The developing situation at Sydney's Eastern Creek Raceway, involving a breakdown of the relationship between drag racing and the track's managers, the Australian Racing Drivers Club, appears to have gone from bad to worse, following the February New South Wales Divisional Council meeting.

The meeting, held on Tuesday, February 3, a night after the ARDC's Extraordinary General Meeting, at which members voted to sell off the club's long standing headquarters at Amaroo Park to pay considerable outstanding debts, was as crowded as the limited meeting space allowed.

The meeting, with an estimated 50 drag racers in attendance, well over the number usually permissible under ANDRA's regulations covering club delegates, but allowed given the extraordinary level of interest in the night's discussion, was addressed by Chris Hones, the ARDC's new Director of Operations, and Linzy Osmond, who has been assigned the task of looking after the ARDC's drag racing activities.

During a 45-minute discussion Hones began by stating that the ARDC needed drag racing at Eastern Creek to remain viable, and showed "sketch drawings" for a proposed stand-alone drag strip that he explained had been forwarded to CAMS and ANDRA for approval. He said that he would be meeting later that night with a potential investor who was interested in funding the drag strip on a profit share basis.

Hones then tried to pass on to ANDRA the blame for the failure to run the February 14th meeting. This meeting had been at first scheduled as a quarter mile national open, with the jet cars and a truck bracket as headline draws, but was then drawn back to an eighth mile event on the basis that bookings for Formula One bike teams leading right up to and following immediately after the 14th did not allow sufficient time to firstly prepare the track, and then to clean it up to meet CAMS' requirements for the circuit.

When ANDRA ultimately agreed to the running of the eighth mile event, on the basis of adequate and even track preparation, plus several other prerequisites, Hones, in discussion with ANDRA CEO Tony Thornton said that the ARDC could not meet the requirements, and negotiations collapsed.

Protests from the floor at the DC, as well as from ANDRA personnel, ultimately ended Hones' night. The proposition that ANDRA was to blame was rejected, and when the racers suggested that they might raise the necessary funds to prepare the track for the February 14th date this was ultimately rejected by the ARDC representatives because they said the club did not have the funds to stage the meeting anyway.

When asked whether the track would be resealed and repaired for the Nitro Championships, about the fourth or fifth largest drag racing event on the national calendar, and due to be held in April, Hones advised that this would not happen while the ARDC's financial position remained critical. He said the event was unlikely to be held.

Hones stated that no decision relating to future competition drag racing meetings, track preparations, resurfacing or relocating could be contemplated until after Amaroo Park was sold, debts repaid and any possible investors had looked at the situation.

The message racers left with was that they either ran on what was there or did not run at all until further notice. It was agreed by all that such an alternative left no alternative but for the event to not be run, in spite of the serious holes that such a proposal would make in several Group One Australian Championship series, and in the prospects of any NSW teams having success in the 1998 ADR Series.

Since the DC (Divisional Council) meeting the ARDC has handed out a list of events for the coming year, which schedules both the Nitro Championships and the Premier State Nationals, but both carry the rider, in bold print, "Subject to change, please contact the office to confirm." The same list of events showed street meetings through until December.

Osmond added to concerns at the DC meeting by announcing that he had tendered his resignation from Eastern Creek and would be moving to the NSW central coast several weeks later.

After Hones and Osmond left the room angry racers passed around a number of ideas which they thought might resolve the issue, but in the end these amounted to little that was of practical value.

ANDRA Technical Development Officer Peter Williams, currently in charge at Head Office during a three-week break for CEO Tony Thornton, told DRAGSTER, "If the Nitro Championships don't go ahead it will be because the ARDC is unwilling or unable to prepare the track, not because of any move from ANDRA. There is a street meet to be held on February 11th, and the 14th has only been cancelled because the ARDC chose not to, or was unable to, meet our requirements.

"Contrary to current rumour we have not determined to withdraw the sanction for all drag racing at Eastern Creek. If they're prepared to pay their bills and demonstrate a serious intention to want to stage drag racing and build its future we feel the least we can do is assist them by enbabling them to run street meetings, or any other drag racing, as long as they comply with our long held requirements, which are no diferent to those which apply to all other drag strips around the nation."

NSW Divisional Director Phil Woodman stated, "I'm very frustrated over the whole issue, but what can I do? We have to wait while the ARDC pay its bills to see if there's any money left over, and we're in limbo until then. I've written to Chris Hones to suggest that the ARDC might start building bridges with the drag racing community by appointing, say, the NSW DD (Division Director) as an honorary member of the board so that the drag racing community will get to find out the reality of what's going on direct from the inside. I have been told that they'll discuss such an idea at their next board meeting.

"I've also written to the Department of Sport and Recreation, and to the Premier, and I'll be writing to the Opposition Leader, and anyone else I can think of, who might be able to start people looking for a solution to drag racing in New South Wales."