Police car takes the backroads beat

Belmont’s Graeme McMahon will take to the nation’s backroads in an American-style highway patrol car for his eighth Camp Quality esCarpade this month.
Graeme and his team have raised about $13,000 of their $15,000 goal.
“But we’ve still got til next Friday,” he said.
“We got up to $18,000 in 2011 but we had a big a sponsor that year.”
The 56-year-old and three good mates will jump in his trusty police-themed VP Commodore for the 2000km trip, joining 70 cars from around Australia.
Graeme has loved meeting locals in the country’s lesser known towns on past esCarpades.
“You get to see a lot of the back country that you wouldn’t see on the main highways,” he said.
“We go through a lot of small towns and do school visits as well – it kind of makes their day.”
Graeme’s team has fitted the Commodore with light-truck 4WD tyres for the trip, which he said was about 70 per cent dirt roads.
“You’ve got to prepare the car for the off-road stuff.”
Graeme said he has never had a puncture in the esCarpade – which is fortunate for someone running a tyre business.
He remembers the tour running into trouble one year in Carnarvon Gorge, Queensland.
“The roads were just that rocky – out of 70 cars there were 50 punctures,” he said.
“I should have had a tyre service out at Roma – I would have made a fortune that day.”
The esCarpade will visit Geelong on 27 October for the first time since 2011, Graeme said.
The cars will stop at Eastern Beach and Clairvaux Catholic School in Belmont.
Graeme first got involved with Camp Quality because “most of money raised goes directly to the children”.
The charity provides family retreats and other services for children with cancer.
“It gets them away from it all – they can let their hair down and have fun with kids going through the same thing,” Graeme said.
Graeme’s friend Craig Watson will man Geelong’s other car in the event – a Mini Cooper station wagon.
“He’s going to have fun on dirt roads, I tell you,” Graeme said.