Founded on the basis of a Billy Cart Festival organized by the Mount Helena Residents and Ratepayers Assn – it now has its own identity with the objective of encouraging other communities to stage similar events. This could be a series of events culminating in the Grand Prix in Mount Helena (the home to the resurgence in Billy Cart racing) on the last Sunday of October every year.
What was old is suddenly new again!
Billy Carts bring back many memories of simple outdoor fun with thrills and spills for everyone involved. In our modern world of electronic devices there is a certain appeal to revisit “old fashioned” activities, yet those activities do need to provide a little more protection for the participants than the old fashioned carts with their string steering.
Turning back time, we held our inaugural Billy Cart Festival in 2018 at Mount Helena in the Perth Hills. There were 55 glorious contraptions piloted by young and young at heart, we had competitors aged from 5 through to 70. Despite all kinds of frustrating hurdles and lots of learnings it was a fabulous event and loved by all who competed or attended. Opened by Premier McGowan, the event was embraced by the community and it received a unanimous thumbs up from them.
Encouraging everyone to dress up in period costume and period attractions like the coconut shy all helped create the “turn back time” feel to the events. The vintage clothing theme was great for all ages – including the kids that were not competing with a Billy Cart.
The Hills Billy Cart Festival has become a great community building event that has become an iconic event for the Shire of Mundaring.
While the competition is timed it is not all about speed, there are various ribbons and trophies for design and innovation, crowd favourite etc. The key ingredient is having fun and not about who just has the fastest time.
The event was repeated in 2019 with 75 carts. This was a much smoother run event with a larger attendance – despite the unseasonably hot day. The community feedback was enormously supportive.
Our first “post COVID” event was the support of the Gingin 150th celebrations….our first “away game” where we trialed our new race barriers and found some new local members. We held our own Hills Billy Cart Festival at the end of October 2021 which ran like clockwork. In 2021 we produced our first cart for a child with disabilities, the first of several we intend to produce.
