AusLeisure

The speedway racing community in NSW is facing uncertainty over its 2023/24 season after the cancellation of the entire competition, scheduled to start last Saturday.

The venue was closed when its operators exited last month, apparently having been impacted by apparent poor design that led to its unviability during adverse weather.

The cancellation was first reported on the Sprintcar Association of NSW Facebook page, which posted “unfortunately the season, which was due to begin on September 23 at Eastern Creek Speedway, has been cancelled”.

“No further details have been provided”.

Images posted on social media showed works continuing on the problematic surface which has been plagued by drainage issues since the venue opened in 2021, followed by a prolonged period of event cancellations due to the problems caused by heavy rain and subsequent saturation of the racing surface.

The issue is thought to be caused by the ‘saucer’ design of the track, with crowd viewing areas sloping toward the racing surface without sufficient sub-surface drainage in place to deal with rainfall.

Following the revelations, racers and fans questioned the absence of an official communication from either the promoters of Eastern Creek Speedway or venue owners the NSW Government.

The Eastern Creek Speedway at Sydney Motorsport Park was developed following a public outcry when Sydney’s former home of speedway at Parramatta was demolished by the NSW Government as part of its Metro West rail Project.

A tender process selected a consortium of John/Kathy Kelly and Scott/Leonie Anderson as the initial promoters for the venue.

The original budget of $40 million soon grew to $80 million with the Cox Architecture designed venue understood to have eventually cost $100 million once rectification works are complete.

Speedway Australia input
Further uncertainty over the future of the venue followed when Speedway Australia, advised on 22nd September that it was “confident that racing will return to Sydney’s Eastern Creek Speedway in the near future,” and that “the tender process for a new operator (is) intended to be launched soon by the Greater Sydney Parklands.”

However, Speedway Australia subsequently withdrew that statement on the basis that it had earlier relied on incomplete information.

Speedway Australia now advises that “we acknowledge that the challenges and uncertainties surrounding the departure of the previous operators and ongoing discussions with the government are more complex than initially conveyed by Western Sydney Parklands Trust.”

It has now committed to assisting the previous operators of Eastern Creek Speedway in “establishing communication” with NSW Minister for Planning and Public Spaces Paul Scully.

The closure of Sydney’s new speedway venue follows the loss of Brisbane’s Archerfield Speedway to redevelopment and the cancellation of yet another season of World Series Sprintcars.

Images courtesy of Cox Architecture.

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