Before I go any further here, I must state that this is being written on January 28, our deadline for this issure. The only new bits to come later are a small section of one Late Breakers page where we hope to get in some highlights/headlines from next weekend's Calder Top Fuel meet and the Monday night ARDC (Australian Racing Drivers Club) Extraordinary General Meeting. And it's issues related to the latter that I wish to address here.

I've hung off writing much about the Eastern Creek mess, which goes from bad to worse for drag racing, because I didn't want to be accused of "talking down" the situation, but it's probably got to the point where crisis is not a word which is out of place.

Sydney drag racing went through all this once before, in 1984, after the Castlereagh track was closed. At first, months before the track was to be closed, there were assurances that there would be a back-up site to move to, and certainly there were likely prospects and the board of management worked hard on the matter, but for various reasons the first options dropped out, and the Final Race came and went and there was nowhere to go.

It didn't seem too urgent, because the track closed in April, and there was always a racing break over winter anyway, so there was time to spare. But as time moved on and more and more options drifted past, and the true difficulty of finding somewhere to build a drag strip in or near an urban centre the size of Sydney, and in the face of the new noise regulations, became obvious.

There were false starts at Oran Park, and many promises from all levels of government, but in the end it amounted to little. And New South Wales drag racing withered away, eroded by despair, frustration and the lure of other motorsport activities. In the biggest marektplace in the nation the sport almost died out, and except for a handful of diehards who were prepared to tow 900 kilometres to race on a quarter mile there was nothing.

Then came Eastern Creek. It seemed too good to be true. Every other drag strip in the nation had started with little and been forced to build up from there. This new facility seemed to start up there, way ahead of the rest. The pit building alone, with its VIP suites, cost more than the whole Willowbank track when it was first built. And to quote the real estate agent, this place had "Location! Location! Location!"

To say drag racing exploded onto the Sydney scene is an understatement. Racers flocked from other Divisions to support the reduced local community, and the mound was packed. You couldn't move, it was shoulder to shoulder, emotional stuff. It keyed into a boom in the sport elsewhere and helped send it spiralling to the top of Australian motorsport.

But by the time we realized all this, it was already on the decline. While all this was happening, or about to, there was a crisis that went almost unnoticed. The original operators of the track, Dovigo Pty. Ltd., appeared to be about to fail in a major way. The NSW Government, which owned the land, stepped in and took over.

Like most organizations which do not understand or have much interest in long term developments, they took the option of the quickest and easiest dollar. There was uncontrolled sale of alcohol on the hill, with stands everywhere amongst the crowd, so there were drunks everywhere.

From the first meeting, we fielded a non-stop list of people stating quite firmly they'd never go back, because their wife had been vomited on, or they'd found themselves in the middle of a brawl, or they wouldn't expose their children to that sort of language again. By the time the exasperated motor racing manager Kevin Prendergast talked the senior management into limiting the alcohol to a smallish "wet" area it was too late, the damage was done.

In the meantime there were charges applied to the admission of children, and parking, and entry to the grandstand, and the infield viewing area, along with all the usual charges. These new imposts were all dropped after complaints, but the damage was done. And as the infield viewing area charges were dropped, so too were the infield grandstands.

The surplus operating funds which accumulated and which were initially targeted for upgrading (such as readout boards) were siphoned off by the government as rapidly as they were built up. So there was no improvement seen in the place, except in the continued extension to the viewing mounds, which was part of the track's development approval and over which the government had no alternative.

There was little in the way of maintenance, so by the end the inner walls of the garages were in a condition where they could, and did, fall on cars (just by luck, to our knowledge, never landing on any people), and the drainage was clogged and the paint filthy and much of the original equipment non-operable.

To cap it off, they built a five metre high hurricane wire fence in front of all the drag racing spectators that was made from wire of such a heavy gauge that from behind at mid-track you couldn't, and still can't see either the start or finish lines.

Add to that probably the worst year of weather and ill-luck that's imaginable and what was once a booming motorsport that could and should have been able to take on anyone or anything in Sydney was almost on its knees.

Then having pumped the well dry, and left the infrastructure in a shabby and dilapidated state, and very thoroughly driven off the punters, the Government decided to pass the management on. Their choice was a club-based Limited company, the Australian Racing Drivers Club, that despite its credentials in other areas had absolutely no background, and despite the assurances of some senior board members, little apparent interest in drag racing.

As a consequence the original motor racing manager, Kevin Prendergast, lasted a couple of months, and his replacement, Michael O'Hara, just nine weeks.

And the agreed lease figure was exorbitant (and against the advice of the government's own advisers), but greed is a tough task master. I'm just waiting for their expressions of surprise over what could have gone wrong.

In 1997 we saw just four national opens run, with another rained out and a sixth "postponed" (read: cancelled). On the schedule for 1998 were just three events, with some measure of surprise expressed when we rang to check whether that figure was correct. The first four years had over double this: (1992 nine, 1993 seven, 1994 nine and 1995 eleven).

We're already seeing the sell-off of race cars and the diversion to other activities. Gary McKelvey is racing speedway. Peter Byrne said if he could sell his Modified Altered he'd go speedway. We've been told of a number of Super Sedan/Super Street operations that have gone back on the street. Engines will go into boats or street machines, race cars pushed to the back of the garage, and then a year or two later out into the back yard, where the weeds will grow up through the floor, and when rust gets hold, they'll be dumped.

To a great degree much of this is not the fault of the ARDC, they inherited a nightmare, but it might be said that if you're buying a second hand car you should look under the bonnet and take it for a drive around the block. Through other developments (The Group A - Group Two Touring Car clash) as well as the money vaccum at Eastern Creek the ARDC is now facing a situation where if the club's members don't agree at Monday's EGM meeting to selling the club's property at Amaroo Park it is widely reported that the liquidators will move in.

So, do we face the closure of Eastern Creek to motor racing, or see another lessee who may or may not have an interest in trying to rekindle the drag racing fire? Or would drag racing be better off by taking its own fate into its own hands? The answer to the latter has to be yes, but the realities, as they were 15 years ago, are probably beyond our means.