Speedway and Motorsport Gifts for Kids: An Australian Guide
If there is a child in your life who has caught speedway, you already know the problem: most of what gets sold as a motorsport gift is a shirt, a cap or a keyring. Things they wear once and forget.
This is a list of things that actually get used, from people who spend Saturday nights at the track. Most of them we do not sell.
Start here: ear protection
If you buy one thing on this list, buy this.
A sprintcar at close range is genuinely loud, and small ears are more vulnerable than adult ones. A decent pair of kids' earmuffs is the difference between a child who lasts the whole night and one who wants to go home after the first heat. Plenty of families have accidentally put their kid off speedway forever by skipping this.
Look for a folding pair sized for children, in a bright colour so they are findable in a dark grandstand. They cost very little and they get used every single meeting.
Under $30
Die-cast sprintcars. The 1:64 scale ones are the right size for play and cheap enough to lose. If the child has a favourite driver, a car in those colours is worth more to them than anything generic.
A cheap torch or head torch. Walking back to the car across a dark paddock, or finding a dropped car under the grandstand seats. Unromantic and constantly used.
A drink bottle they will not lose. Track canteens are expensive and the queues are long.
$30 to $100
Tickets to a meeting at your local track. Still the best value gift on this list. Check your nearest club's calendar — most run through the summer months, and a junior ticket is usually inexpensive. If you can, pick a night with a junior class on the programme, so they see kids racing rather than only adults.
A folding camp chair or a stadium blanket. Concrete grandstands get cold and hard by the third hour. This is the gift that makes a child willing to stay to the last race.
Driver or team merchandise from someone local. Buying direct from a driver at the track means more to a kid than a generic brand, and the money goes somewhere real.
A larger scale die-cast, 1:18 or similar. More of a display piece than a toy, but for an older child who has started caring about the detail, these hold up.
$100 and up
A speedway play mat. Our own product, so take this with the appropriate pinch of salt — but it is on the list because it is the thing that keeps the sport going between meetings. It is a dirt-oval layout rather than a town with roads, so kids play speedway on it rather than traffic, and it lives on the floor rather than in a cupboard. Three sizes, and the size guide is worth reading before you choose.
A remote-control dirt oval car. The step up for a child who wants to actually drive something. Get a brushed model rather than a fast brushless one for a first car — they are slower, tougher and far less frustrating.
A pit pass or track experience. Some clubs run open days or let families walk the pits before racing. Ring your local track and ask. Standing next to a running sprintcar is the thing that turns interest into obsession.
The big one: seat time
If the interest has gone past spectating, Australian speedway has junior classes designed exactly for this — junior sedans being the most common entry point. Ages, licensing and car requirements vary, so the right move is to contact your nearest club or the relevant state association and ask what they run and what age they start.
It is a bigger commitment than anything else on this page. It is also the reason a lot of Australian racing families exist.
What we would avoid
Anything with a licensed cartoon on it. Kids who are into real racing work out the difference surprisingly early, and usually earlier than the people buying for them.
Adult-sized team apparel bought to grow into. It sits in a drawer for two years and by then they support someone else.
Anything that needs an adult to set it up every time. The gifts that get used are the ones a child can start on their own.
If you only have ten minutes
Kids' earmuffs, a die-cast in their driver's colours, and a ticket to the next meeting. Under a hundred dollars, and it covers the night itself, the drive home and the week afterwards.
Questions about our own mats are answered on the FAQs page, or you can see the three sizes here. Free shipping Australia-wide and a 30-day money-back guarantee, which matters when you are buying a gift and cannot check the fit first.
