The ACU at the time was based in Sydney & had a mirror Northern Centre in Newcastle but was run by control freaks that thought NSW ended at the Hawsbury River & if Belmont club wanted to run an event you had to apply to them pay a fee they then would appoint a Steward who we then had to pay & he would enforce the rules if they could find any at the time to cover Moto Cross Ken Thornton in his wisdom went with the international rules of racing each race was 30 minutes long + 1 lap over 2 rounds before you scored points in the overall results . The winging from the smoking drinking short circuit stars who were good for about 10 minutes on our natural terrain tracks was ignored largely as we learned what we had to do to just finish a round on our tracks to get a place was rewarding & the respect of fellow riders who had faced the same challenges was good to live with , we learned lots about our bikes & bodies over that time period . It built men from boys who went on to ride in international events with some success . Motorcycling governing body did many things to control us without success as our Belmont Club grew to over 200 paid up members gave us the finances & staff to run our in house events with out handing them any money or control on the direction we were heading they hated us . They had one bad rule still on their books that they would hit us with the one man 1 club rule that stopped ACU licence holders like many of us were so we could ride open events now with Kens hard work in repealing the speedway act the cashed up promoters came out of the woodwork to Run MX events in turn breaking all the rules on track layout he had pioneered with common sense & police approval at each venue with bad results for some folks Belmont club hired a bus & went to ACU headquarters on a meeting night & voted the one man 1 club rule out so many from the Sydney area could join us & ride our club days after joining . the old guard rescinded that as soon as we left the building so now we were more determined to run our own events & lock them out of it & we did with Kens blessing . They sent spies to watch & report on us Ken & I would be reminded that our competition licences could be cancelled if we were fond guilty of running non approved races by Ian Cameron the FIM head here in Australia that made me feel good when GOD speaks to you personaly More land owners contacted us & we changed the events formats to more 4 hour enduro type events with different classes & the forgotten Juniors became riders with their own classes in the MX events where we introduces the trail bike class . The machine had to be registered so dads ride to work XL 250 & the son / daughter XR75 / yz80 Ect had a place to ride , Belmont Club was now a family friendly place to enjoy your dirt bike fun . Page 2 as we grew fitter & our bikes improved .