Stocking up at the stockcars for charity
Helping those in need while quenching a need for speed was at the heart of a campaign by the volunteer-team at Wellington Family Speedway.
A can-drive held during the Capital Stockcar Ultimate Knockout on April 7 netted more than 1000 tins for a local food bank.
Speedway volunteer Aaron Musgrove, who helped coordinate the drive, said giving back to the local community was nothing new for the team. He said it had been an outstanding effort.
‘‘It’s impressive considering the weather had not been favourable. For the public to get out like they did and support the cause was pretty awesome.’’
The food was donated to the Salvation Army’s Upper Hutt food bank and Musgrove said it was great to be supporting the community closest to the speedway.
The success of this year’s candrive made a repeat event next year very likely.
A similar can-drive a few years ago resulted in an entire stockcar being filled with cans, however, this year Musgrove was determined to do even better.
‘‘We are going to have a car at each of the two gates so we want to fill both of those,’’ he said ahead of the event.
‘‘It’s going to be quite a big meeting for us so we purposefully put this on the same night. It’s about doing the best we can do.’’
The Capital Stockcar Ultimate Knockout was the third-to-last for the summer season.
Over the past few years, Musgrove said the number of people coming along to events had risen significantly, with attendance up about 20 per cent from last year.
‘‘Crowd numbers are increas- ing as far as our track goes and we get on average about 3000-7000 a weekend. We’ve also sold out twice this season.’’
While Musgrove and his team were confident they would be inundated with donations at the event, they took the opportunity to get a jump on collecting earlier in the week, staking out a local supermarket in Upper Hutt to get a few extra cans.
The next event at Wellington Family Speedway will be on April 21, though no can-drive will be held.