, follow them on Facebook for more information as dates are confirmed.
-JEM ANSHAW
