![The Slade family at Petria Slade's wedding at Oakburn Park last year (front L-R) Lois and Wally Slade, Petria and new husband Jack Webster, her parents Paul and Jo Slade, and (back L-R) brothers Michael and Luke Slade. Picture Supplied. The Slade family at Petria Slade's wedding at Oakburn Park last year (front L-R) Lois and Wally Slade, Petria and new husband Jack Webster, her parents Paul and Jo Slade, and (back L-R) brothers Michael and Luke Slade. Picture Supplied.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/ingYyB85ps4jmG9t8mfsHP/67c8653b-5a18-482b-8a77-ef8c8c8f55b1.jpg/r0_237_8192_5462_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
So wedded is the Slade family to the Tamworth Motorcycle Club (TMC) that when Petria got married last year she wanted to do it at the club's homebase, Oakburn Park.
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It's been a virtual second home to her, with her family as deep-rooted as the surrounding trees in the soil on which the tracks sits.
Dad, Paul has been the president for more than three decades and mum, Jo, the race secretary for just as long.
Brothers Luke and Michael have both also been involved as participants and committee members, as Petria is.
There seems little argument that the club would not be where it is today without the Slades.
So heavily involved are they, that committee member Jeff Garnham said it would be "pretty scary" if they were for some reason to step away.
"We'd struggle to find someone that's prepared to step into their shoes," he said.
"Everything from the official side of running all race meetings and practice days to going and getting the food for the canteen and running the canteen, the track maintenance, and the track preparation.
"It's just never ending what they do."
Jeff said for some time the club had been thinking about the need to acknowledge the Slade family contribution in some way. It was just a matter of how.
The solution came in the form of the new scoring tower, which has been dedicated as The Slade Family Tower.
"It's something that's going to be there forever and it was just an appropriate acknowledgement of what the whole family has done and are doing," Jeff said.
Unveiled at the club's practice day on July 6, he said they would have loved to have kept the acknowledgement secret.
![The new scoring tower out at Oakburn Park has been dedicated as The Slade Family Tower. The new scoring tower out at Oakburn Park has been dedicated as The Slade Family Tower.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/ingYyB85ps4jmG9t8mfsHP/2bd0c457-6211-482f-819c-5fa4ae7914fe.jpg/r0_191_2048_1342_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
But that didn't quite eventuate: they needed Slade family assistance to mount the sign.
Jokingly referring to it as Jo's "Tower of Power", being the lap-scorer, Paul said it was pretty humbling.
"They didn't really have to do that... but they did," he said.
The man affectionately known as 'Slady' has been involved with the TMC for going on 38 years, 33 of which - bar about 15 months - he's served as president.
"We've certainly seen some ups and downs over the years," he said.
"[But] It's a great club, always has been."
Initially into horses, what would become a lifelong passion for motorsport, began when his family moved to Tamworth.
"We originally came from Newcastle, down that area," Paul reflected.
"We were dairy farmers and my father brought a dairy farm at Attunga."
"When we moved he said 'what do you want a horse or a motorbike?'.
"I thought a motorbike sounds pretty good, we'll give that a go."
Eleven at the time, the rest, as they say is history.
His introduction was through "Pony Expresses and enduros".
"Then I wanted to have a bit of a go at flat tracking so me and a couple of lads went up to Moore Creek (which was where the club was based in those days), had a go at that, and we liked flat tracking, dirt tracking and it all sort of went from there," he said.
Or snowballed from there.
![Between them Paul and Jo Slade have given more than 60 years of service to the Tamworth Motorcycle Club. Between them Paul and Jo Slade have given more than 60 years of service to the Tamworth Motorcycle Club.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/ingYyB85ps4jmG9t8mfsHP/aef5fe8c-6a28-4c6b-8195-7d6178dd450b_rotated_270.jpg/r0_530_2268_2522_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Five years later Paul was running the whole show.
And soon after that he was overseeing the club's relocation from Moore Creek out to Oakburn Park, after council decided they wanted to develop the area for housing.
"It's quite unbelievable actually when you go out there (Moore Creek) now.
"When we used to go out there basically there were two houses and they were farmhouses way down the road," he said.
It is with a somewhat sense of pride that he reflects on where they are now.
They went out to Oakburn with "pretty much no money"; all they had to completely build a new track from scratch was $60,000 they'd borrowed from the motorsports committee.
Initially they just did the bare track so that at least they could get racing again.
"Now we've got a great facility and we've been running national titles, and state titles," he said.
By his side through it all has been Jo.
As well as the race secretary, she is also the club secretary and the clerk of the course, among other duties.
"She had no choice," Paul joked, adding that her dad was a member around the Harry Pyne era.
Luke is meanwhile the chief cook in the canteen, while Petria runs the canteen and is the caretaker of the facility along with husband Jack Webster.
Michael has also been on the track committee and his son, Hamish, has been trained up by Paul to be the "water truck man and grader man".
He is also on the committee, and leading the renewed push to secure government funding to transform Oakburn Park into a regional motorsports hub.