Vandals do $50,000 worth of dragway damage

According to the Courier Mail, committee members found significant damage, including cut wires, missing equipment and broken locks, when arriving for a working bee on January 13.

Some things, such as headphones, radios and even the Christmas tree starting light tower, were found in a nearby creek – too damaged to be salvaged.

The damage bill is estimated to be $50,000 with the Central Queensland Drag Racing Association now in a race against time to be prepared for the track’s first meeting on February 24.

“We had our committee meeting first and a committee member went to check everything was in order for the first round of racing and he came back to us and said, ‘you need to come over here’, so we went over and that’s when we found the damage and kept finding the damage,” said CQDRA Benaraby Dragway president Branden Lacey.

“We started at the track where the lasers are for the start line and they’d all been chopped out and the lasers taken, then we walked the full quarter mile either side and every laser and every sensor had been cut and missing.

“Our timing boards that show the race times, all the wires were cut to them, we went to our generator shed and realised the locks had been taken out of the door of that and the keys were gone from the big generator, then we went to the tower and found our Christmas tree and UHF radios were gone.

“It’s hard to describe [the feeling]. The feeling wasn’t great, just to see my committee members and the volunteers’ faces, as a president you try be strong to support everyone.

“I’m just gutted that someone could be so low and take so much away from the community, it affects all of us and the kids that come out and learn, it’s just horrible. I’m just blown away that someone could even go that way.”

A GoFundMe campaign has been set up to raise money for repairs. CLICK HERE TO CONTRIBUTE

“We’re going full steam ahead with our preparations for the racing for the year, in the background our technicians are working with the Protatree mob in America and local electricians that have offered their help,” added Lacey.

“Once the GoFundMe raises them money we will start to rebuild.”