Derby dashed: how Port Kembla’s beloved billycarts ran off-track

The Port Kembla Chamber of Commerce and Industry announced the cancellation on Monday, having already postponed the event twice. 

In a statement, the chamber said it would seek to pass on the popular event to new organisers. “[Chamber] members have decided to no longer host the [derby] and are in discussions with suitable community based organisations to seek a new organising body,” the statement said. 

“Regretfully as discussions are still underway, the 2017 derby will no longer take place. 

“While the event has strong community support, it suffered from a shortfall in funding and a very small volunteer response.” 

Jessica Gnata, the derby’s coordinator, told the Mercury only nine billycart racers had registered for the September 23 derby, compared to 80 at the last event, in 2015.

Sponsorship was about a third short of the amount needed, she said. 

The event – first held in 1940 –  returned to Port Kembla’s steeply inclined Wentworth Street from a 25-year hiatus in 2012, attracting thousands of people.

The Red Point Artists Association (RPAA) resurrected the event and oversaw three successful derbys before its driving members, aged in their 70s, opted to pass the baton to the chamber. 

Ms Gnata, who resigned as chamber secretary in May, believes the decision to move the derby from November 2016 to May 2017 (the event was then postponed again, to September) deterred registrations. 

However Kiama councillor Don Watson, who led the traffic control at the three RPAA-run derbys, said the chamber “lost the goodwill” of volunteers and sponsors in the wake of its lone 2015 effort. 

He said RPAA gifted the chamber extensive paperwork detailing how to run a successful event, but the new organisers “tried to reinvent the wheel”, missing key deadlines and failing to nurture relationships with key in-kind contributors.

He said many volunteers – such as university students – were put out when organisers gave them no written acknowledgement of their 2015 effort, as this was of value to for future employment opportunities. 

“When Red Point Artists Association ran it, it was a community event. Coates Hire, Cleary Bros – all those type of people got in and gave in-kind support. But the chamber wanted money out of sponsors,” he said. 

“The chamber was given all the information from Red Point to run the event and it still then took on a lot of goodwill from a lot of volunteers at that time.

“But the chamber introduced a lot of people who weren't qualified to be at the event, and that put a lot of stress on the people who were qualified to be at the event.”

Mr Watson said he clashed with organisers when they attempted to continue races after 4pm in 2015, in breach of the event’s development approval. “So when they went to run it the next time, that goodwill had gone.”