The Vision - How it All Started

In July 1997 six enthusiastic people got together with the idea of forming a Go-Kart club due to many karters from Gympie, Sunshine Coast and Brisbane areas having to travel 200km plus to go racing. These karters then formed the Cooloola Coast Kart Club and obtained its affiliation with the Australian Karting Association.

"Formed in 1966 the Australian Karting Association (AKA) is the association appointed by the Federation Internationale de I’Automobile (FIA) and the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS) to administer and control the sport of karting in Australia. The AKA membership consists of six member associations each member represents a state."

The Construction Progress

After a looking for a long time and many rejections, we approached Roadcraft Driver Training about leasing some of their land. They agreed to Sub-lease part of their lease. This then had to be agreed to by State Development (the owners of the land) and Department of Natural Resources who administer this area. The club obtained a sub-lease on a block of land from Roadcraft Driver Training Centre to build a kart racing facility on the 1st November 1999.

In 2002, we applied for a major facility grant from Department of Sports and Recreation and was successful on the 18th of July 2002. Other grants also came from The Apex Club of Gympie and the Cooloola Shire Council. Other major funding came from loans from the Cooloola Shire Council and the Australian Karting Association.

A year later the block was cleared. The sod turning was done by Cooloola Shire Council Mayor Mick Vernados on the 14th of  May 2003.

In 2004, major earthworks and drainage were started and completed in 2004 but various funding, construction and planning issues stalled the project due to cost blow out with the increase in materials eg (Road Base, Hot Mix) until early 2006. In this time fencing and setting up the control tower, was done by club members.

The Gympie Gold Race Track was finally opened on the 12th November 2006, after 9 years of dedication from a small team of members the vision was made reality.

The Track

The track is 890 metres long by 8 metres wide track and is approved by the Australian Karting Association to be used in both directions. The circuit features 10 corners, differing from fast to slow sections with both negative and positive camber. The track is unusual in that it is undulating. This is what makes it different from most other tracks and is widely known in Australia as one of the best tracks in Queensland.

The Members

Our memberships over the last 4 years has grown from just 20 drivers to now being over 160 licenced members not including family members, our members come from Gold Coast through to Hervey Bay. Currently Cooloola has the second largest membership base out of the 16 Go Kart Clubs in Queensland with Ipswich Kart Club being the largest, we are averaging at a great rate of 2 to 3 new members per week. Our Club is also home to Roadskills Driver Education where workshops are held for Learner motorbike drivers.

Cooloola has a great reputation of hosting organised events with a friendly family oriented atmosphere. This is due to the dedication of a handful of members that has now worked together for over 3 years planning every detail of every meeting. We also have a team of great officials that travel to our club every meeting from Gold Coast, Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast. Our officials and Club members have been praised many times on public karting forums and media around the country.

The Racing

We at Cooloola currently have 9 groups of racing types, these groups are all broken down into approximately 14 classes using engine, weights and age variations. Speed of these classes range from 6hp for up to 28hp for the experienced Senior drivers.  Each track can differs in these variations to a small degree due to the trend that Karting Shops deliver to their drivers.

The Cooloola Coast Kart Club hosted the Queensland Closed State Titiles in 2008, which received more than 240 drivers from around Australia, plus support crew visiting Gympie and its surrounds. This meeting is used as a warm up to the State Championships hosted the next year.

In 2009, the club hosted the Queensland Open State Championships, with more than 390 drivers and their support crew from around Australia making Gympie their destination. This meant an influx of well over 1,000 visitors for this event alone, to the Gympie area for over a week before of the event and many coming to Gympie for 12months prior on a monthly basis in the lead up to the event.

There is a number of events that the Cooloola Coast Kart Club hosts throughout the year including, Yamaha Series and  Southern Star Series. Cooloola is inundated with series requests every year from promoters.