Sydney Circuit Taking Shape

Since October 21, the grand finale has been coming together. The track, that is.

Construction began about a month ago on the street circuit that will stage the Sydney 500, running through Sydney Olympic Park in Homebush.

Now, seven of the eight pedestrian bridges providing fans access on race weekend have been installed. The pit lane building is about 50 per cent of the way and approximately 75 per cent of the concrete barricades and debris fencing around the track is complete.

As the event gets closer, temporary chicanes and tyre walls are installed – that is scheduled to happen next week. Merchandising will also start rolling out, with roughly 40 different offerings.

During race week, 13 big screens will be set up around the circuit.

The final piece of the puzzle is the line marking. Once temporary barricades are in place, lines will be remarked around the track, as well as the bays on the grid. 

According to Sydney 500 event manager Phil Shaw, seeing it come together is rewarding – though he really notices how much work goes in during the year, when there are no signs of 28 V8 Supercars tearing through the public roads.

“It’s a great achievement, particularly starting six to seven weeks out from the event and seeing it all come together to culminate in a great racing weekend,” Shaw told v8supercars.com.au.

“Reality hits when you come here through the year and there’s nothing here! You look around and think, we install all that for the weekend.”

One of the cool touches of racing through Sydney Olympic Park is the famous names around the place – not Craig Lowndes and Mark Winterbottom, but those the streets are named after.

“We’re at Sydney Olympic Park, on all the streets named after famous Olympians or to do with local history,” Shaw explains. 

“Our pit straight is Australia Ave, merchandise alley is Olympic Boulevard. We race down Dawn Fraser Ave, Murray Rose Ave, Kevin Coombs Ave and Edwin Flack Ave.”

There of course is a traffic management plan in place, and sections of the track are closed off occasionally to install barricades in the lead-up.

About one week out from the event, the roads will become one way – the public can continue to drive on what will be the grand finale circuit, but only anti-clockwise, the direction of the racing!

The final touches are completed Thursday night before the event – though early Friday the last concrete blocks are installed. It is completely shut down and officially becomes a race track at 7am Friday morning. Formula Ford is the first category on track, followed by the V8 Supercars at 10.10am.

One of the challenges of the location is integrating with the other venues on-site – the Showgrounds, ANZ Stadium and Allphones Arena require access for the paying public with events such as festival Stereosonic and Just Bieber’s concert running close to the Sydney 500 start date.

And with the event a week later this year, there is less time for everything to be deconstructed before Christmas.

But according to Shaw the biggest challenge of the track build is out of the team’s control – weather.

“Too many (wet) days put us behind – you need to build a contingency plan for wet weather days,” he said. 

“A team of guys and two large cranes are going as fast as they can before it rains again!”

Fortunately there is a history of good weather come race weekend – though everyone will remember how wild it was in 2010 on Saturday, when three Championship contenders were in the wall when battling for points in the wet.

Another interesting feature of the Sydney 500 is the ‘pits’. Pit lane is about halfway to completion, but the cars are mostly housed in a permanent pavilion known as the paddock, a great way for fans to get up close and personal with the V8 Supercars.

“The teams love it too – there’s the space to spread out a bit and work on the cars, and having transporters close by means all tools and equipment close by.”

The numbers everyone is focusing on at the moment are the small margins in the Championship race – but here is another lot that is mighty impressive.

On the Sydney Homebush circuit there will be:

The Sydney 500 runs from December 6-8 and is shaping up to be a dramatic finale. Tickets are available through Ticketek now.