Kym Beesley's Racing History
An exposé of one of our Mazda legends written by the editor of MX5 Club's magazine.
(July 2011 - Reproduced from MX5 Club Magazine)
The Sponsors' Section - James Frizelle's Gold Coast Mazda.
So far readers, we've looked at two sponsors who began their transition into the workforce at the same time as they discovered motor sports. This time the story is different. Kym began his motorsport career when he was thirteen, on the international Go-Kart track at Bolivar, just north of Adelaide.
A mate invited him to have a drive in (on?) his Italian Go-Kart and it was lust at first drive. Seven years later and hundreds of kart kilometers in between, Kym joined the Adelaide Ford Escort (of course you remember them) Car Club with its four other members. A year later he was President of a 65+ member Club with its own CAMS delegate. They offered members' track days, show and shine outings and a supply of parts, tools and expertise, especially needed with the introduction of the Lotus engine into the class.
Kym's next racing move was a serious shift into the Mk 1 GT Cortina and, at 26, Circuit Sprints on the ex-RAAF air-base track at Mallala, South Australia. The Club also ran motokhanas by using the car park of a major shopping centre, not something encouraged these days!
In the end, though, it all. became too expensive because the race car was also the family transport, with repairs and running costs out of Kym's league. So ... Back to Go-Karts, 100cc engines and sponsorship for the Clubman series - right up to the day a pre-race pit-lane argument turned into a track debacle as a miffed opponent pushed through the pack. Kym estimates that he hit the tyre barrier at about 100kph with enough force to bend the steering column through ninety degrees and leave him with long-term and major whiplash injuries.
Aged 34, Kym decided that his racing days were over. Say "Goodbye" Bolivar International Raceway, say "Hello" to Queensland. Well, after a few years selling a rival car brand - oh all right, Toy ... No, I can't say it.
Kym joined James Frizclle's Gold Coast Mazda staff in 1996 and he's still enthusiastic abut the team, the role he has and the marque he sells. I know that because I was chatting to him about this article when he fielded a phone call from a potential client. Reader, you had to be there to watch his whole body - not just his voice - come alive as he talked about the opportunities that he could discuss
with his client face-to-face later the same afternoon. I may have been there to talk about his career but I saw the actions of a passionately committed man in those six minutes in a way that went beyond words.
Kym's been married to Lesley for just over thirty-one years. Son Shane decided not to follow Kym into the world of the motor car, or Lesley into book sales but to shape his own future in the world of retail support services with the support and encouragement of both parents. Kym and I then talked about retirement but it became painfully apparent that only one of us had any interest in that topic. Kym thought that I meant leaving the office we were in to get back out onto the sales floor when I used the word!
So, reader, there's a profile of the Frizelle family's senior salesman, proud father, loving husband and red-hot MX-5 Car Club member, Kym Beesley. This is a man deeply involved in the future of Mazda in Australia - watch for announcements during this year as new technology reaches the showroom floor - and committed to the notion of personal service. But, reader, he did become a little wistful about having to give up his Track life!