Geelong expresses interest in street race

City of Greater Geelong Mayor Darren Lyons has expressed interest in hosting a V8 Supercars street race, The Age reports.

Informal discussions have taken place between Lyons and V8 Supercars for an event as soon as 2016, modeled from the massive South Australian street race, the Clipsal 500 Adelaide.

‘‘I’m very keen, absolutely,’’ Lyons told The Age.

‘‘Very excited. I’m a bit of a car nut, so I’d love something like that. Major events are a really big thing for me. We have to bring great events here to attract people to this great city.’’ 

V8 Supercars CEO James Warburton also expressed interest, though the plan would require substantial funding assistance to make it viable.

‘‘It’s been mooted, but street races are expensive beasts,’’ Warburton said.

‘‘It’s absolutely something we’d support 100 per cent, but the likelihood of that getting up is – in my view, in the short term – probably unlikely.’’

Warburton outlined a number of goals to further grow V8 Supercars at this year’s Clipsal 500, with new events one of the items on the list.

“‘We’d love to have a Geelong street race,’’ he said.

‘‘We do remarkably well in big regional cities [such as Townsville]. We tend to come to town and really dominate the town.

‘‘The economic benefit is large in terms of hotel rooms and restaurants and everything else. So we’re going to do everything we can to support a Geelong street race.

‘‘But, again, the infrastructure and the requirements are quite large. It’s been mooted for a while and if it goes back on the agenda, we couldn’t think of anything better to add to the calendar.’’ 

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