Success Stories

TrackGrip Wins Innovation Award at Fielddays

Congratulations to TGM Design client – John Burling, whose company TrackGrip Ltd won an innovation award at Fielddays recently. TGM have had the pleasure of helping John and Sonia create their company identity including logo, business cards and rack cards. Below is the story that appeared in the Daily News.

Eltham engineer John Burling was fizzing with excitement over his merit award at the Fieldays in Hamilton yesterday.

Mr Burling's company, TrackGrip Ltd, won the award in the innovation competition's equipment category with a product that attaches to the tracks of any tracked vehicle for stability in the wet.

The invention was prompted by a slide down a hill in a digger on a property east of Stratford last winter. "I nearly killed myself," he said.

So the Carac Couplings owner set about creating a product to prevent tracked vehicles sliding in the wet.

"It's taken eight months to develop because I had to make sure I got it right," he said.

"Every operator will tell you he's had a slide. It scares the living daylights out of you."

Mr Burling said TrackGrip could be used in forestry, on snow, ice and permafrost, and had applications worldwide.

It has been patented in the United States. The mood was upbeat on the second day of Fieldays at Mystery Creek.

There was a big crowd on the heels of Wednesday's opening day attendance of more than 26,000 – 9 per cent more than in 2009.

Fieldays communications adviser Arian Tucker said exhibitors and visitors alike were positive, and plenty of machinery was sold. 

One buyer spent $2 million by lunchtime on Wednesday.

"If Fieldays are the yardstick, the recession is over," she said. 

Hawera businessman Brian O'Dea, at work on the Honda stand, agreed the mood was positive.

Asked how many motorbikes he had sold, he said: "I never sell on the day. I wait till I get back home and follow up."

Interest was strong in Opunake's Corkill Systems' new milk pump controller.

Company owner Steve Corkill said the new high-pressure, low-volume pump was reliable and cost-effective and would revolutionise milking in big cowsheds.

He had more than 20 prototypes in dairy sheds around the country, and the final product was being released at Fieldays.

"My market is not Taranaki – it's nationwide and worldwide," he said.The company is exhibiting at Fieldays for the 17th successive year.

By SUE O'DOWD - Taranaki Daily News

Congrats to the team at TrackGrip. For more information on this innovative product, check out www.trackgrip.com

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