Festival Of Speed for Bathurst ?

[Skippy1976]

Taken From the Weekend Advocate 25/6

Bathurst Regional Council has sent an even expert on a fact finding mission to England in a bid to bring a second event to Mount Panorama.

Documents obtained by the Western Advocate show council has been meeting with James O'Brien, a former employee of sports event group IMG, from as early as May 18 this year in a bid to copy England's Festival of Speed and bring it to Mount Panorama.

The decision to help fund Mr O'Briens Trip was made during the same confidential meeting that saw council decide not to support the East Coast Targa to the tune of $25,000. The east Coast Targa brings $2 million into the Bathurst economy, according to an economic impact statement.

The festival of speed is Goodwood, England every year and attracts tens of thousands of motorsport fans from around the world for a celebration of everything from early motorbikes to modern Formula One cars. On Wednesday, June 1 all councillors met under thebanner of the Mount Panorama Committee to consider Mr O'Brien's request for $4000 so he could go to the festival as a representative of the council.

That request was granted and from today (our time) Mr O'Brien will begin gathering details of how the English festival is run and how it can be brought to Bathurst.

The $4000 will be taken from council's Mount Panorama fund.

Motorsport News journalist Jon Thompson, who has attended 32 consecutive Bathurst 1000s said council should proceed cautiously.

"Bathrst has an asset in Mount Panorama ... it is vastly underused." Mr Thompson said.

"Maybe in 10 years time you're going to have a massive event"

Council's director of corporate services and finaces, Bob Roach, was tight-lipped about Mr O'Brien's trip, but Cr Ian North said he supported council's decision to make the decision behind closed doors.

"It would be totally inappropriate to have it out there at the moment. I was personally comfortable in discussing the issue in confidence" Cr North said.

[ends]



Sounds interesting. I wouldn't mind seeing some different machinery circulating around the track, like a heap of group C cars, Group A, plus whatever else people have sitting in their sheds.

I'd still like to see the 24hr back up and running though. It was a great event for those who liked to spend a lot of time at a race track watching all different types of cars go around from every vantage point around the circut in daylight and 2am in the morning.