V8 Supercar legend and SA businessman Sam Shahin unveil plans to build worldclass motorsport park
AN Aussie V8 Supercar legend and one of SA’s most prominent businessmen are all revved up to turn a patch of dirt outside Adelaide into Australia’s best motorsport park.
LEGEND of V8 Supercars Mark Skaife crouches in the middle of the Tailem Bend paddock, extends his arms to grip an imaginary steering wheel, and nods.
“See what I’m talking about?” he grins.
“Imagine you’ve just come out of that right-hander down there, up over the crest, and you’re doing 160 clicks. The car is fighting you, the slope right here is pushing you to the outside, and even if you’ve made the turn perfectly you’re wrestling just to keep the thing on the track.
“Nasty, isn’t it? But that’s what makes it so good.”
And this is why the Sunday Mail is here.
At the former Mitsubishi testing site on the south-eastern outskirts of Tailem Bend, taking an exclusive track walk with Skaife and prominent South Australian businessman Sam Shahin, the mastermind behind a motorsport haven to become the envy of the nation.
To reveal the first behind-the-scenes view of this ambitious $80-million project even Mr Shahin concedes is a “risky venture” for his Peregrine Corporation and On The Run empire.
“But if we can build everything we’ve set out to build, this is the best facility in Australia – by a long way,” Mr Shahin says.
“I say that with an educated mind because I’ve gone to the absolute best of what I’ve seen around the world and brought it here.
“This will stand shoulder to shoulder with some of the best facilities in the world.”
Within 18 months these fields – all rolling hills, limestone and dreams – will be transformed into the first purpose-built motorsport facility opened in Australia since 1999.
By this time next year this patch of land bordered by the Dukes and Mallee Highways, an hour from Adelaide city, is to be announced as the newest venue on the 2017 V8 Supercars schedule.
And in barely two years, likely in September or October of 2017, Australia’s premier motorsport category will arrive as V8 Supercars expands to a second SA stop on the national calendar, joining the season-opening Clipsal 500.
“This track can hold everything except Formula 1, so any series in Europe, the United States, anywhere in the world, there is no obstacle for them to come to SA,” Mr Shahin says.
“Whether it is Superbikes, MotoGP, rallycross, we’ll throw our hat in the ring.
“Whether they exist or, even better, if they don’t currently come to Australia, we’ll do everything we can to attract the best in class of any category.”
Right now, the centrepiece to Mr Shahin’s master plan is a raw dirt outline shaved into the green countryside.
Yet Skaife, a five-time drivers champion and six-time Bathurst 1000 winner, can see the same grand potential.
“Sam spoke to me before Clipsal and said he was very excited about making a significant motorsport park work in South Australia,” Skaife says.
“Sam has done all the work, he’s used me to consult on some of the design aspects and to apply some of the technology to it.
:It’s quite hard taking something like this on paper and converting it into what a real racetrack will look like. So this is Sam’s vision. He has asked for my advice and I’m very happy to give it as much as I can to help make sure it is world-class.”
When it comes to world-class, Mr Shahin’s blueprint is much more than just a V8 Supercars racetrack, for use one week of the year.
But the circuit is central.
So central, that planned hotel accommodation previously slated for the far western stretch of the precinct is to be relocated to directly above the pit area.
“We want people to be able to open their curtains in the morning and see the track,” Mr Shahin says.
“We figure if you’re coming to stay, that is precisely why you’re here.”
Under new plans, on the longest start-finish straight on any purpose-built racetrack in Australia will sit a 283m-long permanent facility including 35 hotel rooms.
Below them, 64 oversized garages on the ground level. Also, a four-storey race control tower with views to every corner of the circuit as well as corporate facilities, function rooms and restaurants that overlook the track.
The circuit itself is a complex of varying lengths that can be divided into an east and a west layout, or combined into a longer 7.2km marathon. To make the joins work, some sectors must be engineered to accommodate clockwise and anticlockwise racing – a first in Australia.
Other features include an air strip and quarter-mile drag strip, a drift circuit, go-kart tracks, rallycross and a 4x4 adventure park as well as bicycle and walking tracks – and, of course, an On The Run service centre.
There is also potential for a “man cave” zone with 163 allotments directly behind the pit area, where users can store and work on their vehicles in their own on-site garages before using the circuit to test mechanical changes.
The bold design is the result of multiple international fact-finding missions Mr Shahin has made to global leaders in motorsport including Austria’s Red Bull Ring, France’s Circuit Paul Ricard, the Ascari resort in Spain and the iconic Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium. Mr Shahin says beyond the projected jobs boost in construction and operation, he is committed to reversing the “brain drain” by luring homegrown leaders to key commercial roles in the motorsport park’s rise.
“It’s a city. This is the birth of a new city,” Mr Shahin says.
“I’m not just motivated by creating something very unique and best in class, but one of the most pleasing things has been the number of South Australian expats that we are talking to who want to come back to be a part of this.
“It tickles my heart strings to see that.
“I’m very proud, in a very small way, to be part of that reverse brain drain, bringing people back into the state.
“It’s been a three-year journey just to get to this stage, and it’s finally starting to materialise.”
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