Brian Rudman: Everyone wins if V8s find home out west

COMMENT


Sometimes a solution seems so obvious I'm left wondering why I haven't been bowled over by politicians rushing to claim the idea as their own. The V8 Supercar Race for Whenuapai airbase for example.

Racing identity Frank Radisich has been pushing the idea since 1999, so far without much success. Luckily he refuses to give up, this week returning from V8 Supercar races at Bathurst and Sandown Raceway in Australia, with the signatures of 90 or more top drivers backing his dream. A dream which includes not just the V8 races, but a New Zealand home for motorsport that matches Silverstone, the home of British motor-racing.

With the proposed downtown street race venue seemingly doomed as a result of last weekend's elections, maybe now the Radisich proposal will get the traction it deserves.

The great thing about making Whenuapai available for the V8s is that everyone involved can end up a winner. Except, I guess, the few who staked their reputations on the downtown circuit - and after a bit of a sulk, no doubt even they will bounce back.

But back to the winners. First will be the petrol heads, who stand to get a home they can call their own for the first time ever. And just in the nick of time. The inadequate race track at Pukekohe is rapidly going to the horses. The car racers are on five years' notice from the jockeys, who own the track, to vacate the place.

Five years just happens to be the time scale for the planned consolidation of the Air Force down country at Ohakea.

Even Auckland City, which from day one was claiming improbable millions of dollars in economic benefit, will be a winner. Moving the car racing a few kilometres out west will avoid all the inconveniences and disruptions of the inner city site, but retain most of the benefits. The out-of-Auckland visitors will continue to sleep in inner-city hotels and motels, eat at city restaurants and leer it up at downtown night clubs and casinos.

And so will many of the local fans. If only because there's little of that sort of thing out west anyway.

With Whenuapai set between two motorway arteries out of isthmus Auckland, and near the proposed motorway link between the two, access will be easy and race-day traffic and parking not hugely disruptive to others.

Plans for a motorsport park should also appeal to Waitakere City, which at present has thrown its support behind infrastructure investor Infratil's proposal to create a second Auckland civilian airport there. A key factor in that support is that it will mean new jobs to replace those lost when the Air Force goes. But a permanent, year-round motor industrial park would surely do the same.

Also, it's possible a civilian airport could share the extensive premises with a motor-racing facility.

Unsurprisingly Dean Calvert, the New Zealand chief executive of IMG, the race promoters, has dismissed Whenuapai as an alternative, complaining to the Aucklander that the "enormous cost of building facilities there" made it "a dead duck in the water". But surely building facilities and marking out a track in the open spaces of Whenuapai airbase would be much easier and cheaper than starting from scratch in the congested streets around Victoria Park?

That's all academic now anyway, with the CBD venue on the skids. Interestingly, five years ago, before Pukekohe was chosen as the Auckland venue, Mr Radisich took V8 Supercar race supremo Tony Cochrane around Whenuapai, and he was very enthusiastic about the site. Lack of support from Waitakere City Council led to Pukekohe's selection.

Mr Cochrane is committed contractually to the IMG downtown proposal until March 31, 2005. But if Auckland City pulls out before then, then presumably all bets are off. Mr Cochrane can then either spit the dummy and storm off, or look at alternative venues. That's where the Government could save the day. By offering up the doomed airbase for annual V8 races.

Last Sunday, Television One delayed the 6pm news two hours to avoid upsetting viewers of the Bathurst V8 races. Apparently over a million of them were watching. That's a lot of voters who might be grateful to a Government that ensures the Auckland leg survives.