September 1982, Beirut, Lebanon: a 14-year-old Palestinian boy hears the snap and crackle of gunfire. The noise carries from a neighbouring refugee camp and will continue for nearly two days. The boy doesn’t realise it, but he’s listening to the massacre of hundreds – more likely thousands – of Palestinian men, women and children.

September 1982, Tailem Bend, Australia: the noise of clanging freight trains carries across the busy railway town 100km southeast of Adelaide.

But there’s a new sound – the rumble of B-doubles on a brand new overpass, part of a $40 million federal upgrade to the Duke’s Highway.

The townsfolk don’t realise it, but they’re listening to the death of their town’s main industry. Within 15 years some 600 railway workers will lose their jobs.

As unlikely as it seems, these two stories are destined to connect.

April 2019, The Bend Motorsport Park: When a Wolf GB08 racing car explodes past me at 280km/h, I not only hear it, I feel it.

It’s a percussive thump in the chest, followed by a rush of adrenaline and not a little envy. The Wolf shares the track with other privately owned vehicles, including a brand new Lotus Exige, a Ferrari 458 Italia, a Lamborghini Huracan Super Trofeo and a hotted-up 1980s Nissan Skyline.

These drivers are all from Adelaide.

JP Drake is buzzing with adrenaline after five hours of driving laps in his co-owned Wolf. Rather like its driver, the “open wheeler” has a certain boyish exuberance. It’s gold and black, painted with the Matchbox Hot Wheels logo down both sides and the moniker “YEEEEEEOOOOOOOW!” across the rear spoiler.

“Racing is the best thing I’ve ever done,” yells Drake, overcompensating for his hearing which has been dulled by vibration and engine noise.

“It’s how I de-stress. Soon as the visor shuts, I’m meditating. No distraction! Total peace!”

Drake is assistant general manager in the supermarket chain started by his father.

When Thursday comes around, he gets off a plane at Adelaide Airport and drives an hour to The Bend. Next morning he’s greeted by his pit crew from the park’s resident team, JAM Motorsport, who look after the $140,000 Wolf.

“I don’t have to worry about a thing,” he grins. “They get my vehicle ready, wash my suit, do my licensing … they’ve even made my bacon and egg sarny!”

It’s a “Premium Track Day”, when members of The Bend have the circuit to themselves. Like the other drivers, Drake is pitting himself against his own lap time on the 7.7km GT track.

It’s not a cheap exercise. To become a premium member of The Bend costs $9000 in the first year, and $2750 every year after. Serious players have pit crews to coach them remotely during laps and maintain their vehicles; new tyres and brakes are required after a day or two of hammering the circuit. An actual race meet will cost $10,000 to $40,000 for a long weekend.

“I always liked driving fast,” says Drake, readying himself to re-enter the straight, “ever since I was a kid. But out here there are no trees, no Stobies and no cops.”

He replaces his helmet, fires up the Wolf and emits a celebratory yell: “YEEEEEEOOOOOOOW!”

He’s not the only one celebrating. Carman Rossi, with his Ferrari 458 Italia, is one of the other Adelaide drivers cutting laps on the track who can’t believe their luck either.

When the Bend Motorsport Park opened its doors in April last year, South Australia became home to the world’s second-largest permanent motor racing circuit, bested only by Germany’s famous Nürburgring.

The park and its signature hotel were unfinished, so it was a relatively muted opening among the yawning wheat paddocks of the Murraylands.

The three-year build was quoted as costing $110 million. Ten million came from the state and most of the rest came from the Shahin family, owners of the Peregrine Corporation.

Peregrine is South Australia’s largest privately-owned company, its $1.8bn annual turnover built on 145 OTR servos and property developments.

The Bend has been called a passion project, a millionaires’ plaything and, certainly, the two driving forces behind the project – brothers Sam and Yasser Shahin – are notorious revheads with a weakness for Porsche and GT racing.

Today, the investment is at $130m and counting.

By any measure that’s a big deal, the largest private investment in the leisure sector in South Australian history and second in size only to the Adelaide Oval ($550m). It cost nearly twice as much to build as Tasmania’s MONA ($75m).

So what is The Bend?

From the Dukes Highway, it looks like a vast parking lot with a series of large buildings connected by beautiful new roads. Covering 750ha – 7sq km – it is, in fact, a world of motorsport.

The main attraction is the 7.7km circuit which can be configured in seven ways to host all international motor-racing formats – motorcycle and car – up to Formula 1.

The track combines Europe’s love of fast-flowing straights with Australia’s love of super-tight corners and, thanks to devilish undulations, it reliably sends some of the world’s best drivers spinning off into the dirt.

After hosting an inaugural Supercars event, the OTR Super Sprint, it’s been described as “ultra-technical”, “unpredictable” and “challenging”.

David Brabham, ex-racing driver and director of Brabham Automotive, is not alone in calling it one of the best racing circuits in the world.

The Bend is home to other facilities, too.

It has the only internationally-certified karting circuit in Australia, which is fully lit for night racing, and can host drifting and rally cross events.

It has a skid pan measuring 10,000sq m, which can be irrigated for driver training.

It has a 4WD adventure park. It has a Big 4 Holiday Park for caravanners and campers. A drag strip and an airstrip will open later this year. And 420 luxury villas are being sold off the plan, some with price tags north of a million dollars.

At the heart of The Bend is its Welcome Centre building, which encompasses the Rydges Pit Lane Hotel.

The hotel is a rarity because its 100 suites are built on top of the Pit Lane garages. Fifty track-facing suites are just metres from the kilometre-long straight; when there’s a race on, guests can take breakfast on their balconies and hear the like of Jamie Whincup talking to their pit crews.

As well as a fine dining restaurant and a small bar, the hotel features what must be Australia’s most expensive lobby installation – 19 classic vehicles, including an Enzo Ferrari, several Lamborghinis and a Holden GTX that Peter Brock raced to victory.

I join The Bend marketing manager Michael Rossi for coffee beside a black McLaren Senna. “That thing’s a beast,” says Rossi. “You’re talking a million-plus. Might even start with a ‘two’…”

Rossi says it’s unfair to call The Bend “a track”.

“This is end-to-end motorsport. We’re a combination of precincts, experiences and multi-disciplines all in one destination,” he says.

“It makes us unique to Australia and probably in the world. The closest comparison would be Yas Marina in Abu Dhabi. And that’s a billion-dollar investment.”

Tailem Bend is a pleasant 130-year-old town on a beautiful stretch of Murray River.

Owing to the Dukes Highway and its phalanx of truck servos, you wouldn’t know either of them exists.

Off the Highway I discover the Main Street. There’s a 1902 pub, a couple of nice new cafes, a big bakery, and a steam loco in a small park, a tribute to the many retiree railway workers who still make up the town’s population of 1650. In 2016, the median household income was $794, some $400 below the state average.

The 1913 railway station serves as a museum and visitor information centre. Peter Connolly is a volunteer there, and shows me around the original signal box which he operated during his 28 years with South Australian Railways.

“They closed us down in the 1990s,” says Connolly. “Now Murray Bridge is hurting after the abattoir closed and the Big W [depot] is closing in Monarto. So we’re pleased The Bend is out there. They had hundreds building it. And there’ll be more jobs to come.”

As Chair of the Progress Association, Connolly took special interest when the park hosted its first big racing event, the Supercars Championship in August 2018. Some 41,000 motorsport fans passed through. But sadly, that’s all they did – pass through.

“There was a big build-up to the V8 weekend and that’s where we got a bit disappointed. Everyone expected more out of it. I did an unofficial survey afterwards – Foodland did all right, the pub did OK and the bakery did some catering out there. But we didn’t get a lot of traffic in town.”

Connolly, however, realises the town has to come to the party. “We’ve got to do a bit of work ourselves. We need to improve signage off the highway because no-one knows we’re here. We’ve got a car club in town, so we could’ve lined cars up in the street ahead of the race. We need to do festivities, music, food – anything, just to show that we’re here.”

Frank Dean, the publican at Tailem Bend Hotel, is of the same mind.

“Realistically, we’re not going to become millionaires out of it because it’s pretty self-contained out there. But we’ve got to learn to feed off it when they’ve got events. And it’s good for the town – our young guys are going out there, doing track days and a bit of drifting. When Shahin gets it going, it’s going to be great for the region, and for the state. It’s early days.”

Kellie Jaensch, Community and Tourism Development Officer with the Coorong District Council, says visitor numbers are up and some local businesses are reporting improved returns.

“I can’t quantify it, but we’ve had some nice growth,” she says.

“And growing slowly is OK. The thing is, if we got just 1 per cent more people stopping off the freeway that would be huge! One of the retailers said if the town went into crazy growth they wouldn’t be able to manage it. They’re not set up like Adelaide businesses.”

Rented accommodation is certainly growing.

Owner of Coorong Realty, Kerry Swan, manages 60 “high value” rental properties in Tailem Bend, Wellington East and Meningie. “When I started three years ago, it was just me,” she says in her Tailem Bend office. “I now have five full-time staff plus a cleaning and maintenance crew. That’s equivalent to 10 full-time positions.”

Serviced accommodation soared during construction of The Bend, and now those properties are being converted to tourist rentals, with private owners further boosting numbers with Airbnb listings.

“There are NAB statistics that show evidence of increased consumer spending in Coorong Council region,” says Swan. “I attribute a lot of that to investors buying beds and TVs.”

Tailem Bend has long marketed itself as the home of “River, Rail and Road”.

A year after The Bend’s opening, locals are already hoping to tack on a fourth R – Racing. And according to Jaensch, a little more mutual appreciation between both Bends might help with that.

“I’m not sure the local community supports The Bend enough,” she says.

“I mean, we know it’s here, but I think we forget it’s here. And that should work both ways – how much does The Bend market itself to the local community? Maybe it should have open days for locals or two-for-one deals to help them get some agency. If a community supports a business, then it becomes an advocate for that business. That’s when Tailem Bend can become the home of The Bend Motorsport Park.”

Motor racing is a rich person’s sport and seeing six-figure supercars cutting laps in the Murraylands is something of an altered reality. But there is a surprising – some might say rather South Australian – aspect to The Bend.

It’s affordable.

Outside of the event calendar, you can overnight in one of the four-star Rydges suites for just $119, including breakfast beside the track.

Visitors can do three laps in a Mustang GT driven by a racing professional for $79. Kids can do 10 minutes of karting for $30. If you want to test yourself in your Holden Barina, you can join a public track day for $300. And anyone can walk in off the street and have a coffee next to a million-dollar-plus McLaren Senna.

Moreover, while the ambitions of the motorsport park extend to Spa in Belgium, the Shanghai International Circuit and the Nordschleife in Nürburgring, no small amount of The Bend’s success rests with non-motorsport fans – and indeed the little town up the road.

“I really can’t stress enough the importance of The Bend being an integral part of Tailem Bend,” says Shahin. “It’s a partnership. And the town has certainly suffered, so I’ve taken heart from seeing it come back to life over the last three or four years.”

But he says one of the biggest challenges is to persuade people in Adelaide and interstate – and eventually people overseas – that The Bend and, by extension, Tailem Bend, is a destination in its own right.

“The river at Tailem Bend is criminally under-utilised,” he says. “The town is one hour out of Adelaide on a main highway, it’s on prime river frontage and yet it has almost no boat or houseboat facilities – you can’t moor a houseboat there.

“Tailem Bend should be the prime destination for thriving River Murray culture. You don’t even have to detour off the highway! I would go so far as to say it is the key to the revival of Tailem Bend.”

“Are you the man to do it?”

“I have enough to do,” he says flatly. “It needs council to allow it, and business to make it feasible.”

The Bend and Tailem Bend have entered a curious co-dependency, bound by geography and not a little happenstance.

Mitsubishi kept a small test track here; in 2009 after the Adelaide plant was wound up, it was acquired by the Coorong District Council for $935,000 with the vision that it could one day attract economic development. In 2013, Peregrine bought it, announcing plans for a motorsport park that would cost “$40 million”.

“There was a window to build something unique in the world – and build it here in South Australia. I have purple South Australian shiraz running through my veins and I never wanted to look back in five years time and think, ‘we missed an opportunity back then’. There are many knockers. A week before we opened, people would tell me, ‘We don’t think it’s going to work.’ They’re still telling me that, and I’m pragmatic enough to think they might be right. But what an awful way to look at the world.”

The Bend’s business model is fearsomely complex, balancing expensively staged races (for profile) with revenues pulled from memberships, tenants, corporate events and car manufacturers hiring the facility to test vehicles.

So I ask the $130-million-dollar question: “Is this a legacy project?”

Shahin thinks for a moment and begins with a story. “I lived for the first 16 years of my life without an ID, without a passport,” he says.

“I was a Palestinian refugee, born in the Burj al-Barajneh refugee camp in Beirut.”

He tells me how his family lived in a shelter for 16 days when the Israelis invaded the city, and how the massacres of Sabra and Shatila camp by Israel’s Phalangist allies happened just 3km to the north.

His father spent the next two years applying for entry to Australia, finally being accepted on his third attempt.

“Every migrant has something to prove,” he says, “to prove our worth as Australians. So, in a way, it is a legacy project. I hope The Bend is just one little way that a Palestinian refugee can repay the great opportunity that Australia has provided us.”

When the interview wraps up, Shahin is interested to hear the comments provided by the townsfolk of Tailem Bend.

Four weeks later, the town receives an invite to a community engagement meeting – and free entry to the next round of the Australian Motor Racing Series.

2019 OTR SuperSprint round of the Supercars Championship, August 23-25, thebend.com.au