CAMS NSW Awards Night

08 March 2014 / Story by Jean Cook, pictures provided by CAMS

I had the most enjoyable honour of attending this event in December of last year along with Mike and Cobie Hicks, and David and Gaynor Lawler. Having been involved in the Mazda MX-5 Club since its inception and always having had the connection with CAMS, it has been only in recent years that I have also become more aware of, and involved in the activities of CAMS. I started by doing some admin work at Sydney Motor Sport Park and now have become an accredited Bronze level Steward and Club Chief.

It was a pleasure to find out that CAMS is at last recognizing the continuing connection between the Mazda MX-5 Club of NSW and CAMS, and presenting an award to the Club celebrating 20 years of continuing affiliation.

The highlight of the night to me was witnessing the CAMS Service Award being presented to Mike Hicks. Mike joined the Mazda MX-Club during one of my times as President, and within a very short time became the Competition Secretary. As everyone knows the competition side of the club flourished and grew under his guidance and encouragement. It has been a pleasure for me to witness all this activity within the Club. His calm demeanour in spite of Murphy’s Law sometimes appearing, and his quiet encouragement has made it a pleasure to have any dealing with him! It used to be that when I went to a race meet or sprint that I knew all the MX-5 competitors in the event, but now there are so many MX-5’s at any given event, that I just can’t keep up with everyone! My excuse is that when everyone is dressed up in race suits & helmets, you all look the same!

At the same time that the competition side of the club was growing rapidly, so was Mike’s involvement in CAMS. He became a panel member for the Supersprint Panel of NSW, then Secretary and finally as Chairman of the panel. He was also a member of the CAMS State Executive for a number of years. He has been appointed to the CAMS Australian Sports and Club Development Commission, including being the chair of the Speed Events Working Group. In between all that he has maintained his L2S license and has managed to compete in Sprints and Regularity events up to a National Level!

This award was well deserved and it is a pleasure to see all his hard work being rewarded.

Congratulations Mike on receiving this well deserved this award. Well done!