Cinder Track Damaged

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31222, 21 November 1966, Page 1

Cinder Track Damaged

Coaches and athletes arrived at the New Brighton Athletic Club’s cinder track in Rawhiti Domain for training yesterday morning and found the track’s surface rutted and gouged by the tyre marks of a car. Only the inner lane of the track was free of damage.

The club’s president (Mr H. J. Grant) said after he had examined the track that someone had apparently driven a car around the track when it was softened by rain last Friday night. Residents in Keyes road are neighbours of the track. Club officers have no word of any of them seeing or hearing a car on the track. Deep scoring suggested that the car was out of control on one corner. It left ruts more than 3in deep in places where the tyres went through the cinder surface and cut into the compacted clay foundation. The club’s track maintenance officer (Mr L. Burt) began repairing the surface yesterday by patching and rolling the indentations. “It will probably take a month of brushing and rolling before the surface is restored,” said Mr Grant. “Then, runners may cut it up. It takes years for a cinder track to settle down. "Water may be lying in the foundation material and this may cause the cinder surface to flake off. The full damage may not be known until Christmas,” he said.

Although the club is planning no major meetings before a children's carnival next year, the track is used almost daily. No club members visited the track on Saturday. They were at other meetings in the city.

“This sort of vandalism seems to be on the increase," said Mr Grant. He said he knew of one school's cricket pitches being cut up by a car and several other playing fields being marked by cars in recent weeks. The police kept a watch on the Rawhiti track and others, he said.