mmg.com.au

There’s a new chariot racing around Deniliquin, and it will be on display at the Farm Innovation and Technology Expo (FITE).

The inaugural expo will be held on March 30 and 31 at the Murray Valley Industry Park, also known as the Todds Rd field station, about 10km from Deniliquin.

The expo will include a new inventors competition, which supports the expo’s aim of highlighting new and innovative farm technology.

And John Bennett’s ‘chariot’ is one of those innovations.

The chariot is designed to give people in wheelchairs greater mobility.

One of Mr Bennett’s inventions has already enjoyed success in Deniliquin, with five Bennett Clayton engines built in Deniliquin and installed in a Sydney high-rise building last year.

His latest prototype (pictured) is built around a Yamaha 250cc motor scooter, and took Mr Bennett and his associates two weeks to create.

‘‘The idea was so that a person can drop a flap down, move the wheel chair into the chariot and grab the handlebars and drive it off like a scooter,’’ he said.

Mr Bennett described the chariot as a ‘‘front wheel drive motor scooter’’, and said it was designed to be towed by a hook if needed.

He plans to work on a more polished design.

‘‘This is purely a ‘Saturday night experiment’ to see whether it would actually work,’’ he said.

‘‘It’s a good fun thing to drive.

‘‘We thought we’d call it a ‘chair-mobile’.’’

The inventor said he had several options for the future of the chair-mobile, including building kits that can be adapted to different scooters.

He also plans to build several more chair-mobiles, and have a test-driving day in Deniliquin.

Mr Bennett is well-qualified to design the chair-mobiles, having built racing motorbikes in the 1960s and 1970s, and taking home a Grand Prix title in 1975.

Mr Bennett has now acquired that winning 1975 bike and is rebuilding it.

For more information about the FITE, contact Murray NOW on (02)60580600.