Race to form teams

By Jim Mynard
THE CaseyCardinia HumanPowered Vehicle (HPV) and Cycling Club is seeking expressions of interest from organisations and schools to form HPV teams.
Club president John Perrin said the extension of VicHealth support for the club meant money was available to create more teams.
He said VicHealth’s aim was to help the Casey Cardinia Club to help new teams and organisations get started in HPV activities.
He said the grant would be used to purchase kits of components for HPVs.
“Our club will then help teach recipients how to build and maintain new vehicles,” he said. “Our objective is to help the new teams to become selfsustaining as quickly as possible.”
Mr Perrin said a team would be expected to raise its own funds over 12 months to replace the original kit.
Mr Perrin said two of the largest barriers to new teams becoming involved in HPV racing were costs in obtaining the first vehicle and developing the technical skills to maintain a vehicle.
“With this generous support from VicHealth, we hope to assist three new teams to get involved this year. We hope to repeat this with a further three new teams each following year, provided we can get the money back from the assisted teams.
“History has proven to us that once a team gets started and achieves a reasonable level of success, then the team will grow and become selfsufficient very quickly.
“The club and Berwick Secondary College, prior to formation of the club, have previously helped six teams to get started with loan vehicles and mentoring.
“All six teams have grown, expanded and are still actively involved in HPV activities.”
Information is available from the website at www.hpvoz.net/casey.
The club expects to have the teams ready to race by August or earlier if possible.