The May Day week end turned out to be pretty busy for the Tennant Creek Volunteers this year. The opening of the 2010 speedway season saw juniors, formula 500’s, Bombers and Stocks all compete in what was an action packed Saturday night. After about 8 hours sleep out of our overalls we returned on the Sunday morning for the 6th Annual Outback Desert Drags held at the Tennant Creek airport.

The speedway first - around 12 formula 500’s (8 from Alice Springs) competed without incident. The Bombers and Stocks had lots of bumps and taps but it was the juniors who kept the St John vollies and NT Fire Service nice and busy. Speedway rules state that if any juniors have an impact, no matter how minor it is, then they need a full set of ob’s collected and a good check up before they can return to racing. There were 12 juniors (10 to 15yrs) all competing in little 1100 cc escorts, geminis, lancers etc. Mum and Dad anxiously watching from the pits.

The highlight of the night for us as St John volunteers was a slow motion rollover from the junior category. This little red car got nudged from the side, pushed into the centre track windrow and then gracefully rolled over to end up back on its wheels. The uninjured driver was only 12yrs old and commented post roll over that it was very cool and she thought roll-overs would not be that much fun. After 30 minutes in the ambulance and several sets of Ob’s our patient was released from our care, however did not race again that night. In all about 6 patients were treated and everyone had a fantastic night.

The 6th Annual Outback Desert Drags was well attended with competitors from Alice, Tennant, Katherine, Borroloola, Darwin and even one car from South Australia attending the meet. In total 40 cars and bikes competed for ten hours of smoking tyres, burning of high octane fuel and even the occasional squirt of NOS.

One section of the Tennant Creek airstrip was closed off for the 10 hour event with approximately 120 spectators attending. NT Fire Service joined our first aid station and a good day was had by all volunteers. Darrin and Sue once again attended the entire event for Operations with Steve and Marcel Clark attending as the paramedics for the day. The weekend call crew of Stuart and Natalie also spent most of the day with us. Again a very successful day without major incident was enjoyed.

Article by Steve Russell