ANOTHER SPEEDWAY IDENTITY MAKES KINGS HONOURS LIST
Respected Queensland Speedway visionary Bob McCosker was surprised to be named in the King’s Birthday Honours List after ignoring the announcement emails as ‘spam.’
In addition to his impressive contribution to the sport of speedway, Bob is well regarded in the Gladstone region and was recognised for his extensive contribution to multiple community organisations.
“I had no idea!” he laughed. “I don’t usually get emails from the government, so I figured it was just spam, so I didn’t pay it any attention, but Monday morning, my phone lit up and it wasn’t until I started returning some of the calls that a friend informed me because he’d heard it on the ABC News. I was speechless.”
Bob’s humility is well regarded in the speedway community, as a gentleman Super Sedan racer and the visionary lead behind the new Gladstone Speedway.
“It’s very humbling, particularly when you realise that someone has selflessly put a lot of effort into nominating me and it took them a few years I’ve discovered, so for someone else who clearly puts other people first to deem that what they’ve seen in me is worthy of this sort of honour is amazing.”
“I’m just very fortunate to have built up a business and foundations where I can use them as a resource to better the community, and in some ways, I don’t think that’s something to be honoured as much as it’s a responsibility that someone with my resources has to the community,” he said, keeping it quiet that he also received the Environmental Philanthropist Award for Queensland for his Quoin Island Turtle Rehabilitation Centre last Friday.
In a sweet twist of irony, fellow Speedway racer Bill Barrows was also listed in the Kings Birthday Honours, and has had an interesting influence on Bob and the construction of the Gladstone speedway venue.
“It’s cool that when I was in a Mount Gambier, I met Bill and asked him all about track preparation, and he was such an open book and taught me so much, so he’s influenced a lot of how we do things at Gladstone Speedway and to be honoured on the same day as him is really cool.”
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