Fast & Furious: Sam Shahin on why he has to win ... and the elusive F1
Sam Shahin on winning, building a motorsport ‘theme park’ in Tailem Bend, keeping car racing alive in SA … and the elusive F1.
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SAM Shahin wants to see South Australians vote with their feet when the Supercars return to Tailem Bend next week.
The Ben supremo, who is also a director of Peregrine which operates the OTR chain of service stations, wants to ensure the long term viability of the V8sin this state, as well as realising his dream of making The Bend Motorsport Park the best and most popular racing venue inthe world.
It’s been a disruptive few years for Supercars in SA, with the Adelaide 500 cancelled by the Marshall government during the Covid-19 pandemic and the Supercars event at The Bend initially left off the 2022 calendar.
But after significant lobbying, Dr Shahin late last year locked in another round at The Bend and, with the change of government,the Adelaide 500 will again hit the city’s streets later this year.
Dr Shahin said it was now incumbent on motorsport fans who wanted to see the events here for the long term to “vote with theirfeet” and hit the turnstile on the weekend.
Dr Shahin wants to see The Bend have pride of place in the heart of local sports lovers.
“It’s not whether I think it’s good or successful – when every South Australian is proud of The Bend being in South Australia,I think that to me is a critical measure of the success of The Bend,”he says.
With Supercars returning to The Bend next week, we take an indepth look at sam Shahin. He talks about winning, building a motorsport ‘theme park’ in Tailem Bend, keeping car racing alive in SA, his frustrations with the political process, his early days in a refugee camp … and the one that got away
A Matchbox car was what Sam Shahin’s mother gave her young son when she wanted to keep him out of her hair.
You have to wonder if the twists, turns and jumps the young Sam no doubt performed with the toy car on imaginary tracks on the floor became a reality – the theme park that is The Bend Motorsport Park.
But the establishment of Australia’s newest racetrack and complete motorsport complex was not a young boy’s dream reaching fruition, but years of work that evolved over decades.
“It looks very different to the original vision,” Shahin says over a cup of coffee that he made himself at the coffee bar in the Welcome Centre at The Bend Motorsport Park, on the outskirts of Tailem Bend.
“Never in my wildest dreams did I think it would be the complex facility that it is today. This is far more comprehensive; a far more rounded out project than what the original was.
“The vision has grown over time into developing a motorsport theme park.
“There are theme parks all over the world but there isn’t one that encapsulates motorsport experiences, different disciplines of motorsport through the one gate.
“The drive was to build something unique in South Australia – something iconic, something that every South Australian was very proud of … that no one else has got anywhere in the world.”
Shahin is proud to be South Australian and there are a number of ways in which he could have become involved in motorsport that would boost the state’s presence at a national level.
The Peregrine Corporation supremo, which runs, among other things, South Australia’s On The Run franchises, is a hands-on guy, not content on taking the back seat and cruising along.
From making his coffee and overseeing operations at The Bend Motorsport Park personally, to competing as a race car driver himself in the Porsche Carrera Cup category, he is firmly in the driver’s seat.
So as he stresses his origins as a dispossessed Palestinian “without a passport, without an identity” – he was born in a refugee camp, and migrated to Australia at the age of 16 – it seems he needed to put down roots; to build a lasting legacy; to create himself a home.
He would perhaps live at The Bend Motorsport Park if he could. Already he usually stays at least one night each week on site.
What pleases him immensely is welcoming guests into this home, not just those there to see motorsport – the caravanners who pull off the highway to stop in for half an hour to have a sticky beak; the tourist bus groups that have made the park an attraction on their itineraries; and the Adelaide folk who drive up to stay a night to see what the fuss is about.
“Part of that drive to build something comes straight from the soul, straight from a deep, deep desire to be part of a community and part of something bigger,” he says.
“Part of a community that is as proud of having you as you are of being part of it.”
Sam Shahin was like many South Australian lads of his generation; he first drove a Datsun, a red 120Y coupe (with the number plate SAD 006, that he would love to own again). Then he graduated to a string of Commodores.
But unlike many young men at the time, he also owned a Ford, “a beautiful XR8 Falcon”. Being a part of the Holden or Ford tribe was not his thing.
He would take his road car to Mallala to experience being on track first hand. But it was not until he got to his 40s that he started racing cars properly.
It came after a chance encounter with the father of Porsche driver Bryce Washington in the pits at Mallala.
“He saw me loitering around his son’s car, with what must have been sheer admiration by the look on my face, I’m sure the drool would have been pouring out of the side of my mouth at the time,” he says.
“He asked if I wanted to go for a lap, the answer to which was, ‘Do you want my right arm or left arm, what do I have to do?’
“He put me in the car and it was love at first sight. I just left thinking one day I want to race a car. My personality does not allow me to do anything where I do not have a chance to not just win but at least be very competitive.
“The first time I raced a car I was 45 and I’m 54 now. I’m incredibly proud that I won a national championship with Porsche, the 2019 Sprint Challenge Pro-Am championship, last year I won the Carrera Cup Pro-Am championship – the same year that my good brother won the GT championship.
“That sibling rivalry is alive and well but it’s incredibly healthy and this development could not have got to where it is without the equal involvement of my good brother, Yasser.”
Shahin loves the thrill and excitement, the risk and the danger of motorsport (he knows this first hand, having suffered two crushed vertebrae, a neck injury, a broken rib and fingers in an accident at the Bathurst 12 hour endurance race in 2020).
“Motorsport is a risky industry and a risky business,” he says.
“I have to go back to my background as a dispossessed Palestinian from a refugee camp that landed in this great country – there’s always been this innate desire to build something that current and future generations will be proud of, and that was never going to come without risk.
“It’s incredible, a lot of people build things, and magic happens when you are involved in an industry that you are passionate about and you build up the skills to be a meaningful participant in.
“Magic happens when you combine vision, passion and skills, and you need all those ingredients to be in the melting pot and they just happen to, in my case, to fall in the motorsport pan.”
Maybe only those interested or involved in motorsport get it, but when fuel gets into your blood, it becomes more than going for a Sunday drive.
“Sometimes people misunderstand motorsport as a hobby – I think sometimes regulators and governments also fall into that trap,” Shahin says.
“It is a pastime for some people, and for a significant number of others, it’s their life. It’s their business, their industry, their livelihood, it’s aside from what they are passionate about. I honestly believe some regulators and law-makers and governments take motorsport for granted.”
When Shahin set out on this project, he knew he did not want to build something that already existed, either here or in another state.
“The case had to be so compelling for everybody from around Australia to come to South Australia ahead of anything that we already have in Australia, and to do that it had to be better than anything we’ve got in this part of the world,” he says.
Travelling to race tracks during his life, he often lamented the lack of a premier facility in South Australia that was at least as good as anything else in Australia, and that thought had festered.
First, he had to find the right location.
What had put South Australia on the motorsport map for decades – Mallala Raceway – was not available.
The demise of car manufacturing in the state, however, triggered an opportunity – the Mitsubishi Test Track on the outskirts of Tailem Bend.
“When I came here it was very underwhelming,” Shahin says. “It was just limestone rock, with one small workshop to the north of the property, one domestic power supply, and really no infrastructure.
“Mitsubishi had used it to do some testing on their models, driving through mostly paddocks. My expectations were certainly very tempered when I first set foot inside the property.”
The land had been sold to Coorong Council after Mitsubishi’s closure in 2008 and the council quickly called for expressions of interest from those interested in doing something with it.
While the lack of existing development proved underwhelming, what piqued Shahin’s interest most was its location – just an hour’s drive from a capital city, or Adelaide’s toll gate, and an hour closer to Melbourne.
It also provided a clean slate.
So Shahin pitched in his idea along with other proponents and, he says, “I’m very thankful for having earned their trust at the time that I will deliver on what I was proposing to them.”
In order to build the best, Shahin went to the best. He began a thorough global reconnaissance and planning expedition.
He visited famous race tracks in Australia and overseas to “explore how someone had invented the wheel before them”.
He looked at the mistakes that had been made. He analysed everything from garaging and corporate facilities to waste collection and drainage.
He reached out to two of the biggest Australian names in two-wheel and four-wheel racing – former motorcycle world champion Mick Doohan and former Formula 1 driver Mark Webber – for input and help with connections, and both still are regular visitors to the complex.
“There are these great Australians that are out there and want to see Australia succeed and are prepared to make a contribution with their time,” he says.
“I was prepared for knock-backs – and there were many along the way – but you have to put yourself out there and say, ‘I need help and I’m willing to take it from wherever it comes from’.”
The circuit is now the second-longest permanent race circuit in the world, behind the full Nurburgring in Germany that Shahin says does not see a lot of circuit racing, per se.
It took the second-longest title from the world-renowned Spa.
It is the only racetrack in the world that has a hotel built directly on top of pit lane and the competitors’ garages.
The hotel space has conferencing facilities – an activity typically inconsistent with such a noisy environment, although it does provide for some unique team-building activities – and a restaurant.
“The reason this (hotel) hasn’t been done anywhere in the world is because probably a lot of people have thought about it and thought it was a dumb idea. Am I on the cusp of something very unique, cool and innovative? Or, am I really going to stuff it up here? That fear is real,” Shahin says. “But it’s unique, and it hasn’t been done before.
“The prospect of having somebody open up the blinds in the morning and wake up and have this beautiful vista in front of them of a green racetrack and a pit straight right in front of them was too good to build a safe, typical, copy-and-paste hotel out far away (from the track).”
The holiday park built on site is a short walk from the Welcome Centre, that suits Australia’s love affair with caravanning and camping and, during Supercars events, attendees can camp just metres from the racetrack.
A go-kart track was set up in recognition that most great Australian race car drivers have evolved from a karting background. It is international standard, as Shahin had learned Australia did not have one yet.
There is a drift racing circuit, rally and off-road precinct, a 4WD adventure park, and construction of a drag strip is well underway.
The Welcome Centre is home to a regularly changing display of race and performance vehicles – some quite historic – worth millions of dollars.
It took five years to turn paddocks into this international motorsport destination. Then just one year later, it was named International Motorsport Facility of the Year at the Professional Motorsport World Expo Awards in Europe in 2019.
“It was encouragement and endorsement and kind of an injection of life, that I’m on the right path here, and we have to persist and persevere through the challenges, and there were many challenges,” Shahin says.
“I think we hold here the largest regional events in South Australia.
“It’s been an absolute privilege and honour to see what The Bend has done for the region, in terms of regional development, in terms of tourism, in terms of attracting new business and industry, and also the effect on local industries.
“When you come to Tailem Bend, you don’t have to look far to see how the town of Tailem Bend and particularly Wellington East have been transformed over the past few years.”
On the last weekend of July this year, Supercars return to The Bend Motorsport Park for its annual round.
Supercars got on the bandwagon early. It signed a deal to hold a round at The Bend before construction even started.
However, there are 51 other weekends of the year on which major events can be held.
“Supercars remains the pinnacle of Australian four-wheel racing,” Shahin says.
“I want The Bend to participate at the highest level in every discipline of motorsport.
“I sought from day one the biggest and best events to come to The Bend.”
Holding the Asia Road Racing Championship in 2019 was a coup, and as Asia is so close to Australia – and its people motorsport-mad – more Asian categories are on Shahin’s wishlist. The Asia Le Mans Series held one event, and was contracted for two more events when Covid hit.
“I would love to see the intercontinental GT competition come to The Bend; I’ve made no secret of my desire to hold World Super Bikes and Motor GP here, and I have no doubt that they will come to The Bend, it’s not a matter of if, it’s when,” he says.
Rally and rallycross have held rounds at The Bend, with this year’s SA round of the Australian Rally Championship to feature The Bend in October.
“A huge section of paddock will be allocated for ARC and they’ll run a stage here and, most likely, at night,” he says.
“It gives me goosebumps to think all these new events can come to South Australia.”
Even with the pinnacle of Australian motorsport and other international events booked in, there is still one that so far remains elusive.
“I was very disappointed that South Australia and The Bend missed out on the opportunity to host Formula 1 at The Bend in 2021,” Shahin says.
“That was a moment in time when I needed the political willpower to match our aspirations.”
Shahin contacted Formula 1 to offer The Bend as a location to host the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix instead of the streets of Melbourne, that had been in and out of Covid-related lockdowns.
Turns out, Formula 1 had already been considering The Bend as an alternate location.
“They considered all facilities in Australia that could host F1, the locations that they could have, and they landed at The Bend,” Shahin says.
“I didn’t know that simultaneously they were having discussions with the SA government and I wish I knew.
“There were two separate lines of discussions going on and the outcome for South Australia would have been very different if there was better co-operation. And you never know, once they get a taste of what this great state has to offer, the rest you can hypothesise about. Just a missed opportunity.”
But this latest knock-back has not knocked him down long.
“Opportunities will come, you just need to keep persevering and keep putting ourselves out there and presenting and putting our case forward as a suitable and proud venue to be associated with the best motorsport events in the world – that’s two wheels, and four wheels,” he says.
Being targeted now is the Motocross World Championship (MXGP) that he hopes could be as early as 2023.
So naturally, world championship motocross facilities would need to be built for it at The Bend.
One event that Shahin says cannot be lured to The Bend is the Adelaide 500 (the event was ditched by the former Liberal government in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic, but has been reinstated by Premier Peter Malinauskas. There were concerns at the time the axing would jeopardise the future of The Bend’s Supercars event, which was initially left off the Supercars 2022 calendar. But that matter was resolved through lobbying by Shahin and, in terms of the city event, with the change of government).
“I think it was unwise for the Adelaide 500 to not be run in South Australia,” he says.
“I think city street circuits, street events promote a city in a way that only those events can. The Adelaide 500 is a different event than what Formula 1 was but it was still an event where the torch was purely shining on Adelaide for a week and I think that’s almost irreplaceable.
“Street events and permanent circuit events are very different. I absolutely believe that the two events should, and they can, coexist.
“There was precedent (to hold both the Adelaide 500 and The Bend Supercars rounds, in 2018 and 2019) – there were two events, and two very successful events.
“I think the Adelaide 500 is good for the state.”
In the next decade, with political goodwill, administrative support and the support of the public at motorsport events, South Australia can reclaim the title of the motorsport capital of Australia, Shahin says.
“We’re in the business of putting a smile on people’s faces,” he says.
“It’s not whether I think it’s good or successful – when every South Australian is proud of The Bend being in South Australia, I think that to me is a critical measure of the success of The Bend.
“And it goes back to the innate drive, the desire to be part of a country.
“This migrant refugee has never left me, I still long to be part of this country and this is my little contribution and I hope that everybody would be going to be proud of it.
“If the tombstone says, ‘Palestinian refugee came to Australia, built something that South Australians are proud of’, I would be happy with that.”
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