Gawler Roadknights
| Type of organisation: | Sporting |
| Also known as: | Car Racing
|
| Date established: | 1967 |
| Established by: | Brian Sambell, Rob Geau ,Kevin Evans ,Bev (Phyllis) Waters,John Whitbread ,Len Warren ,Malcolm Bird ,Bernie Stack ,Sammy ,Gary Ashcroft |
| Business or purpose: | Car racing Club |
please click here to view Brian Sambell's presentation of the history of the Gawler Roadknights
Sambell Cr (Mayor) Brian Donald In 1966 Brian Sambell and a group of teenagers in Gawler were mucking around with vehicles, restoring them , racing around the scrub and getting together for barbies etc . We had a name called the VALVE BOUNCERS and created a club shield (which i still have one ) and organized some great fun events. After 12 months we had about 20 in our group and everyone was interested and assisting with events we planned . At a meeting one night in a shed on Lyndoch road we discussed about changing our group name.
Comics were the go back then, and i had an American comic called the ROAD KNIGHTS, I put it up to the group and they accepted the name GAWLER ROAD KNIGHTS CAR CLUB name . Rob Geau ,Kevin Evans ,Bev (Phyllis) Waters ( Tundari, ),John Whitbread ,Len Warren ,Malcolm Bird ,Bernie Stack ,Sammy Danieli,Gary Ashcroft just to name a few and the club grew quickly into a membership of up to 150 . Bev and others started up a Gawler Road Knights Netball club and they were very successful . From there we grew and club moved more into off road racing and held many state events that were very successful.
The first meetings was held in the old Transfield Building, at Willaston, which is now Willaston Crash Repairs, and we operated races in the sandpits now known as Hewett Subdivision. (When the big floods came through and washed caravans from the Gawler Caravan Park, there was 8 – 10 foot of water over the Sandpits track, and now they have build bloodyhouses there . Some of the first members of the club, called the Dragons were Brice Heidenreich (deceased), Ian Dawe, who were responsible for producing the enamelled Gawler Road Knights plaque, called The Dragons before we became the Gawler Roadknights
There were so many groups of people that were all doing the same sort of thing, by way of fiddling around with cars and motorbikes. And I was involved with motorbikes in the quarry down at Gawler south, where a fair bit of controversy about the noise we made and everything, but that was good fun. And then all of a sudden, quite a number of us got together, and we were talking about, how about we start up a club in the town where it incorporates all the little groups? And so we did. We got together talking about it, and they decided the group that was there that maybe we start up an individual club and we all work together and and that sort of stuff. And we did so we got together.
and from then we said, right now, we need a club room. What are we going to do? And one of the people I had bought the car off (Trevor fryer), had a friend that was Jason Ashley Pratt from Williston, and he was going out with a girl called Lorraine Hawks. And Lorraine spoke to her father, who was on Lyndoch road Gawler, had a great big shed on the block that he had actually purchased when he's first moved in, up there, opposite his house. And he had to shed on it he wasn't using for anything, and he suggested, Why don't we have our club rooms in there? Because he was also a car enthusiast. And so we said, wow. So we met, went up there, and that was the beginning of the club rooms of the Gawler Roadknights Car Club.We held our regular meetings there . We then had somewhere to play around with our cars and our motorbikes. And Mr. Stanley, who had a large butcher shop in the town, had his livestock and that down on the area, which we called the sand pits, but today we know it as the suburb of Hewitt in Gawler, and he gave us permission to use that free of charge. We did. We moved down there.
We held 58 meetings there, and we had big crowds of people come down to see us all being silly and having a lot of fun and all that sort of stuff down there at the sand pits. And it was some fantastic times. We had, we had people wanted to compete from all over South Australia, and it was a great enterprise. And from then on, bit by bit, we all sort of had children, grandchildren, all the rest of it, and then we fanned out a lot, and the club morphed into being involved with off road racing. And off road racing was a really big thing in those days, and the machines got better and faster. And some ofthe members of the club went into the big business of organizing major events. And they organized events at Tumby Bay, Tailem bend, Wakerie and up at Port Pirie, Port Germaine, and all over the place.
The club is still going strong today, and under The leadership of President Toby Ryman (as at 2024-5), and without a doubt, the Gawler Roadknights will stay out there for a long while, as regards to being the club that's involved with off road racing motorbikes and anything else to do with the motors of the day. So it shows all these sort of things we were involved with in the Community, and local people really did embrace us. The Community accepted us, the businesses supported it and so forth, as they still do today. So Gawler Roadknights forever. Beautiful. as remembered by Brian Sambell
To view Gawler Roadknight images click here
To Listen to Brian Sambell`s talk on the Gawler Roadknights click here
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