Bathurst back as a finale
THE Bathurst 1000 is set to be staged as a blockbuster finale to the Supercars season as part of a Gold Coast 500 cancelling calendar change that is expected to be released on Friday.
With Queensland to be lit up for the very first time with a night race, News Corp Australia can also exclusively reveal
Australia’s greatest race has been switched to begin on December 2 pending government approval.
In what could be a thrilling 1000km championship decider, Mount Panorama will again host the V8 grand finale for the second straight year with the Gold Coast 600 to be canned because of Covid concerns.
But Queensland will not be left out of the revised calendar
should it be approved with the Queensland Raceway set to host an October double header that will included a historic night race.
In a Queensland first for Supercars, the Ipswich venue will be lit up by high lumen lights that will be installed around the track.
The Ipswich double header will replace rounds which were scheduled to be held in Winton and at Phillip Island.
After a lengthy break, Supercars is hoping to return to the track at QR on October 23 and 24. The series has not raced since back-to-back events in Townsville in July.
With hopes New South Wales will start to emerge from lockdown from mid-October, Supercars is also expected to announce a double header at Sydney Motorsport Park in November, which will serve as a prequel to the Bathurst
1000 decider. It is the second time Supercars has been forced to revise the calendar for the second half of the season due to Covid chaos along the east coast.
The Bathurst 1000 had already been shifted to early November when the series announced its first revised schedule at the end of July, which resulted in a messy battle over dates to race at Mount Panorama.