Sydney Speedway return a success

The Sydney International Speedway made a long awaited comeback last Saturday night and it has been hailed as a success on and off the track.

The sight of sprintcars being back in the NSW capital was a welcome one after the original 2023/24 schedule was cancelled, promoters walked away and the venue’s last race meeting was back in April 2023.

But after the hard work of the team led by director Yvonne Boldy, track manager Gary Willmington, curators Braydon Willmington and Marty Perovich, commentator Stu McCarthy and track assistant Ashley Anthony, the multimillion dollar facility was back in action.

Despite Sydney rain threatening to spoil the occasion, Jy Corbet put in a storming drive to win the Sprintcars feature.

With a big crowd in the stands and entertaining racing on show, Willmington hailed the meeting as a success.

“It was just great to see it happen,” he told AUTO ACTION.

“We were pretty happy with it all and learnt a lot.

“It was a pretty good crowd with over 4000 people there which was better than we expected.

“A Shame we didn’t get to run the feature race for the late models and fender benders because of the rain but the main thing we got the sprintcars in and it was great racing.

“This was just stage 1 of a very big picture for the future.”

Jy Corbet gets some sir on his way to winning the sprintcars comeback to Sydney International Speedway. Image: Gavin Skene

Some of the biggest issues holding back Sydney International Speedway focused around drainage, lighting, parking and the lease.

New drainage systems are in place whilst the lighting was checked and the track reworked.

This is Willmington’s sixth decade in motorsport but he described bringing Sydney International Speedway as his biggest challenge.

“I have worked in motor racing my entire life and getting those gates open was probably the hardest thing I have done. It was a challenge,” he said.

“One of the things was so much negativity everywhere we went and too many doubters to get a lot of support.

“We were lucky with a select few people that gave us 100% support.

“The government was very good being right behind us and helping us all the way.

“We managed to get some quick decisions which made it possible to get the thing open.

“But we had to literally write pretty much thousands of pages of brand new documents for traffic management and emergency plans.

“The list of plans and documents we had to write basically from scratch was over the top and we had to get a new licence.”

Part of the venue’s facelift included a slightly reworked track surface and whilst Willmington admitted it was far from perfect on Saturday night, drivers were impressed.

Sprintcars racing in front of a big crowd at Sydney. Image: Gavin Skene

The track manager confirmed the surface will be boosted by extra clay come the next event.

“The shape and angles of the track worked perfectly,” he said.

“We had some really good racing with some guys going from 18th to fourth and 14th to second, so that proved you could pass cars and run the top, middle and bottom.

“The track surface itself was a little bit harder than it should have been, mainly because we were waiting on extra clay which we have coming in.

“Once we get that we will be able to prepare the track to a much better level then what we were able to do.

“We had to compromise a little bit on Saturday night with our aim to get the gates open.

“The surface had to be harder because it was a little bit thin in a few areas but that will be fixed for the next event.”

After waiting almost a year for racing to return to Sydney, the next meeting will only be a few weeks away on Saturday, April 20.

Images: Gavin Skene

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