As first reported by Speedcafe, sprintcar racing will be added to the 2024 Supercars season finale, with a round of the Australian Supercross Championship to also be held as part of a bumper motorsport programme.
While the official announcement indicated the supercross track will be built in Victoria Park in front of “the existing and beloved heritage grandstand,” there was no word at the time on where exactly the ‘NAPA Speedway’ is being erected.
That has now come to light through this month’s meeting of City of Adelaide Council’s City Community Services and Culture Committee, to which Adelaide 500 CEO Mark Warren and the South Australian Motorsport Board’s Nathan Cayzer presented.
Despite rumours of a private school location, the speedway is set to be situated in the circuit infield, between Wakefield Road and Bartels Road (the latter of which forms the straight leading into the Turn 8 Sweeper).
“‘Where is the speedway looking to be done?’” said Warren during his presentation.
“It’s on a playing field, so we’re looking at this oval here … King Rodney Park in Park 15.
“We will protect all the actual wickets and the like, and we will bring in ground protection, bring in the dirt, activate the event, take it back out again, and then remediate the oval, as we’ve done previously.”
That will force a move of the concert stage, which was placed in Park 15 last year.
It is now set to move back to Victoria Park, although somewhere near the final corner of the race track.
“The concert, we’re looking at Park 16, and it’s just working out the detail of that, quite frankly, because we do need to understand the electrical infrastructure around that,” explained Warren.
“We’re looking at probably this sort of area here in Victoria Park west. Again, we’re going through the design detail of that, as to how we can orientate it.
“One of the things we did find in having the concert previously in Park 15 is that the sound pointed directly at residents into this area, whereas the design we’re looking at here is to point it away from residents, because we’re conscious that not all residents like Crowded House and Cold Chisel.”
Warren also moved to point out that Adelaide 500 organisers have experience building temporary dirt tracks and then removing them in a fashion which protects the underlying parklands, as it has done previously when motocross raced in front of the Victoria Park Grandstand.
“We’ve bumped in, literally within a week, the supercross track,” he recounted.
“We’ve put ground protection down, we’ve brought it back up, and it’s been remediated and, within two weeks, it’s sparkling lawn again.
“So, that’s something we’ve had quite some experience in doing.”
Warren also advised, upon questioning from the committee, that any soil which is to be brought into the Adelaide Parklands is tested for contaminants.
There are also “no immediate plans” for an ‘RV park’, an idea which caused great controversy last year.
According to Warren, it was deemed infeasible in any case.
The 2024 Adelaide 500 takes place from November 14-17.
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