Come and join the Kohatu Park team for lunch and a couple of refreshing beverages at Armadillos in Queen Sreet, Richmond, on the 11th of October from 11am onwards for your chance to win some awesome prizes and catch the action unfolding live on the big screens during the biggest V8 Supercar event of the year. 

There will be a raffle, free nibbles and the Simulator with the Kohatu Park and Bathurst circuits for you to attack with your favorite vehicles. The Kohatu Park board members will be there to give you an update on the parks progress and answer any questions you may have.

Bowater Hyundai are bringing up and coming World Rally car driver Hayden Paddon to Nelson for the day on Tuesday 14^th July.

Mike Crawford from New Zealand Media & Entertainment has secured Pro Karts Tahuna Beach to be a venue for a chance to meet Hayden and maybe race with him on the kart track or Kohatu Parks simulator.

What better way to spend some of Tuesday afternoon (between 11am and 1pm) meeting a future world champ from the South Island and having a drive around Kohatu Parks track on the simulator.

Great news, we have received confirmation that the Kohatu Park Trust has been granted charitable status and is now a registered charity, being recognised as a faculty that will benefit a number of people throughout the community and New Zealand in general.

It is awesome to see the effort everyone has been putting in starting to pay off; and to see a dream for so many of us turning into a reality is extremely rewarding.

The opportunity to get Kohatu Park on the Tasman District and Nelson City Councils Long Term Plans is coming to a close.

Your help is required to make this happen, no matter where you are it would be fantastic if you could complete an online submission. This is not a daunting task something as simple as the statement below is fine:

“Please include Kohatu Park in the Long Term Plan so the region and community can benefit from its establishment and operations.”

The region's councils will be urged to allow the establishment of Kohatu Park, a major regional motorsport and adventure venue, in their Long Term Plans.

Those driving the $26-million venture plan to make submissions to the two councils' 10-year plans next month.

"In my mind it would be remiss of councillors not to be looking that far ahead," said Garry Adcock. "We've got to look past my lifetime to my grandchildren's. Will speedway still operate then at the bottom of Queen St when there is urban growth? It's just going to be trouble."

Kohatu Park's first public open day to view the site where the Park is to be established was to be on Sunday 22nd but was postponed late on 21st due to the risk of fire.

Volunteers worked hard all day to put mitigation measures in place but checking the conditions with regions chief rural fire officer the risk and consequence was deemed too great to have hundreds of visitors at the site.

The main issue was along the access road through the forestry which will be widened and have fire breaks as Kohatu Park becomes operational and will mitigate the risk in the future.

2016 will be a big year for Kohatu Park with the major fundraising project kicking into full swing, led by a professional fundraising crew known as "Giving Architects"

One of Kohatu Parks management strategies is to reduce the likelihood and consequences of fire resulting from activities associated with the motorsport park. Advising our members and the public of that risk is the first mitigating step that we can take to do this. Below you can see the risk level for our region as published by the National Rural Fire Authority

No matter what the classification is, if you are attending our open day please be "Fire Wise", we are surrounded by forest plantations so extreme care is required.

Kohatu Park is going to hold an open day for public viewing on Sunday the 22nd of February between the hours of 10am and 2pm. There will be no admission fee, this is your chance to come and have a look where Kohatu Park's facilities will be built.

There will be a number of things to see and do, with entertainment for all ages. We have also invited clubs interested in establishing at Kohatu Park to set up displays on the day; we will have food and refreshment stalls onsite too.

So come out on Sunday the 22nd of February and see where it's going to happen.

Check out the conceptual plan detailing some of the features that will be developed at Kohatu Park