Abandoned racetracks: Adelaide GP circuit

Adelaide is a sleepy little place that has a lot of churches. That’s the stereotypical view of the South Australian capital held in larger centres such as arch-rival Melbourne. But while Melbourne likes to think of itself as the sporting capital of the world, it was Adelaide which secured for Australia the seemingly unattainable holy grail of world motorsport – a Formula 1 grand prix.
Where Melbourne and Sydney had failed, in 1985 Adelaide unexpectedly succeeded in bringing the World Drivers’ Championship to our shores. The circuit the South Australians devised to host the first Australian Formula 1 grand prix was thrown together in a ridiculously short timeframe, but it turned out to be a magnificent venue, something unlike anything F1 had experienced before.

For 11 years Adelaide played host not merely to the final round of the championship but an end-of-season F1 party that just about took over the entire city.
Melbourne has the GP now but, as good an event as the Albert Park race is, it’s just not the same. Adelaide was small enough for the grand prix to be the biggest thing in town; in Melbourne, it’s just another event.
But while Adelaidians were miffed to see the grand prix fly east across the border, things turned out all right in the end. The annual Group A support races had shown that the Parklands circuit was a great place for touring car racing. So when V8 Supercars Australia kicked into gear in the late ’90s and wanted to put on a city street race extravaganza, the old F1 circuit was the obvious choice.
A whole new event was born on a shortened version of the GP track. The Adelaide 500 might have lacked the glamour of the F1 race but it had real homegrown appeal – it was kerb-jumping, wall-crunching Holden-vs-Ford muscle car action at its best.
The Adelaide 500’s success provided the Tony Cochrane-led V8 Supercars circus with the template for future growth and, rightly or wrongly, state government or territory event funding. But none of that would have happened had the Adelaideans not got things so right with the original, full 3.78km circuit. This is the story of that first, longer track.

The original proposed layout.

History 101

There have been various failed schemes to bring the World Drivers’ Championship down under since the early 1960s. Warwick Farm was touted; even Mount Panorama in the mid 1970s. One plan – which had some credibility, given that the man behind it was respected promoter/entrepreneur Paul Dainty – called for a street race around Sydney’s historic Rocks district. Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser went into the 1980 federal election promising a grand prix on a new circuit in Canberra.
Into the 1980s, more tangible proposals emerged. Bob Jane had hopes of hosting an F1 race at Calder, and seemed prepared to extend the circuit to do it. Meanwhile over on the other side of Melbourne, the Light Car Club had secured state government funding for a rehash of Sandown so that it could host a round of the 1984 World Endurance Championship.
This was significant, because the upgraded Sandown now met the minimum length requirements for an F1 track. If we were going to get an F1 race, Sandown appeared to be in pole position.
But there was also a bid from Adelaide. It was an idea dreamed up by businessman and former racer Bill O’Gorman, who thought an F1 GP through the streets of Adelaide would be good way to celebrate South Australia’s sesqui-centenary in 1986. The Adelaide City Council agreed, as did the chief of the SA Jubilee 150 Committee, Kim Bonython (who was also the former promoter of the legendary Rowley Park Speedway).
Crucially, F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone also liked the Adelaide street circuit concept – so much so that he saw it as a long-term deal and not the single 1986 race envisaged by O’Gorman.