THE history
by Ray Whitham

The annual Boxing Day motorcycle races on the Cemetery Circuit first ran in 1951. Today the event still runs on exactly the same city streets. In the beginning the Wanganui Sports Motorcycle Club had a vision of staging "Continental Round-the-Houses" style motorcycle racing on the closed-off city streets of Wanganui. The Summer Carnival Committee, entrusted by the City Council to provide events of originality and variety, was excited by the concept.

Both groups worked closely with the council to ensure the demands of local body red-tape were met with as few impediments as possible. There were delays and when time finally did run out a delegation made a quick trip to Wellington to the office of the Minister of Transport to get the signature of approval for the closure of the city streets, the first ever in New Zealand.

Finally it all came together, and a four-race programme was successfully completed for the first time on Thursday December 27 1951 in front of 4,500 spectators. On every count, the event was a success despite many riders rating the one-mile long course the toughest in New Zealand.

In 1954, Wanganui's Rod Coleman returned home as the first New Zealander to win an Isle of Man TT. He outpaced all opposition in both feature races on his works AJS 7R and he set a new lap record. It was the perfect result for an event the local press that year had already accorded "annual fixture" status.

The Cemetery Circuit meeting had become in just four years a major sporting attraction for the city and a benchmark event for the sport in New Zealand.

And from there on, it seems, every year it just got better.

Law changes in the years 1963-65 meant a section of the track came under the authority of the National Roads Board and the circuit was not available. By the time racing resumed in 1966 Japanese bikes were the in-thing on the international scene and so too at the Cemetery Circuit with the first race win by a Japanese machine.

In the years 1973-77 the Cemetery Circuit became the thrilling centre-stage for all the international glitz and spectacle that was the Marlboro Series. The fields were star studded. The racing was showpiece. And the fans came to be part of it in their thousands.

And still they come. The circuit is an attraction in itself. It is unique. It has changes in elevation, a railway crossing, an overhead bridge, and a spectacular tree-shrouded esses section that tracks through the old town cemetery. And no two corners are the same. The action at the Cemetery Circuit is always high speed, arms-length and spectacular. It is a day-long adrenalin rush.

It is the biggest annual sports event in Wanganui and one of the longest-standing Boxing Day events in New Zealand. Its sheer nature, Its singularly unique name, and its traditional place in the holiday calendar combine to create an occasion of high public interest.

Former "Motocourse" editor Peter Clifford, in a live TV interview at trackside in 1987 dubbed the Cemetery Circuit "The greatest little race track in the World". And the thousands of fans that return every year would agree.