For those who were not there at the last presentation, the SAMCA President David Degenhardt had a few important words to say. Please take a bit of time to have a read.
For those of you not at the State TT on Sunday I made these comments. Included was a bit of a rant about errant riders.
- SAMCA Secretary Richard Tormay and I recently attended the AVCC (Peak National Body) Annual General Meeting. Set out below are a few points for your interest flowing from that meeting. .
- Dougal Torrance from ACT Masters is the new Vice President and Cheryl Hutchins from Gold Coast Masters is the new treasurer. South Australia voted for both candidates and we at SAMCA welcome their addition to the national executive.
- A new AVCC constitution will be drawn up and hopefully ratified in September this year. This is significant because the current document is very poorly constructed. .
- The policy on lights was clarified. You are free to race with lights front and/or back and they can be solid or flashing.
- Race rules updated to reflect the use of cameras and electronic timing systems at finish lines.
- SA’s offer to host the 2020 Nationals was accepted. The 2019 Championship will be the third and final at Maryborough. SAMCA will conduct the National series in conjunction with CAMS in January 2020.
- One major issue under discussion was the increasing regulatory demands being placed on race clubs. The NSW government is currently tightening the rules around public road access. They appear to be following the Victorian model which denies race clubs access to some roads. You may be interested to know that the Gold Coast club conducts most of its racing on a closed industrial estate due to the difficulty in using public roads. Similarly ACT actually race in NSW as it is less onerous than the ACT at this time.
- Here in SA the regulatory environment is not as demanding as described above but having said that we still have to deal with three separate bodies. The DPTI (roads authority), SAPOL and local councils. And compliance requirements are increasing year on year resulting in a greater work load for officials and volunteers.
- If there is a single thing we can do to avoid being regulated to death it is to ride according to the traffic rules and at all times treat motorists with respect. At both SAMCA and club level we continue to respond to legitimate complaints from drivers. For example why did two riders straddle the centre line in the Woodchester TT last week? And on Sunday at McLaren Flat another two riders were cautioned for exactly the same thing. Why were three riders on the centre line along the Paris Creek ridge in the Harder Open in April? If this sounds like you then please modify your behaviour. These types of incidents provide ammunition for those people trying to get us off the roads.
- The SAMCA committee is continually trying to improve the delivery of our product. The summer Crits continue to be popular but road racing is now in competition with various cycling alternatives. The SAMCA committee welcomes suggestions for new race formats, new courses and any other fresh ideas you may have. As an example Hills member Craig Beddome made contact with the previous Minister for Sport and Recreation advocating for greater cycling access to SA Water’s catchment areas. Craig kindly copied me into that correspondence. With the change of government this suggestion appears to have legs. The new minister has been publically supportive of opening these areas for public use. Both SAMCA and CSA are watching this closely.
Any ideas please email Richard Tormay secretary@samc.org.au or me daviddeg@iinet.net.au.
Thanks for reading this David