Over at The RiotACT, the comments on this topic are interesting, in particular, one from Growling Ferret:
Western Sydney International Raceway (WSID) is three hours up the road, and has arguably the best facilities in the world outside of the USA. For motorsport competitors, 3 or 4 hours up the road to compete is a short distance - especially in the days when Eastern Creek Dragway was closed, and the closest dragway for Canberra competitiors was either Calder Park in Melbourne or Brisbane.Which echos many comments that I have heard from motorsports competitors who have facilities in Canberra (hillclimbers and rallyists mostly). However, these same hillclimbers and rallyists are also known to travel out of the Territory to race.
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The whole argument for a new CID was to get the kids of the streets - if the kids really wanted to get off the streets, the options are there. Unfortunately, you don’t get the Playstation Need for Speed thrill in the safe monitored environment of an organised race or drag meeting.
When I've asked people who specifically want a dragway in Canberra, and who have drag-focussed cars, why they don't drive to WSID, they usually say it's too far away (at least 3 hours drive). When I ask them why they don't go to Wakefield for the 1/8th mile drags they often say that 1/8th mile drag racing isn't propper drag racing (Wakefield is about a 45 minute drive from Canberra).
I have my suspicions that many young drag racing enthusiasts would not frequent a facility if it was opened in Canberra because it would all be just too hard and too expensive for a run. (The price that people seem to want to pay for an "off street meet" is about $20 for a night, which is never going to happen - $40 or even $60 is more likely.) Given that many people can't be bothered to scrape together the $40-odd it would take to enter a basic motorkhana, getting a dragway to break even could be a problem.
And that's if it ever does get built.
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