The Belco Party does not currently hold a seat in the ACT Legislative Assembly but is aiming to win a balance of power position when the National Capital goes to the polls this coming October.
Under its policy, the venue, which could be named in honour of late Summernats founder and former party member Chic Henry, would encompass a car racing circuit, drag strip, skid pan, and driver training facilities.
It would be built on either of two sites near Canberra Airport, which is located to the east of the city centre, including that of the former drag strip.
Cost has been put at $65 to $100 million, well under the $577 million for Stage 2A of the Canberra Light Rail which will link the City to Commonwealth Park.
How that would be redirected to a motorsport facility is not clear, given the light rail contract was signed last December and work is due to commence late-this year, although the Belco Party has also floated a public private partnership as an alternate funding model for its vision.
Belco candidate Jason Taylor, who declared the light rail a “ridiculous … vanity project,” cited economics and road safety as key benefits of a motor racing circuit.
“Motorsport is a billion dollar industry in Australia, and it is a slice of the pie that Canberra misses out on given our lack of an appropriate facility, and it’s difficult to rationalise why this occurs,” he stated online.
“You only have to look at the success of Summernats to realise that people, not just Canberrans love their cars and motorsport.”
Taylor is a former police officer, who drew on his on training in citing the road safety benefits of such a facility.
“I can use myself as an example, as it wasn’t until I did my driver training as a police recruit that I came to recognise my limitations,” he explained.
“A car is a weapon, and if improperly wielded it can have disastrous consequences.”
Belco would appear to face an uphill battle to achieve a balance of power position given the governing Labor party’s 10 seats plus the Greens’ six in the ACT’s single, 25-seat house of parliament makes for a comfortable majority of left-aligned parties at present, with the other nine held by the Canberra Liberals.
However, the current government did not dismiss the idea entirely, although nor did ACT Minister for Sport and Recreation Yvette Berry indicate an appetite to expand motorsport funding beyond the Circuit Mark Webber kart track and ACT Speedway.
“I don’t think there is a plan right now … to develop a race track facility beyond what we already fund … but obviously, we’re happy to look at those kinds of considerations,” she said.
A proposal for a Supercars event in the nation’s capital received a setback last year when a proposal for a Townsville-style set-up in EPIC (Exhibition Park In Canberra) was rejected due to government infrastructure costs upon which the plan relied.
Then-Supercars CEO Sean Seamer had stated in October 2021 that a return to Canberra was on the championship’s “medium-term horizon.”
As it stands, the ACT is the only state/territory in the country in which Supercars does not race, a situation which has been the case (with limited exceptions) since 2004, when Tasmania’s Symmons Plains returned to the calendar.
The Canberra 400 ran from 2000 to 2002 but was dropped before its initial, five-year contract ran out due to a change in government and poor crowd figures, the latter not helped by its timing in the city’s particularly cold winters.
The nearest car racing circuit is Goulburn’s One Raceway, formerly ‘Wakefield Park’, which is due to reopen this year after significant upgrades commissioned by its new owner.
The next-closest race track to the nation’s capital is Sydney Motorsport Park, which is already heavily utilised.
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