Flipping cars and pulling trams

STRONG men and women will be back at SpringFest this year, and this time they are flipping a cars along with the traditional tram pull.

The feats of strength competition, called Battle 2, is a four-round, mixed pairs competition and that’s brining out some big names in the sport.

“We’ve got some of the best of Australia’s and Victoria’s strong men and women competing,” organiser Kay Hodgson said.

Michael Smit, who is currently ranked third in the world in men’s under 80kg class, and Alira Verity, fifth globally in under women’s 65kg, will be teaming up.

They are just one of over 30 teams who’ll be rolling over a more than 500kg car from wheels to wheels, pulling a tram 10 meters in 60 seconds, doing a Farmers Carry and undertaking a yet to be revealed mystery event.

“No one knows what they are doing, and I can’t even let you know,” Ms Hodgson said.

“But the mystery event is always a fun event.

“They don’t know what they are doing so they can’t train for it, specifically.”

While there’s the serious side of winning to the event, Ms Hodgson said the SpringFest Battle 2 was also more a social opportunity for competitors to get together and do what they love.

“They want to come up because they think it’s a fun event,” she said.

“It’s not one of those events where it’s very stressful. They come up, they have a bit of fun and it’s a great day with all the atmosphere. It’s almost like a carnival.”

There’ll also be a battle within the battles as gyms from across the state go head-to-head in a separate tram pull.

Ms Hodgson’s gym, CB Fitness, has form in the event, having won it several times at SpringFest before.

“So six-people per team per gym,” Ms Hodgson said. “That’ll see who the strongest gym is.”

SpringFest organiser Robert Glass said part of day was about supporting local community groups and small business and allowing those kinds of organisations to reach a wider audience.

“It is a community-based event and the idea is we give them an opportunity to be able to get some publicity in their own right in an event they mightn’t be able to run themselves,” he said.

“It’s always meant to be a community event, not a commercial event as such.”

This year’s Springfest goes 25 November at Lake Wendouree.

Along with the Battle 2 strength competition the event features 500 market stalls, the Peter Stevens MG – Show -N – Glow and Vintage Car Display, Petstock’s Pet Corner, Sovereign Hill’s Mini Township and the RACV Goldfields Resort Children’s Wunderfest.