Darwin Supercars given green light to plan for crowds as the Territory opens up
DARWIN’S fastest event may go ahead in front of a live crowd, provided Supercars teams can safely get into the NT in line with an updated calendar.
Northern Territory
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DARWIN’S fastest event may go ahead in front of a live crowd, provided Supercars teams can safely get into the NT in line with an updated calendar.
With the Supercars 2020 schedule derailed by the coronavirus crisis, a new calendar has been scheduled for release in a few weeks, however Chief Minister Michael Gunner said as long as social distancing protocols were respected, crowds could well be a part of the action of the Supercars and other possible ventures such as an AFL hub being established in the NT.
“If they (AFL and Supercars) have a plan. So they’ve got to negotiate that against the principles and it wouldn’t be an ordinary crowd,” he said.
“From a grandstand point of view, you’d probably checkerboard the grandstands so you can’t (sit) in every seat, that kind of thing.
“Supercars obviously they’ve got quite a lot of track to set up.”
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While the Supercars still remain up in the air due to border control, Mr Gunner said the possibility of restricted areas for crowds could help increase the capacity.
“They have to come up with a plan that I imagine it might not be a crowd like normal, it might be certain amounts of people in certain areas. They’d have to put it together, put it to our chief health officer and see if it’s OK,” he said.
However he acknowledged there was logistics ground to cover for racing teams, with no easing of border control likely to be made for the sake of sport.
“Everyone who enters the Territory has to go through quarantine for two weeks so they’d have to have that as part of their plan if they can,” he said.
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While the Chief Minister gave the green light for codes to start planning how crowds could assemble, Supercars remained tight lipped, with any decisions reliant on their updated calendar which will be released later this month.
Supercars said they would continue to monitor and comply with government health advice in any decisions made, but were looking forward to returning to Darwin when possible to do so.
Originally published as Darwin Supercars given green light to plan for crowds as the Territory opens up