Oran Park Raceway

Oran Park Raceway was a motor racing circuit at Narellan in southwestern Sydney, New South Wales, Australia which was operational from 1962 to 2010.

The circuit was established by the Singer Car Club, with its opening meeting held on the weekend of 17–18 February 1962.^[1] A motorcycle race meeting was held on 17 February 1963, with reigning Grand Prix Champion Jim Redman being the star attraction.^[2] Redman won nearly every class and set the lap record of 50.4 seconds, only 0.8 seconds slower than Frank Matich's outright time set in a 2.6 litre Lotus Sports Car.

The original lap distance of 1.0 miles (1.6 km) was later extended to 1.21 miles (1.9 km) ^[3] with a further extension in 1974 ^[4] creating an alternative “Grand Prix” circuit of 1.63 miles (2.62 km) in length.^[3] The Grand Prix circuit featured a figure-eight shape with a bridge where the track crossed over itself. Despite the loop the racing direction was still regarded as being anticlockwise.

The complex also had a motocross track, a skidpan, a dirt track and four wheel drive course and a 1000 foot drag strip. Most of the circuit was visible from the main grandstand or the grassed banks surrounding the track.

Oran Park was used regularly for rounds of the Australian Touring Car Championship, V8 Supercar Championship Series, Australian Drivers' Championship and Australian Sports Sedan Championship. The Australian Grand Prix was held at Oran Park in 1974 and 1977. In the 1970s the circuit attracted large crowds for the popular Toby Lee Series, initially run for Series Production Touring Cars and later for Sports Sedans. The inaugural Rothmans 500 for Touring Cars was staged in 1977 but the 1978 event was to be the second and last running of this endurance race. Shorter touring car endurance races would continue to be held at Oran Park during the 1980s and apart from the Sandown and Bathurst classics would last the longest before fading interest caused the compression of the endurance season to just those two events. The final such Oran Park enduro would be the 1989 Pepsi 300. The final V8 Supercar round was held in December 2008, won by Garth Tander.

Two international meetings were held in 1988 and 1989, playing host to the Superbike World Championship.

The land on which the racetrack was located was sold to the Government of New South Wales for a new housing development. This led to the eventual closure of the track and ended 48 years of motorsport heritage at the facility. The last motorcycle race meeting, the BelRay 6 Hour, was held on the 21/22 November 2009. The final race meeting was scheduled for 23–24 January 2010 but was cancelled due to a lack of entries.^[5] This meant that the Independent Race Series event on 16 January 2010 ^[6] was in fact the last race meeting to be held at the circuit. The circuit continued to run open track days, where the public could drive road cars and motorbikes around the full circuit. The last ever day before the track closed for good was Monday 25 January 2010.

Australian Touring Car Championship

Oran Park Raceway has hosted a round of the Australian Touring Car Championship every year since 1971. 2008 was the final year of Oran Park in the V8 Supercar Championship Series. Allan Moffat and Mark Skaife are the most successful drivers at Oran Park in the ATCC, with six round wins each.

The first ever race in 1971 saw Moffat in his Ford Boss 302 Mustang and Bob Jane driving his 427 cui powered Chevrolet Camaro ZL-1 go into the round on 31 and 34 points respectively with Moffat needing to either win or score more 3 or more points than Jane to claim the title. With both drivers starting from the front row a capacity crowd saw a titanic struggle with Jane claiming the win from Moffat and securing his 3rd ATCC championship. In a bizarre happening during the race, a spectator driving a road registered Valient drove through an open gate and onto the circuit. The race went on and the driver managed to complete a few laps before exiting the circuit.

Lap Records

Current lap records for the Grand Prix circuit, italics indicate use of short circuit^[7][8][9]: As a comparison, in August 1984 John Bowe set the outright lap record of 1:03.9 in a Ralt RT4 Ford (1.6L) Formula Mondial car. The lap record when the circuit closed was 1:01.6718 by Tim Leahey in a Formula Holden Reynard 92D Holden (3.8L) set in July 2000.

References

External links

• Official website
• Oran Park Track Days
• Oran Park Hot Laps
• Oran Park LIDAR
• "Oran Park Race Track Details and Motorsport Sport Facilities". Norrgard Motorsport Development. http://www.nmd.com.au/nmd/news/racetrack/OranPark. Retrieved 12 June 2006.