This weekend marks the last national championship races at Oran Park, which once attracted bigger crowds than any other in Australia. There will be open-wheelers, sports sedans and V8s.
Since opening in 1962, Oran Park has hosted some of Australia’s best drivers, including five-time 500cc world champion Mick Doohan, current formula one star Mark Webber and nine-time Bathurst winner Peter Brock.
“We were the first to ever pay Brock [for racing],” says Allan Horsley, Oran Park’s manager from 1965 to 1981. “We signed him exclusively to Oran Park. Brock was very famous there.”
Races between Brock and rivals such as Allan Moffat, Bob Jane and Pete Geoghegan were common, including at night.
Moffat, a four-time Bathurst winner and touring car champion, remembers when Oran Park was a long way from Sydney. “When we first went out there it was like driving in to the outback,” he says. “There were no houses anywhere. But a lot of things have changed in 35 years.”
“It was the last race and it decided the championship. In my infinite wisdom I was looking in my mirror … went for second [gear] but pulled it into reverse.
“One bad gear change cost me the touring car championship.”
Brabham - three times the F1 world champion and the only driver to win the championship in a car he created - and Moss used Oran Park to prepare for the Bathurst 1000.
“It’s a crying shame … disastrous from a motor sport perspective,” he says. “We certainly need circuits like Oran Park and Amaroo Park.”
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