Club History

Rockingham Four Wheel Drive Club - History 1993 to 2004.

In 1993 Frank O.Brien approached Darryl Dickson as he was a local 4wd mechanic with the idea of forming a 4wd Club in Rockingham within the PCYC. The first meeting of the club was in May 1993 at the Rockingham PCYC. Slowly over the next few months the club started to form. The first committee was elected with Frank as President, Darryl Vice President a few trips were set up for the coming months.

After a slow start, but with interest from the public starting to trickle in, it was decided that the PCYC was an unsuitable venue and Darryl offered the use of his workshop. Membership started to form at a mere $20.00 and the interest started to grow.

Enquiries were made to the Four Wheel Drive Association of WA to become an affiliated member of the Association so that we could interact with other clubs in WA and participate in Association events. To establish ourselves firstly we had to register with the Ministry Of Fair Trading as a club and write up a constitution to go with our application. After many attempts of getting our constitution accepted we were given the green light in November 1995.

Since then the Club has grown from strength to strength, to the best of my knowledge the membership at its greatest was around 40 members in 1996/97. Today we stand at 25. A good number of very active members which is what it takes to run a good club of any kind. It is up to the committee and members to keep a good club going.

Over the years we have had a many meeting places Sandgroper 4wd premises, the Rockingham Football Club, Basketball Stadium, TS Anzac hall, the Rockingham Hotel ,the CWA hall , & now the Port Kennedy RSL.

I couldn't count the number of day trips and weekend's away, many of them very memorable with situations we have been in, to the funny stories told around the camp fire after a great day out four wheel driving and a few drinks under our belt and everyone having a good time. We have always come across as a very social club as well as serious four wheel drivers.

We have also been through our rough patches, but regrouped and forged on only to become better at what we do. We were a very young club to have taken on the Raft Regatta in 1997 as we had never participated in one let along run the event. But to the congratulations from other association clubs for a job very well done led us into running the 1999 & 2001 Raft Regattas, once again to great success.

As a club we have always been taken notice of in one way or another!!! But mainly for our achievements particularly in the Association Gymkhanas I don.t think in the years that we have participated that we have never come away without a prize. The Kalgoorlie Gymkhana that was held in 1998 we participated in for the first time and this event was a test of four wheel driving at it.s extreme we did very well with Neil and Tom both getting places in this event. In 1999, Tom & Darryl took out 1st & 2nd in their classes followed by Tim winning the year after.

As a young club compared to some, we have a lot to be proud of on our 11th birthday, and hope that the future is bigger and brighter for all. We now have a fairly permanent register of events each year with our club Night Navigation, the Association Night Navigation, Gymkhana, Blanket Appeal, Testosterone Men.s Only Weekend, and many social activities. It is up to us to keep the club at the high level that it is today.

Happy Four Wheel Driving......................Kathy Dickson.