Volunteers Valuable at Teretonga Park

Southland Sports Car Club volunteer Greg McLeod is an example of just how valuable volunteers are to clubs.

When his employer Purdue Bros. decided to send one of their trucks to motor race meetings at Teretonga Park near Invercargill to help with incident recovery sixteen years ago Greg, who had only been employed at the company for about a year, put his hand up and he has been there ever since.

“I do it because I want to do it,” says Greg. ‘I’ve never been able to go motor racing myself but I enjoy getting out and helping people to go motor racing.” Greg also volunteers at the nearby speedway, even volunteering on the pit gate as a youngster at that venue.

While Greg is modest and reluctant to talk about his volunteer work, he has missed very few race meetings at Teretonga Park in his sixteen years of service, family bereavements and illness plus the odd date clash with other volunteer work the only times he has been absent. While his commitment is generally an entire weekend at each race meeting Greg gives even more, admitting that he will often take leave on a Friday to help and for the biggest events he has been sighted working at the track much earlier in the week. “I have taken time off to help, it takes the pressure off others, and gets the meeting going and it is hard to find volunteers,” he says.

While he has operated the Purdue Bros supplied crane truck at meetings for many years he does so much more. “I’ve worked on incident recovery, first response, track maintenance if needed, the sweeper truck, whatever needs doing.”

He also helps get the tractors used for recovery duties at the track out to the circuit on a Thursday evening and also sometimes helps return them to suppliers after racing. Then he will be at the track on race days from 6.30am to get the fire extinguishers at points around the track, “something I have taken responsibility for,” and then to check and sweep the track.

Greg takes the recovery role very seriously. If he is seen in the pits during a lunch break looking at some of the machinery it is because he is checking out the car just in case he later has to retrieve it and he wants to work out how best to handle it. Considering he has to deal with state-of-the-art machinery such as McLaren’s and Porsches through to very rare classic machinery it is a trait very much appreciated by the drivers. That dedication to ensuring the job is done well extends to the fact that Greg allows his own vehicles to be used for recovery duties as well. “I am into 4-wheel-driving and they have all the right gear,” he explains.

Greg was awarded the R B Munro Workers Trophy by the club in the 2017/2018 season and says the most memorable moment of his time at Teretonga Park was the massive truck crash of Dave West in 2016. “I saw it happen and thought, “we are going to be busy.” He is proud of the effort that day as the crash badly damaged the pit wall but Greg and the other volunteers on site had racing underway after a delay when many thought that would be the end of competition for the entire day. “We had three crane trucks there, we came to town to get concrete blocks to bolster the wall and get proceedings going again.”

Behind every great man is a great woman they say and Greg’s partner of 10 years, who he will marry at Labour Weekend, has allowed him to continue the work at the circuit since they met. “She has a sister in Otautau, about 40 kilometres north-west of Invercargill, and generally for a race weekend I take her out there, they spend the weekend together and then I pick her up after the weekend is done.”

The Southland Sports Car Club is so fortunate to have dedicated individuals such as Greg McLeod to ensure people can go motor racing and others can get to enjoy watching it.