Backflips Oval
GOOD BASTARDS
Back in late summer, I approached Chris
McKnight, owner of Backflips Dirt Farm, and
showed him some YouTube clips of flat track
racing on converted MX bikes. I told him of my
plans to start 'something' to which he replied
“I’ll build you a track!”. Chris hired a grader
and drove it around in a circle for seven hours
solid, and the next thing we knew, we had the
Backflips Oval, our own Flat track circuit.
So, with a track at the ready, I created a post
on in our Facebook page outlining our plans,
and before long it had over 30,000 views
and hundreds of comments. More posts
followed, and interest was such that Moore
Park Speedway invited the 'flat trackers' to
one of their events, Dirtquake. We hadn’t even
turned a wheel on our own track at this point,
but, with the help of our FB page, 11 riders
who had never ridden flat track, let alone race
it, turned up and signed on to compete.
We converted all four of our demo motocross
bikes (KX250F, KX450F, RM-Z250 and RM-
Z450) and took them along to Dirtquake.
The event was a total success and everyone
involved was pretty well hooked, including the
spectators who seemed to be able to relate to
the bikes they were watching drifting around
the speedway oval.
A couple of weeks later our hard-packed
28 KIWI RIDER
Gould Motorcycles’
mechanic Matty Lee
clay track was ready for its first test run. The
'originals' from the first Moore Park outing
were all invited to a twilight meeting during
the last of daylight savings. This was a success
and we decided to run regular monthly events
on the third Sunday of every month at the
Backflips Oval.
We set about converting a couple of kids
bikes (KX85 and JR80) to expand our fleet to
six bikes, and invited the general public along
to have a go at flat track on our bikes with the
track fee for all the bikes being donated by
Backflips – a bunch of good bastards. This was
really successful and the newspapers wanted
to know all about it. We were interviewed
and filmed by stuff.co.nz and the local Timaru
Herald gave us some great exposure.
Thanks to social media two North Island
mates contacted us to offer encouragement.
Sam Smith (ex-road racer who has his own flat
track circuit), and his mate Scotty Wilkins (son
of long time Kawasaki importer Mike Wilkins,
and current MNZ board member) were
excited someone else was trying to get flat
track started somewhere else in New Zealand.
Scott has now managed to get Rosebank
Speedway in Auckland to add a flat track class
for all of its 2018-19 season programme. We
hope Moore Park follow Rosebank's lead.