Supercars Canberra return “did not stack up”
By Thomas Miles
Date posted: 27 July 2023
A return of Supercars to the streets of Canberra for the first time in over two decades appears highly unlikely after ACT chief minister Andrew Barr said a comeback proposal “did not stack up”.
Supercars raced in the capital for three years from 2000 to 2002 around the Parliamentary Triangle on a 3.9km street circuit littered with chicanes.
The track was within touching distance from Parliament House and produced three different round winners in as many years with Steven Richards, Steven Johnson and Mark Skaife taking the honours.
The Canberra 400 was held on the Queen’s Birthday long weekend, but the chilly nature of the race meeting was a major frustration.
A triumvirate examined the possibility of a new street race returning to the capital for the first time in over two decades.
Instead of returning to the original twisty layout, a new street race entered around the Exhibition Park precinct, north of Parliament House was floated.
During a segment discussing expanding the Supercars calendar on Fox Sports’ Tasmania SuperSprint broadcast, Skaife made his wish to see a Canberra race return evident.
Mark Skaife on his way to winning the last Canberra Supercars round in 2002. image: Mark Horsburgh/LAT Photographic
“I would love to be able to get a Canberra race up in the ACT,” he said.
“We should be able to go to every state and territory.
“But one of the things you’ve got to do is you’ve got to do it cleverly and they don’t happen easily.
“If you’ve got a street race somewhere for instance, it’s a huge amount of money and a huge amount of government assistance is required, but but we do need to do more racing.”
But as reported in the Canberra Times, Barr has put the brakes on the idea, claiming the race would cost “tens of millions of dollars” well over double the amount of the original race.
“The assessment from the directorate was that it did not stack up,” Barr told the Canberra Times.
“It would have required significant investment from the territory government in infrastructure at Exhibition Park that we are not in a position to make.”
Steven Richards leads the Supercars field under the autumn backdrop of Canberra in 2002. Image: Mark Horsburgh/LAT Photographic
One of the leaders behind the plan to make the race happen was Russell Avis, who could not hide his disappointment.
“Yes, there would be up-front infrastructure costs involved but our intention was to leverage commitments that had already been made to upgrade the road network and the new Exhibition Park facility,” he said.
“This event really deserved a more considered study than we believe it was given.
“We had tried a number of times to get that sit-down meeting with the chief minister to walk him through what was proposed but we could not get time in his schedule, which is really unfortunate.”
Despite the setback, Avis still hopes the race will happen one day.
“These races are big events in other states and territories; they bring in millions of dollars,” he continued.
“We still believe in this idea. We have an alternate plan to bring a V8 Supercar race to Canberra.”
For more of the latest motorsport news, pick up the latest issue of AUTO ACTION.
PODCAST: The latest episode of the Auto Action RevLimiter podcast is out now!
Supercars parts & parity with an SMP preview. F1’s Oscar & Dan show, and the Aussie’s take on NASCAR!
Hungary GP was all about Oscar and Dan for us while Max and Red Bull set some more records as they steamroll 2023 – we pull this Grand Prix apart. Then with Supercars we talk Gen3 reliability issues and the problems with testing in public, and we preview Sydney Motorsport Park… its been a while since we’ve seen Supercars, how will the new parity package perform?
AUTO ACTION, Australia’s independent voice of motorsport.
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