Castlemaine Car Club

The Castlemaine Car Club started life on 21 February 1968, with help from the Light Car Club of Australia Bendigo branch and in particular Mr Max Jackman.

In the first 3 ½ years the club mainly ran autocrosses and motorkhanas.  It also ran several trials per year, each conducted on a Friday night, mostly on shire roads and closed to club members. It’s reported that a typical trial then took only 2 weeks to organise!

In June 1971, the club joined as an associate member of CAMS. The rally fraternity of the car club were now able to compete in more structured rally and trial events throughout the year. One of the first was likely the Light Car Club (Bendigo) Presidents Trial. Later events that year included the Maryborough Car Club Porkies Midnighter, which didn’t start until midnight.

The highest number of members the club had was 35 but typically numbers were in the low 20s. 
The Castlemaine Car Club was also an inaugural member of the Western Regions Rally Championship and were lucky enough to have three Western regions champion.

The club ran events in most years., mainly through the work of Mr John Wilkinson and a small number of other enthusiastic club members. This included events for the Western Regions series, the Victorian Clubman series and the Victorian Trials championship.

Being a small regional town with a low population, it was hard for the club to continue and, after 23 years, closed in November 1991.

Lindsay Dale reports that few records remain although he does still have the club’s minutes book.  We thank Lindsay for the information about CCC.