Supercars rated a rip-roaring success
THE NTI Townsville 500 is going nowhere. That’s the message from Supercars event manager Matt Ramsden, after a highly successful weekend at Reid Park.
Mr Ramsden said crowd figures would be released sometime this week for the weekend’s event.
While he didn’t expect record crowds for the three days, Mr Ramsden said figures would be close to how they were before the Covid-19 pandemic and confirmed one of the flagship V8 events in the country would remain in North Queensland for the foreseeable future.
“As far as intentions of staying in Townsville, I would say indefinitely,” Mr Ramsden said.
“So, certainly we have no plans to relocate out of town.
“From my perspective, the event was a massive, massive success – three days of perfect weather, great on and offtrack entertainment.
“There was a great atmosphere, great vibe. And, you know, it’s formed a foundation which we can, you know, build and improve upon in 2023.”
Mr Ramsden said there were many reasons why Townsville was a perfect venue for Supercars, but said the main one was the Reid Park circuit.
“The unique beauty of having a street circuit is we’ve got access to the city within a few minutes of walking distance and things like that,” he said. “That’s why we love coming here. The weather as well. You know, it’s July and it’s mid 20s, whereas down south they are shivering in the teens in cold weather.
“So, to be able to come up here, support the local economy, support local people that are out here, bring tourism to the town, as well, we, you know, we’ve gotten certainly no plans of changing that.”
Mr Ramsden said Supercars had received fantastic support at all levels for the Townsville 500 and was full of praise for all those who helped make the event such a success.
“We’ve got some fantastic key partners with the Townsville City Council, Townsville Enterprise Limited and also the Queensland state government and Tourism Events Queensland.
“We are super excited to come out here. Being Queensland’s biggest sporting event, as well is very important to us. It’s very important to the people here and also extremely important to the federal economy.”
One of those supporters was the Australian Defence Force, which performed a flyover with three Chinooks and held an interactive display with its Project Digger, based on a 1978 Ford LTD and Matilda, a Mercedes-benz GWagon from Team Army.
Mr Ramsden said the Townsville public had seen three days of great racing and superb off-track entertainment, but he said the measure of success for Supercars was to get the event back as close to how it was prior to the pandemic.
“We’ve been here four times in the past two years,” he said.
“Obviously, we couldn’t have bigger crowds due to Covid restrictions and capacity issues and things like that and border closures.
“Really, the goal of this event was to bring that back to the way that it was 2019. “