Fair enough... At first I had figured that with the amount of press that race gets in foreign markets, it was because it was hit. Then I Youtubed this years Gold Coast 600...
You can't blame them too much. The problem started in 2010, when the series was using tyre bundles to mark the apex of each chicane. But the cars would tear them loose, forcing a safety car and leaving exposed bolts that could tear the tyres to shreds. So the event organisers replaced the tyre bundles with bollards to mark the physical apex of the corner, and a sensor in the kerbing to tell who was crossing over too far. It worked to begin with, but then the bollards kept coming loose. They couldn't be any more solid because then they would damage the cars. In the end, the stewards had to turn the timing sensors off and stew quietly while all the drivers abused the track limits.
The circuit was never really that great to begin with.
Eastern Creek is also a great choice of a venue for Indycar.👍
The Creek - I refuse it call it by its bland new name, "Sydney Motorsport Park" - is a fairly decent circuit, but I'm not actually sure if it could cope with Indycar. The new circuit extension might be able to, but it's a little fiddly.
If Indycar were to come to Australia, perhaps they could consider running at Sandown, which despite its simplicty, is
very fast:
The approach to Dandenong Road Corner - turns 6, 7 and 8 - in particular would be fantastic.
Or, of course, they could consider Phillip Island:
It usually produces great MotoGP racing, but it's never really worked out that well for V8 Supercars. I don't think it's ever hosted high-powered open-wheel racing cars before - if it has, I've never seen it - so I'd be curious to see what the racing is like, but I think it would be a risk.
Finally, as the rank outsider, there's always Winton Raceway:
It might look simple, but it's actually very tricky, especially at the top end of the circuit.
To be viable, though, the series would probably need to have a few rounds in this corner of the world. Maybe two in Australia, or one each in Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia. But I have no idea how the series might go in New Zealand or Indonesia.
This is Hampton Downs, which is probably the biggest circuit in New Zealand (Pukekohe Park would never be able to handle Indycar). It's very twisty, though:
And this is Sentul in Indonesia, which was originally intended for Formula 1 as a brainchild of Suharto, but then the Asian Economic Crisis hit and Suharto got himself impeached, and it never hosted a race:
That said, Indonesian authorities have talked with V8 Supercars Australia about holding a race in Bali, somewhere outside Denpasar from 2015.
And there's also Clark Speedway in the Philippines:
It's built on the remains of Clark Airbase, a former USAF station in the country.
)...
