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Following the news World Series Sprintcars will not be contested this summer there poses another controversy to come in 2025 as a potential date clash for two of speedway racing’s biggest events is set to occur.
For more than 50 years Warrnambool’s Grand Annual Sprintcar Classic has been held on Australia Day, but for 2024 organisers have elected to move the event to the long weekend rather than holding it mid-week in alignment with the day.
The Australian Sprintcar Championship will be held together with the legendary Warrnambool event for 2024, but moves to Eastern Creek Speedway in 2025 where organisers have stated the intention of remaining on this date leading to the clash.
Speedway Australia CEO Darren Tindal stated the body will not get involved in the date clash, leaving it up to the promoters of each event promoter.
“It’s not something that Speedway Australia would normally be involved in as we don’t get involved in dates and calendars, but ultimately, I think the two venues need to work together to come up with the right resolution for the sport,” said Tindal.
“And I would say the governing body for Sprint Cars would have to be involved to help resolve this as it is a sprint car sanctioned event (referring to the Australian Title).”
Organisers from the Grand Annual Sprintcar Classic have also released a statement, which can be viewed at the end of this story.
Tindal also highlighted the social media angst due to leaked information being revealed.
“I get very frustrated with people’s comments specially around Speedway Australia as the peak body,” Tindal lamented.
“People think we are able to resolve everything that happens in Speedway when really at the end of the day we are a licensing body that offers complimentary insurance to all our competitors and tracks, and to make sure we maintain the highest level of safety for our competitors and race tracks.
“I think there is still a lot of confusion in the market as some people still believe Speedway Australia is owned by a group of shareholders and think that those shareholders run the sport, this is a long way from the truth.
“Speedway Australia is a genuine not-for-profit organisation run by a board of directors and we have told the story so many times, but it seems to fall on deaf ears a lot of the time.
“People just make off-the-cuff comments on social media which ultimately damages the whole sport.”
Full statement from Grand Annual Sprintcar Classic organisers
The Premier Speedway Board and Management would like to provide an update surrounding recent comments on the scheduling of the 2025 Grand Annual Sprintcar Classic.
Firstly, we would like to acknowledge and thank our sport’s passionate followers for their comments of support for the Grand Annual Sprintcar Classic retaining its usual date adjacent to the Australia Day holiday.
Premier Speedway has been in consultation with both the Sprintcar Control Council of Australia (SCCA) and Speedway Australia since the 2025 Australian Sprintcar Championship announcement published by the SCCA on June 18, 2023, seeking internal resolution of the matter.
Premier Speedway would like to clarify to our wonderful and loyal supporters that we are preparing for the 2025 Grand Annual Sprintcar Classic to be held on January 24, 25 and 26, 2025.
While this event will conflict against the published 2025 Australian Sprintcar Championship, we wish to highlight that the Grand Annual Sprintcar Classic has been running for fifty years at this time. The ‘Classic’ has been moved occasionally with mutual arrangement as such with the 2024 event.
Premier Speedway clearly communicated to SCCA executives over twelve months ago that the ‘Classic’ was changing dates for 2024 only, to ensure both events are a success.
Unlike metropolitan-based venues, Premier Speedway is based three hours from Melbourne, scheduling the 2024 Australian Championship the week after the traditional ‘Classic’ date, the first week of school in Victoria would severely affect the patron attendance, hence the decision to move the ‘Classic’ for the 2024 running only.
Furthermore, in the fifty years running the ‘Classic’ Premier Speedway has never experienced an issue with a track scheduling an event on the Australia Day weekend. In fact, promoters have always worked with the club knowing how the ‘Classic’ is a vehicle to assist other tracks events.
The date conflict only became apparent to Premier Speedway after the SCCA post. Neither the SCCA or tendering track consulted Premier Speedway, which has been done in the past when tracks wish to run the Australian Championship on the Australia Day weekend date as common respect and courtesy of the ‘Classic’ tradition.
Premier Speedway has submitted two requests to the SCCA to retract the date with no success.
Further to this, the dialogue surrounding the shift of the 2024 ‘Classic’ date only, and a subsequent formal letter request provided to SCCA executives was not forwarded to SCCA member clubs, although the letter communication clearly stated that it could be shared.
Taking into consideration that the Sprintcar State Presidents were the ultimate decision makers in not scheduling the 2025 Australian Sprintcar Championship to another weekend, is disappointing that such a smaller group made this decision without consultation with their members which includes Sprintcar team owners and drivers.
Premier Speedway has also engaged in dialogue with Speedway Australia. At time of writing, we await a response but are hopeful of a positive resolution through their role as our governing body of the sport.
Again we are grateful for the support from the Speedway community.
