ANDRA has rejected any chance of leasing Sydney's Eastern Creek Raceway to stage the 1998 Premier State Nationals, under the sort of conditions suggested by the Australian Racing Drivers Club (ARDC).

ANDRA had proposed the leasing of the Sydney track in a submission written to ARDC General Manager Chris Hones on June 2. The idea was to lease the track for a period of a week, from mid-week to mid-week, preferably in October, during which a street meet would be staged, then the championship season-launching Premier State Nationals, after which the surface would not be cleaned of its traction compounds, to fulfill the track's CAMS (Confederation of Australian Motor Sports) circuit racing licence, but would have a fresh coat of asphalt applied from the end of the concrete to just past the quarter mile finish line.

The four-page reply to ANDRA's submission did not set out any specific costs, but made a number of broad suggestions related to the cost of running such an event. The letter suggests a loss of alternate hiring fees (to Grand Prix bike team testing) of $10,000 per day, which for the seven-day suggested hire period, plus a further 21 days during which the track "would be out of action," making a total of $280,000 for the hire, payable to the ADRC.

Willowbank manager and NCC member Dennis Syrmis told DRAGSTER that he could not understand why there would need to be a period of 21 days break in the track's availability.

"When we built Willowbank we waited until the last possible moment before laying the final coat of asphalt so that we earned income from it as soon as possible after it was down ", said Syrmis, "and it went down four days before the first pass was made on the track. Generally it's recommended that five to six days after it's laid be allowed, but you can safely get away with four days.

We've done it whenever we've had to reseal sections of the track. I mean, they resurface highways and you can drive on it within hours." When we suggested that was not a reasonable analogy, since you don't run 5000 horsepower dragsters over highways, Syrmis retorted, "Yes, but you don't run 30-tonne semi-trailers over drag strips."

The ARDC letter suggested that the resurfacing would have to be to a standard required by Grand Prix motorcycle and V8 touring cars, and would cost an estimated $300,000. On this topic Syrmis and other sources suggested to DRAGSTER that a reasonable figure for this, over the relatively short distance required, would be closer to $40,000.

The ARDC's response that the $200,000 spent on staging the 1997 Premier State Nationals had been highly criticised because of a lack of promotion, therefore a minimum figure for the actual staging of the event would be around $300,000, resulting in a "total event cost to ANDRA of $880,000."

The letter went on to reiterate the ARDC's position in regard to building a separate drag strip on the site, against which the ARDC, it claimed had paid out close to $10,000 in planning costs. "We have not yet called on ANDRA to assist with these escalating and continuing costs," the letter states.

The letter suggests "ANDRA should be making formal approaches at State and Federal Government levels for funding." Investigations by DRAGSTER with the NSW (New South Wales) Department of Sport and Recreation indicate that the lease for the Eastern Creek property quite specifically prohibits the expenditure of any NSW government funds, either by grant or loan, on any activity at Eastern Creek, either through the ARDC or any associated organization or sub-lessee. This condition was stated in pre-lease conditions when submissions were called for, and has since been conveyed to ARDC officials on a number of occasions.

The letter continues, "Lobbying for one big event to solve everything is not the long term solution," then states that if a separate drag strip is built at the track ANDRA could do what AVESCO/SEL do with the V8 touring cars, hiring the facility for a share of the gate and entry fees payable to the ARDC and paying all expenses, such as cleaning, toilets, security, printing, etc., so that "ANDRA could get an income direct from major events, say two or three each year."

ANDRA's response was to reject such a proposal, and that the suggested figure of around $880,000 was "unrealistic", and that plainly the ARDC "places a low priority on drag racing at anything above the off-street level at the moment."

The ARDC's approach, which is one of minimal spending, showed at a recent street meet where a street car oildown resulted in the track being cut back to single lane use only because of a lack of materials to clean it up.