LOCAL speedway driver Anthony ‘Wally’ Bannam is relatively new to being behind the wheel of a speedway car, but his recent foray into the competition will see him take on one of Portland’s most iconic events.

Bannam, 16, is set to take part in the Southern 500 Speedway’s annual caravan race on February 10 in what will be his first event racing in his new speedway car.

“All last year all he would talk about is doing the caravan race,” his father Mark Bannam said.

“He worked on the car for ages to get it right to go, and I told him he needed to get some sponsors, so we went out and did that.”

Anthony and his father have lived in Milltown their whole lives, on a property previously owned by Mark’s father.

Anthony said while he had been very disappointed by the caravan race initially being postponed from its original date on January 6, but is still excited for it to go ahead on its new date, nonetheless.

“I just wanted to try something a bit different, I have a lot of family and friends who are involved at the speedway, a lot of them helped me to get the car ready to go,” Anthony said.

“I’m still in the pit crew for one of my old school mates… I think this is just sort of going to be a cool thing to do on the side a bit for me.”

“A lot of parts for the car were built from the scrapyard, we got all the parts from Portland one weekend and got it done,” Mark said.

“We’d just really like to thank Warner Scrap Metal, Nathan Hutchins and just everyone else who helped out along the way with getting the car going, from the sponsors to everyone else.”

Bannam will be in action on February 10 at the Southern 500 Speedway during its annual caravan race.