Mark Bennett Has Passion For Motorsport

Mark Bennett spoke to club members on 31st September, 2009 and gave a brief overview of his family and told us about his past achievements and what he is currently doing.

Below is a brief summary of what mark spoke about :-

• He was born and raised in Stawell
• Moved to Ballarat 1979
• Is married to Clare with 3 children, Samara, Danica and Dominique
• Founded “The Sticky Bun”
• Won a state business award in 1995 for this business
• His current business is Mortgage Management and Mortgage Broking
• Motorsport is his hobby and passion

Click Here to visit Mark's business Revolution Lending

Mark was introduced to the Ballarat Light Car Club in 1997 and bought a “project” car from the boyfriend of one of his employees.

It was the obligatory Datsun P510, better know as the 1600. With some help from his navigator who had also been a mechanic, they built the car and rallied it around Victoria until it died a very horrible death in the Wombat state forest one night. Mark managed to convert a 4 door car into a hatch back. Thanks to roll cages, they walked away.

Once the purple datto had gone to god, the only logical course of action was to build a new one! He started off with a bare shell, added a roll cage, painted it and bolted bits on till it looked like something you might want to get in and drive

This involved spending most of the night in the shed doing stuff, and very occasionally going to bed before the sun gets up. He said work really gets in the way of building race cars. He had a couple of very happy years piloting the red datto until he sold it to a guy from Canberra.

Having done dirt rallying for a number of years he then turned his attention to bitumen racing and is in the process of building a new car for this. Externally it is an N12 Nissan EXA turbo. In reality, it is an exa to look at only. Almost every component has been changed, modified, upgraded or thrown away. He has added water to air intercooling, a Haltech engine management system, uprated suspension, uprated brakes, roll cage, seats , harnesses etc.
The car will be used for track days, The Winter Classic Rally, Ballarat’s premier tarmac rally event and other tarmac rallies.

If you are interested in motorsport, please feel free to contact Mark on 0418 014 834 or the Ballarat Light Car Club for more information. Club motorsport can be done quite cheaply. He paid $400 for a car and competed the following weekend and won the event, so it does not have to be an expensive hobby.

Jim Speaks About Tom's Rare Illness

Club member Jim Nugent also spoke to club members. Jim is the Public Officer of our Club and runs an engineering business called Invertech. Jim has two children Liz & Tom.

Jim spoke about Tom's illness. Tom was diagnosed with a Gliomatosis Cerebri brain tumour in April 2008. This type of tumour is very rare, and unfortunately it is inoperable.

Jim spoke about the devastating impact this news had on family and friends and how Tom copes with this illness. Tom underwent Radiotherapy in May / June of 2008, and since then the tumour has been relatively stable.

Tom is presently living in Melbourne, while studying engineering at Monash University. He is living, and enjoying, the life of a university student, though he has cut back his contact hours so as to cope with the academic workload.

Jim spoke about how Tom is living with a level of uncertainty that most people his age don't have to endure. Despite this, Tom doesn't complain and instead has set himself many goals, including looking forward to a trip to Noosa at Christmas, moving out of Mannix College and living independently in 2010, and completing his academic studies. He also talks about working overseas once he graduates.

Jim spoke about how we often get so caught up in life that we don't give much thought to how tomorrow might be different from our expectations. He spoke about stories people have shared with him after Tom's diagnosis; that there always seems to be someone "worse off" and that this helps you deal with your grief.

While Tom's future is less certain than most of his contemporaries, Jim reminded us that you don't know what is "around the corner", and that the life you have when you go to bed can be quite different from the life you woke up to in the morning.