Yepyorky wrote:So! On again this weekend! Let's see how big the crowds get this time around. Plenty of support categories which will keep things busy.
This year there's four national categories and two local categories racing across the weekend. The national categories are the V8 Supercars, the Dunlop Series, the V8 Utes and for the first time to WA the Aussie Racing Cars. The two local support categories are the Historic Touring Cars and the Super GTs. All the categories have some track time on each of the three days. The sessions are on the V8 Supercars website at http://www.v8supercars.com.au/champions ... 0/sessions
This year, kids 14 and under get in for free with a paying adult and they're really pushing hard for people to get public transport to and from the venue with a fleet of buses running from Clarkson train station every day. A V8 ticket also allows for free public transport too, making it an even more attractive option. In years past when everyone tried to drive to the racetrack and park on-site there were queues that stretched for miles as the roads in the area just can't support that number of cars all trying to go to the same spot at the same time
There's also been a LOT of infrastructure work at the raceway since the last time the V8s came to town. I was up there on the weekend and there's new structures being put up. Some of them are temporary (like the grandstand seating and corporate marquees) but there's also been a lot of work to the bits that stay there all year 'round which is great to see.
From the other side of the fence (literally!), there's hundreds of volunteers who will be working across the three days to make the event happen. Almost every motorsport official at the event is giving their time to be there. Early pre-dawn starts and long days are on the cards for several WARSUG mods/admins the weekend - but they feed us pretty well and we get to see some awesome racing much closer than any paying spectator so that's always a bonus.
Radio-wise (this IS a radio forum after all!) things are going to be a bit different this year. The old analogue FM repeater systems that were in use up there for many years have been decommissioned and a new encrypted digital radio system has been put in place just in time for this event. All is not lost however, since the V8 teams traditionally like to monitor the race control radio channels at each event, I would imagine (but I don't know for sure) that some kind of rebroadcasting might have to be put in place to let that happen. It might be by radio (good for scanner listeners) or by a hard-line feed to each pit garage (which wouldn't be of any use to us at all...) Anyone going up there for the weekend with a scanner, take a listen around and see if you can hear anything useful and if you do, share it around and post the frequencies for others!
All the major phone companies have increased coverage for the V8s. Optus has a permanent tower inside the boundaries of the Raceway so that's them sorted. Voda and Telstra have towers nearby but are also deploying their mobile "Cell on Wheels" (or COWs) to the event. They've even shown up in the ACMA database here and here Looks like Telstra's (if the site details are accurate) is going on the grassed area in the paddock behind race control and Voda's is going to a similar spot to last year at the top of the hill on the outfield, opposite where the short track starts after flag point 5...