Each time, with out fail, I explain to her that it makes me sad to see the place. You see many years ago it looked like this....
It was Oran Park raceway. A great little track 30 minutes or so from home that we went to religiously. We would be there for every Super Truck round, every V8 Supercar visit and even some random club events. You could see just about the entire track from just about anywhere you could sit, it had a bridge and a tunnel, a windy bit at the back and a straight coming off an uphill tight corner. It was awesome. We would pack up an esky with rolls and snacks and head off early to get there as the gates opened, it was located in a bit of a hollow so it was always really cold in the morning.
I remember getting there one morning and it belting down rain, so hard that the place pretty much flooded and everyone else took off home. After 10 or 15 minutes it stopped, the sun came out and the racing began. The place was pretty much deserted and it was almost like the whole thing was for us.
Then one day they decided they could make a shed load of money by selling the land off to build a housing estate, in the middle of cow paddocks.
The argument was that we had Eastern Creek (Now Sydney Motorsport Park) about half an hour in the other direction so Oran park wouldn't be missed, but Eastern Creek sucks. As a spectator you can see almost nothing, the Super Trucks can't race there as the straight it too long (They would hit the 160km/h speed limiter 1/3 of the way down it) and it's a bazillion dollars to enter.
Even before I had kids, even before I was married, I thought that Oran Park would always be there and that I'd take my kids there one day. It stopped operating as a full race track in 2008, the year my daughter was born, and now when we drive past it is just an ocean of tile roofs on nondescript houses packed as close together as they can be built. It makes me sad every time....
No comments:
Post a Comment