Brad Jones has thrown his full support behind a push for a Supercars event on the Border.
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The Albury-born Supercars team owner knows it would require substantial government support, but can see huge benefits.
Jones, who also sits on the Supercars board, drew comparisons to the success of the inaugural Newcastle 500 street circuit event in November last year and believes there’s no reason why Albury-Wodonga couldn’t achieve something similar.
“There’s always opportunities and I think it would be a massive event,” Jones said.
“Obviously there would need to be roadworks done, but if you look at Newcastle as an example, they had over 190,000 people attend the event, there was well over $20 million in economic stimulus, every hotel room was booked out, restaurants were packed, there was people everywhere.
“It’s great for the community, but more importantly it showcases the town.
“For people who don’t know much about Newcastle, you’d probably just think its a coal mining town and that paints a pretty glum picture.
“But when you look at the overhead shots of the motor race, you can see it’s a really beautiful place.
“That’s one of the great things about Albury-Wodonga, there’s so much around here you can do.
“The wineries are not far down the road, the snow isn’t far away and you’ve got the weir in the summer.
“It not only gets people into the event, but it’s a chance to show them around the place a little bit and give them the desire to come back at another time.
“I think we could get a lot out of it, but to make it happen we would definitely need to to lobby hard and get both NSW and Victorian governments behind it, …the good part is they would only need to chip in half each.”
“If they could get the support, Supercars would certainly work pretty hard to make something happen.”
But Jones wouldn’t want to see the event come at the expense of Winton, just 100 kilometres down the road.
“I think Winton is a different event, people go to Winton as a road race circuit,” Jones said.
“There’s no reason why you couldn’t do them both.
“We had a race meeting at the Hume weir for years, …there could be still be a round of the championship at Winton and we have a street circuit here.”