The V8 Supercars Championship is here on the Gold Coast as the GC600 — you should get into it

IT’S GC600 time - and this Gold Coast local says you should do yourself a favour and get amongst it.

AFRAID of a little noise? Perhaps screams and whistles from ‘bogans’ while supercars fang around one of the world’s toughest street circuits puts you off?

You obviously haven’t been among it all yet.

Me? I love the smell of fresh burning rubber in the morning. And like it or not, it’s here.

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Everything about the V8 Supercars on the Gold Coast goes hard: the parties, the live acts and especially the drivers and their fuel-guzzling, noise-creating motor machines.

The 2013 Gold Coast 600 V8 Supercar race rips through the streets of Surfers Paradise. Picture: Tim Slade.

The race weekend is a tradition on the Gold Coast and it has been running for more than two decades.

It is a fixture on the Coast the same as tourists and tides. You can’t beat it, people, you may as well join it.

From today to Sunday, the streets will close and the parties will open up along Surfers Paradise with the Hilltop Hoods, Lil Jon, a host of killer DJs and plenty of hot cars.

The festival vibes permeate throughout the glitter strip with stunt planes and helicopters over head, punters watching on from balconies and live music pumping from speakers and exhausts at street level.

Grid girls from the Gold Coast 600 V8 Supercar race, held on the streets of Surfers Paradise and Main Beach Picture: Stella Badenoch.

The V8 Supercars is an inclusive racing series – come as you are.

You can dress up or down for the festival and that includes the rev-head’s traditional uniform of thongs, singlets and sunnies as they bask in the low-key summer glory.

Looking past the speed and colour, spectators can get addicted, all at some point becoming race tacticians and engineering experts (in their own minds), asking things like ‘How long should Jamie Whincup wait until he stops for fuel considering the commanding lead he has over Craig Lowndes?’ or ‘Does Whincup have ENOUGH fuel to finish?’ and ‘Does Mark Winterbottom’s Ford have the goods this season?’

Gold Coast 600 action - happening all weekend

The Gold Coast 600 is like a marathon-length grand final.

I remember my Dad dragging my sisters and I around as kids, with ear buds stuffed in our ears, whistling and cheering the cars on – secretly hoping for the spectacle of a collision.

Any feelings tiredness or sunburn pain would dissolve as the furious cars roared past on the track.

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I remember trying to keep focus with the blurs as they sped past, trying to comprehend the skill these drivers employed, throwing their cars around, and I still can’t.

The gear changes are precise, the cornering unbelievable.

These guys are real athletes. Throughout the race their heart rates have been known to reach up to 200 beats per minute, higher than some guys playing contact team sports.

The V8 Supercar Championship series stop on the Gold Coast brings plenty of colour to the street track winding through Surfers Paradise and Main Beach

These drivers can are also working inside a cabin where temperatures can reach 50°celsius, pushing on the brakes with the equivalent continuous strain of an 80kg leg press and dealing with heavy G-forces on the neck while clinging to their seat.

If that wasn’t enough, they are racing and giving feedback about the car to the pit crew while driving around in machines that can go from zero to fiery death in no time at all.

Still think this weekend is nothing but a waste of petrol? Think again.

The road closures mean fewer cars on the road for the weekend and more foot traffic.

For some, the main event is the cars and for others it is the festival.

Runners have the chance to run a lap of the course on foot, there are street art galleries to check out and a Latin Festival on Tedder Avenue.

All these events lead to a crescendo before the big race, the atmosphere is electric and the excitement of fast cars cannot be overhyped.

The sun, the beach, the speed, and the Castrol Edge Gold Coast 600 covers everything there is to love about the Gold Coast.

You can’t help being a fan once you get among it.

So let’s party, let’s burn rubber, let’s put the V8 pedal to the V8 metal.

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