Sydney’s V8 Spectacular
Sydney was bathed in a sea of gold for the first time in nine years. Almost a decade on from the Sydney Olympics the city came alive to an extraordinary event. The Harbour city was buzzing to the beat of the Sydney 500, a motor race that was talked about almost 10 years ago and finally lifted off after the political shackles were cut loose.
The V8 Supercars were part of an attraction at the Olympic site that was patronised by 184,856 fans and no day was bigger than Saturday with 72,610 savoring a perfect summer day. For the record 51,193 turned out on Friday and 61,053 trundled through the enormous facility on Sunday. Hah! So much for the questions in the lead up where critics posed sniping questions indicating that no-one would turn up.
There was an Olympic feel to the Event right from the get-go with the public transport infrastructure getting a workout of gold medal proportions. Officials smiled and offered help at every turn, families frolicked in the vast expanse of the facility and there just happened to be racing cars hairing around the stadiums, which were the spotlight of the world nine years ago.
The theme of “race all day and rock all night” proved a megahit. Crowds came, the Event cracked with electricity, the doomsayers and protesters were invisible and the bands played on. Come to think of it the band, none other than Cold Chisel themselves, whipped up a storm on the stage at ANZ Stadium on Saturday night. They are as good, no bugger it, they were better than when they were in their prime in the 1970’s and 1980’s. And the Living End, coming off the back of an international tour, whipped a 50,000-strong concert mob into a frenzy. They came, they saw, they played, they partied hard and Sydney produced a monster Event that has literally turned into an icon at birth.
By day youngsters were gob-smacked by the mighty V8s and the sheer scale of the show. A lot of the race goers were newbies to the sport, similar to many of the V8 virgins that patronised the maiden Townsville race in July. The racecar garages were undercover in a building, the size of which could have provided an all-weather dry dock for the Titanic. As the cars rolled out of their indoor confines the kids and their bigger kid parents grinned from ear-to-ear. A young tacker yelled to his daddy, “Hey when I turn 100 years old I want to be a V8 driver.”
Yep, everything seemed larger than life at the Sydney 500. It has raised the benchmark for street racing not only in Australia but around the world. There was a little something for everyone in between the sweet smell of the sugar cane-derived, E85 Ethanol fuelled V8s. Car displays, show n shines, country music displays and a merchandise alley to end all merchandise alleys along Olympic Boulevard which had a constant line of thousands of fans streaming through its heart added to an extraordinary weekend. Friday and Saturday night rock concerts fuelled the Sydney 500 to bushfire proportions.
And then amid all this, the Sydney 500 produced its first V8 Supercar champion when XXXX ambassador Jamie Whincup was officially given his second consecutive series gong on Saturday. Jamie gave it everything before finishing fifth in the opening 250km race to claim the title. His rival and fellow XXXX ambassador Garth Tander created history to win the first motor race around the site of the Sydney 2000 Games. Yep it was gold!
