From Wakefield to One Raceway

What was once Wakefield Park, with problems, is now One Raceway –  reconfigured, redesigned and with the support of once anti neighbours.

Auto Action’s Bruce Williams spoke to Steve Shelley, whose vision has recreated a well thought-out regional race track.

AA: Steve, you’re obviously a passionate man. You’ve got a lot of enthusiasm for motorsport. How did you get to the stage where you own two racetracks?

Steve: I started out enjoying motorsport when I was at Sydney Motorsport Park doing some work on the skid pan and building some driving skills. Next thing I knew was that I was in the driver’s seat of a Radical and I’m cutting laps around SMP, and instantly became addicted to the buzz. I placed an order on the spot, and before I knew it, I was involved in motorsport and it just stuck. 

My son Jake would come along and be super enthusiastic, supporting me and all my racing, helping in the pit crew and everything. And before I knew it, he was involved. 

We found Wakefield Park when we were down there and playing in the Radical. We bought an MX5, and it became two MX5’s and Jake and I started racing, with and against each other. 

Then we moved up into the Mitsubishi Evos, again at Wakefield Park. We were racing with and against each other in different categories. And eventually we started having some really good success at Wakefield Park. In fact, we were the first father and son team to win back-to-back Series A in what’s called the Wakefield 300 enduro events.

We continued to race at both Wakefield Park and Winton. And I’ve been quoted to say that some of the best days of my life were at Wakefield Park. 

I just absolutely love the place and the camaraderie and the friendships that I’ve found meeting like-minded people in the community and environment that is motorsport, which to be honest I didn’t find in too many other areas of my life. 

From working with the officials, the volunteers, the other competitors, the spectators and everybody else in between, there’s just a vibe that you can only seem to find at competition level.

And that was why when I heard that it was shutting down. Like me, many other thousands of people, our hearts broke thinking that that beautiful place is probably going to wind up as being a farm again. 

 I didn’t actually pursue it. The local state member, Wendy Tuckerman, was having a conversation with the local director of the Chamber of Commerce, Darryl Week, and they said “it is a tragedy that our town is losing this gold. The city of Goulburn has lost this amazing facility. I wonder if there’s any way we can get it together and work out a way we can breathe some life back into it.”

AA: What does it mean to you and what is the emotion given that you have now that the track actually up and running again?

Steve: It’s a culmination of an immense amount of emotions from everything from fear to extreme excitement and everything in between. But when the ASBK event took place last week, I went up and asked the riders what they thought of the circuit. And every, every one of them had a glowing smile and was just saying “I just absolutely love it.”

Then I had Luke Youlden come down to do a bit of a reconnaissance for the Porsche Driver Experience around safety etc. He did two laps of the circuit, came back and said “I’m happy to say that in my opinion this circuit is the safest circuit of any racetrack unit in the country.”

Image: Riccardo Benvenuti

Read the full feature in THE LATEST ISSUE OF AUTO ACTION HERE

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