Drive World damaged

Press, 13 December 1982, Page 6

Drive World damaged

Over-zealous teen-agers caused problems and damage during the opening of the Drive World fun park at the week-end. "Some of the older ones pushed it a bit and got too boisterous,” said the park’s owner-operator, Mr Colin Wood, last evening. Three motor-cycles were damaged, one badly, and the dirt-track derby had to be closed on Saturday because its crash barriers were wrecked. "We will have to come up with softer barriers, or something,” said Mr Wood. About 700 young people went to Drive World, at Queen Eliabeth II Park, on Saturday and their behaviour has made Mr Wood rethink

his plans for the park he created. “We will concentrate more on the family kind of rides rather than the challenging and adventurous stuff,” he said. "It is hard to have something that is adventurous and yet safe for the teenagers. They get carried away.” Apart from a few other teething problems — people could not get the roll-bike to roll — Mr Wood said the week-end was successful. The more sedate attractions such as the scaled-down earthmoving machines withstood the onslaught. “The response we got from people was very good. A lot of people would have up to four or five rides,” he

said. Bad weather reduced the crowd to about 150 yesterday, and Mr Wood was able to make repairs and adjustments. “We would have been in serious trouble if we had had a very big crowd,” he said. The dirt track motorcycles were detuned and locked in second gear to restrain would-be dirt track demons. . - In spite, of the problems, Mr Wood is determined to carry through his plans to add more sophisticated mechanical amusements. “I am at the most difficult stage now and if I can get through this it will be all right. We certainly learned a lot,” he said.