A former Adelaide 500 boss has been appointed chairman of the revived South Australian Motorsport Board ahead of the event’s comeback event later this year.
The streets of the South Australian capital will play host to this year’s Repco Supercars Championship finale on December 1-4 in what will be the first Adelaide 500 since February 2020.
The event had been axed in October 2020 by the Liberal government of the day, while the Motorsport Board which was considered a key factor behind its success was given the chop by a previous Labor administration in 2015.
However, the restoration of both were promises of Peter Malinauskas on his way to leading the Labor party back into government last weekend, and now work is underway on pulling the Adelaide 500 together again.
Adelaide’s Advertiser newspaper reports that Andrew Daniels has been appointed chairman of the board by Premier Malinauskas.
Daniels is an experienced sporting administrator, having been deputy executive director of the Australian Formula One Grand Prix Board when F1 raced in South Australia, and then CEO of the Motorsport Board from 1998 to 2008.
Now the outgoing CEO of Adelaide Oval, a post he has held for around a decade, he has promised to make the Adelaide 500 an all-round party again.
“The Adelaide 500 is not just a motor race,” Daniels told the Advertiser.
“It is a four-day festival in Adelaide with the best-standard national motorsport, music and all sorts of other attractions and displays and activities.
“That’s what makes it work. That’s what really gives the extraordinary atmosphere.”
Other board members and executives are set to be installed “as soon as possible.”
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