The concept of forming a hot rod club in Whakatane was an idea tossed around by a couple of guys having a few beers in Reid Bolts garage. The Whakatane Rod & Custom Club was formed back in 1969 by a group of enthusiastic people through an advertisement placed in the Whakatane Beacon. It all began on the 24th of September 1969 with an inaugural meeting held at the Whakatane Bowling Club. Twelve potential members fronted up to the first meeting. On the night the following office bearers were elected. Jock Murray is the only foundation member who is still a current and active member. Casey Hill has been a member of the club for almost forty years as he joined up not long after it was established.
President: Cliff Wickham.
Secretary: Dave Cusack.
Treasurer: Marie Took.
Committee: Ricky Griffith.
Gary Young.
Reid Bolt.
Members: Jock Murray.
Brian Pritchard.
Smell Bell.
Gloria Peterson.
Richard Cherrington.
Malcolm Bush.
Noel Hammond.
Graham Fisher
The club was affiliated to NZHRA in 1970. Club meetings were held on Monday nights each fortnight for the first 27 years. The meeting venue was at various halls around Whakatane including the Country Women’s Institute. As the membership tended to be spread out around the Eastern Bay of Plenty meetings were then held at members’ houses on a rotational basis between Whakatane, Edgecumbe and Kawerau. When membership numbers rose a larger venue was sought and the lounge bar at the Edgecumbe pub became “home”. But with 10 o’clock closing and a thirsty bunch of members it was decided to meet at the Edgecumbe War Memorial Hall where you could essentially socialize and drink for as long as you liked. For whatever reason, possibly noise or the mess left behind, meetings were shifted to the Thornton Hall. And although the meetings might have finished by 9.00pm.the last to leave was usually well beyond midnight.
Like most clubs our club had a desire to own their clubrooms. In the late 70’s a building came up for sale at the Tasman Pulp and Paper Company. It was duly purchased and transported to a site at the end of Paul Rd near Awakeri. In hindsight it was not ideal to convert to clubrooms and was eventually sold. In the mean time Jock Murray found another building and had it transported to his own property in Paul Rd in front of his workshop. That was in 1980 and it was home for 29 years. The clubrooms held some memorable social occasions and some very late meetings. Getting home at 3.00am did start to wear thin with some of the spouses.
The club did lease some land in Selwyn Rd Poroporo with the intention of relocating a building onto the property. The land was leased for 10 years but in the end there were too many hurdles to overcome. The local council imposed a number of conditions which the club could not meet. The clubrooms had to be vacated by 11.00pm on meeting nights and for only three nights a year an extension of time could be extended to 1.00am. The conditions imposed by the council were a “trade off” to the neighbors after they objected to the siteing of the clubrooms. Neighbors actually took us to task and we had to plead our case to the district council. We won our case but they essentially won the battle. Another issue was a power supply. Although you could see the power poles the cost was horrendous. One solution was a generator. An option that was discussed was a flathead V8 powered unit with open headers that was going to be placed as close as possible to the complaining neighbors.
The present clubrooms are the result of years of fundraising and a lot of hard work by a small group of dedicated members. To win the neighbors over the clubrooms was offered as a Civil Defense Post. It received the thumbs up and one particular neighbor is still unaware of his “donation” to the cause. We quietly helped ourselves to over sixty truck loads of pumice from his quarry for the foundation base. They were officially opened the day after the club celebrated its 40th anniversary.
Club meetings are held on the first Monday of each month starting at 7.30pm. The clubrooms are situated at the end of Paul Rd Awakeri. You are welcome to join us at a club meeting or for thirsty Thursdays. Thirsty Thursdays are most weeks during the summer and the rest of the year at short notice. Give our president a call to confirm that there is a gathering this coming Thursday.
The club has organized a number of successful events in its 40 year history. The larger events were:
1970 Swap Meet
1972 Hot Rod Festival.
1974 Hot Rod Festival.
1975 Hot Rod Festival.
1976 NZ Street rod Nationals.
1978 Coastline Cruise.
1979 Coca Cola Bottlers Hot Rod Show.
1980 Coastline Cruise.
1982 Coca Cola Bottlers Hot Rod show
1984 Lakeside Cruise.
1986 Coastline Cruise.
1990 Hot Rod Show and 21st Anniversary.
1994 Hot Rod Festival.
1996 Coastline Cruise
1998 Hot Rod Reunion Drags
1999 Hot Rod Reunion Drags.
2000 Hot Rod Reunion Drags.
2001 Hot Rod Reunion Drags.
2002 Nostalgia Drags.
2003 Nostalgia Drags.
2004 Nostalgia Drags.
2005 Nostalgia Drags.
2006 Spring Fling.
2007 Spring Fling.
2008 Coastline Cruise.
2008 Spring Fling.
2010 Coastline Cruise.
This list does not contain events such as birthday bashes, swap meets held at Riverslea car park, cabarets, demolition derbys and social events such as the two Monster Mashes.
Jock Murray
Squeak Bell.
Casey Hill.
Clubman of the Year.
Most Helpful Club Member.
Most Improved Club Member.
Superwrench.
Quiz Trophy.
Best Junior Club Member.
Andy Morris
Raewyn Thompson
Carl Evans
Alan Hodges
Charlie Warn
Nick Linskey
Puke Horua
Merrit Duly
Phil Spencer
Wendy Simmons
Kevin Ryan
Rocky Suisted
Alison Stuart
John Woods
(No particular order)
Bill Ward: First kiwi to run a car at Bonneville Speed Week.
Squeak Bell: Two time winner at the prestigious Grand National Roadster Show.
Casey Hill: Class winner at Bonneville Speed Week.
Competed at Bonneville four times.
Competed at Australian Speed Week Lake Gairdner.
Dave Alexander: Class win at Bonneville Speed Week 2008.Vintage Oval track.
Competed at Australian Speed Week Lake Gairdner.
Lord Edgecumbe: Bob inherited his title as an English Earl while a club member.
Rob Morris: Won a seat in local body elections while a club member.
Rob Morris, Mike Wells: Possibly the only people in NZ who have had their membership to NZHRA suspended.
6 months for bad behavior.
Paul Sattler: NZ Drag Racing Nationals 2009 and 2010 winner of Supercharged Outlaws.
Fram Track Series 2009 and 2010 runner up both years.
Bonneville 2008. Vintage Oval Track record in Dave Alexanders car. The record was held for one day.
Committee: G.T, Seth,Dribble