Adelaide Motorsports Festival’s Victoria Park Sprint of rare and classic vehicles cancelled in State Budget cutbacks

The State Budget cutbacks have claimed another victim – this time, the Victoria Park Sprint in the Adelaide Motorsports Festival.

• Fees and charges to rise

Adelaide Motorsports Festival’s Victoria Park Sprint of rare and classic vehicles will be cancelled this year, as the State Government continues to swing the State Budget axe.

In a statement sent to members this afternoon, the Sporting Car Club of SA has revealed that the festival will be “scaled back” as the popular Victoria Park portion of the event is axed.

As of this afternoon, the festival website was still calling for expressions of interest to join the race, with up to 14 categories featuring “open-wheelers, touring cars, sports and racing cars” ranging in vintage from the 1930s to today and focused on rare and classic vehicles.

The festival began in 2014 with an attendance of 1800 and now boasts crowds up to 50,000.

The Shannons Adelaide Rally, Gouger Street Party and a second motorsport themed street party are confirmed to still go ahead on the original dates of December 4 to 7.

Festival director Tim Possingham told The Advertiser he would seek further private sponsorship to fill in the Government cut and hoped this year was just a “pit stop”.

“The reduction in funding is significant,” he said. “Therefore, there’s going to be significant change with that being all of the activity in Victoria Park not going ahead.

“We have been dealing with the Government for some time.

“I think the pathway forward is probably to seek more corporate support.”

A 1967 Brabham BT21 drives down Wakefield St during the Adelaide Motorsports Festival in 2017. Picture: AAP / James Elsby

Last week, the State Government axed the Adelaide Fashion Festival, which will be replaced by an expanded version the retail-based spin-off Vogue Festival, which began in 2017 and is run by the Adelaide City Council and Rundle Mall Management Authority.

Treasurer Rob Lucas will deliver the State Budget next month, and has announced a range of fees, fines and charges will rise in an attempt to cover the collapse of GST revenue.

The Government says the size of the cut handed to support for this year’s Adelaide Motorsports Festival cannot be released for commercial in confidence reasons.

A Government spokesman said it welcomed the fact the festival would be continuing in a modified form and the cut “stems directly from a $517 million writedown in GST revenue”.

Emily Tate from Melbourne at the Adelaide Motorsport Festival at Victoria Park. Picture: Tom Huntley

Mr Possingham said it was too soon to know what form the event would take next year.

“We’ve got the best intentions to have the Victoria Park Sprint return,” he said.

“It’s an event that had incredible growth over the five years that we ran it.

“It had very low impact in terms of road closures and community impact.

“I’d like to say that it’s in for a pit stop in 2019 and it gets back out on track in 2020.”

Mr Possingham said the event already had solid business backing and it was disappointing for its momentum to be stalled just as crowds and economic activity was building.