THERE are hopes for a much-needed new permanent circuit to be established in New South Wales.
Hot on the heels of Motorsport Australia’s Avalon project for which a feasibility study is being compiled with a view to creating a $250 million precinct to effectively replace Sandown in 2026/27, the organisation’s CEO is keen to commence similar talks in NSW.
With Sydney Motorsport Park holding a monopoly over the state’s market, track availability is scarce and hire fees are at a premium.
That’s come about with Wakefield Park closed, a major setback for a proposed second Mount Panorama track and the restriction of the existing Bathurst facility to five events per year.
There’s also doubt surrounding the future of the Newcastle street circuit.
Motorsport Australia CEO Eugene Arocca indicated the landscape for NSW motorsport is in desperate need of change.
“New South Wales is the biggest state as far as participation is concerned and population and yet it has got the least amount of tracks in the country in real terms per capita,” he told V8 Sleuth.
“It is crying out for a second high-standard venue.
“We were led to believe and we’d seen statements from the Labor opposition when they were running for government that upon winning the election they were going to sit down and conduct a strategy around motorsport.
“We’ve allowed them to settle in, I think it’s been three months since they won the election. Our plan is to go and meet with the Sports Minister and tease out what their plans are in that regard.”
Arocca will point to case studies from other states, such as The Bend (and Adelaide 500) in South Australia and the Avalon grand plan in Victoria.
“We would argue that it’s crying out for a plan and strategy for New South Wales,” said Arocca.
“So we plan on meeting with the Minister, talk about the option of a strategy and wanting to be involved in that because New South Wales is screaming out for a second venue.
“It’s just unacceptable that people have to wait for so long and, to be honest, pay premium rates to get access to the single track in the state.
“It’s killing ambition, it’s stifling participation.
“Our members have universally said right around the country, ‘if I could get more track time I’d race more’ and that’s holding us back.
“I think with our biggest state really operating on one venue, it’s a busy venue.
“We would hope the New South Wales government follows the lead of South Australia who brought back the Adelaide 500, follows the lead of Victoria that is looking at a premium track in Avalon, follows the lead of Queensland that has been supporting QR getting back on track and Tony Quinn doing some great work putting some investment in there.
“And I mean look at Hidden Valley, look what’s happening here. This venue is completely different from what I saw 10 years ago and government is really a big player in this.
“So I think New South Wales is almost like an outlier as far as developing motorsport venues in that state, and we seem to have essentially had Wakefield shut down.
“Hopefully the new Labor government will see what the economies have done in nearly every other state and look at the option of supporting motorsport, because it drives industry, drives regional, drives economics and the sport needs the infrastructure.”
Arocca believes somewhere in the vicinity of Newcastle could be NSW’s answer to Avalon, being based by a major regional city not far from a state capital – not to mention providing a point of difference to SMP’s location on the west side.
“I think it needs to be near a second major city. I’m thinking Newcastle,” said Arocca.
“I would think it needs to be next to a good population base.
“That’s why Avalon is so attractive, it’s 15 minutes from Geelong which has got 250,000 people.
“To be able to justify the sustainability of the track in a regional zone in a big state, you need to be strategic about that and I would think that somewhere like Newcastle makes a lot of sense.
“But you know what, the benefit of sitting down with government and working on strategy is to work with them and find the best location. That will take more than just me saying I think it should be Newcastle.”
