{"id":803489,"date":"2026-07-16T07:47:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T07:47:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/803489\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T07:47:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T07:47:15","slug":"motorsport-news-aasa-executive-director-les-smith-hits-back-at-benalla-auto-clubs-rejection-of-sale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/803489\/","title":{"rendered":"Motorsport news: AASA executive director Les Smith hits back at Benalla Auto Club’s rejection of sale"},"content":{"rendered":"

A KEY member of the group which last month claimed ownership<\/a> of the Australian Auto-Sport Alliance, only for that status to be contested<\/a>, has broken his silence.<\/p>\n

Les Smith was among the quartet that represented the sanctioning body\u2019s new owners, along with Stephen Whyte, Michael FitzGerald and Peter Washington.<\/p>\n

Smith is listed as an executive director of the AASA in a statement provided today to V8 Sleuth.<\/p>\n

The communications come hot on the heels of a report in The Age<\/a> whereby Benalla Auto Club vice-president Ross Wood indicated he\u2019d inadvertently signed share transfer paperwork \u201cbecause he trusted that he was authorising a three-year lease agreement to Les Smith\u201d.<\/p>\n

The BAC has insisted it did not approve the sale of the AASA.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the outset, I want to publicly thank everyone who has continued to support Australian Auto-Sport Alliance Pty. Ltd. (AASA) over these last few weeks,\u201d Smith wrote in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been surprising to read reports which suggest that the Committee of Benalla Auto Club Inc (BAC) claimed to have no awareness of the share sale transaction until only very recently.\u00a0 This is in circumstances where I was involved in discussions and exchanged documents about the transaction with certain committee members, from mid-2025 onwards.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI also ensured that all payments in connection with the transaction were made as and when required.\u00a0 This included payments which were made in October and December 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I am sure everyone appreciates, the sale and purchase of shares in a company requires a considerable amount of paperwork, which must be signed by all relevant parties.\u00a0 Whilst most of that paperwork is confidential, a copy of the Change to Company Details Form, which was lodged with ASIC in April 2026, is a publicly available document.\u00a0 This document not only confirms that a transfer of the shares in AASA took place in March 2026, but as has recently been reported, was also signed by the Vice President of BAC.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remain committed to doing all that I can to support AASA and am proud to be surrounded by others who share the same mindset.\u00a0 This includes Stephen Whyte, who has been the CEO of AASA since mid-2024 (after stepping down from his role with BAC) and has helped take AASA from strength to strength since that time.<\/p>\n

\u201cAASA remains first and foremost a sanctioning body, with a purpose of facilitating the provision of public liability and personal accident insurance coverage for the greater motorsport community.\u00a0 It continues to retain and manage one of the largest programs in the country, supported by longstanding relationships with reputable insurers which have been built over many years.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite some reports suggesting that legal proceedings have been commenced<\/a>, I am not aware of any such proceedings.\u00a0 I am keen to bring closure and finality to these issues and would welcome the opportunity to do so, in an open and public forum.\u00a0In the meantime, I remain focused on continuing to support the great work being done by AASA, along with the broader motorsport community.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Hi-Tec Oils Super Series, which is the flagship offering sanctioned by the AASA, continues this weekend with Round 3 of its season at Sydney Motorsport Park.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A KEY member of the group which last month claimed ownership of the Australian Auto-Sport Alliance, only for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":803490,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-803489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=803489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/803490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}