Oran Park Raceway (56K warning)

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A bit of info about Oran Park from Wikipedia.

Oran Park Raceway was a motor racing circuit at Narellan in southwestern Sydney, Australia. Most of the circuit was visible from the main grandstand or the grassed banks surrounding the track.

Oran Park Raceway had several track layouts. It was established on 1 January, 1963 with what was mostly like the modern South Circuit. The first motorcycle race meeting was held on 17 February, with reigning Grand Prix Champion Jim Redman being the star attraction. Redman won nearly every class and set the lap record of 50.4 seconds, only 0.8 seconds slower than Frank Matich's outright time set in a 2.6 litre Lotus Sports Car.

The full track ("Grand Prix Circuit") was added in the early 1970s. It had a 2.7 kilometre figure-eight shape with a bridge where the track crosses itself. Despite the loop in the longest track shape, the circuit was regarded as racing anticlockwise.

Oran Park also had a motocross track, a skidpan, a dirt track and four wheel drive course and is used for advanced driver training.

Oran Park was used regularly for rounds of the Australian Touring Car Championship, V8 Supercar Championship Series, Australian Drivers' Championship and Australian Sports Sedan Championship. The Australian Grand Prix was held at Oran Park in 1974 and 1977. In the 1970’s the circuit attracted large crowds for the popular Toby Lee Series, initially run for Series Production Touring Cars and later for Sports Sedans. The inaugural Rothmans 500 for Touring Cars was staged in 1977 but the 1978 event was to be the second and last running of this endurance race. Endurance touring car races would continue at Oran Park well into the 1980s and apart from the Sandown and Bathurst classics would last the longest before fading interest caused the compression of the endurance season to just those two events. The final such Oran Park enduro would by the 1989 Pepsi 300. The final V8 Supercar event was held in 2008.

Two international meetings were held in 1988 and 1989, playing host to the Superbike World Championship.

Recently, the land on which the racetrack is on was sold to the Government of New South Wales for a new housing development. This led to the closure of the track during 2010 and will end 47 years of motorsport heritage at the facility. The final race meeting was held over the October 31/November 1 weekend in 2009, which while billed as a State Championship meeting it also held national series rounds for a small GT endurance series and the Sports Sedan series.

Top Gear Australia visited the track numerous times during its second season when they reviewed cars such as the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X and the Audi RS6.

*Wiki info finished*

Very sad for me seeing one of my local race tracks getting knocked down. I have been to every V8 Supercar round since 1999 at the track and have grown up around Motorsport at Oran Park my entire life. But it's not just that, in my opinion, it's one of Australia's best racing circuits as it is a real challenge for the drivers and a simply awesome spectator track as it is undulating yet you can still see the whole track.

Even seeing the word "had" instead of "is" is a bad feeling, by the way it isn't gone yet, but it will be within the next 6 months. :(

Here is some pictures that i've taken in the past at the track (Syntax Error would be able to post much better pics)

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And a bit of video.







And finally a few tribute Videos.





Hope you liked some of the pictures and video. :)

Oran Park is finally gone....
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Some great photos you have of the track. Sad to hear your local track is being removed for some houses... I'd probably want to move if mine was demolished. Oran Park is a fun track to race on in Toca 3, I like the hilly back section. You should get a piece of it to keep for memories sake once they get around to tearing it up.
 
LSX
Some great photos you have of the track. Sad to hear your local track is being removed for some houses... I'd probably want to move if mine was demolished. Oran Park is a fun track to race on in Toca 3, I like the hilly back section. You should get a piece of it to keep for memories sake once they get around to tearing it up.

WHAT? NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Great track, don't close this down! Get me a petition!
 
I made a YouTube video long ago offering my thoughts on Oran Park going away. It's still sad to see Oran Park, one of Australia's most unique racing courses, go away like this.
 
Its always sad to see classic tracks go like this. Especially with so many lacklustre circuits being built to replace them (Valencia street, Bahrain, etc). 👎
 
Very sad to hear it is closing. But thanks for sharing the pics and vids. I dont know what I would do if my 2 local road tracks closed. Grattan Raceway and Gingerman Raceway. It would truly suck bad and I hope it never happens. :ill: I can see Gingerman closing down way before Grattan.
 
It will be sorely missed. Being that it’s my local circuit, I am really sad to see it go. I have had the opportunity to partake in few track days out there in the past and I also attend on a regular basis as a photographer. It is a fantastic technical circuit with plenty of undulations and different types of corners which were both fun to drive and to shoot (certainly more exciting design than the Homebush Telstra 500 square circuit and 90 degree angled turns).
I’ve taken far too many photos to pick which ones to post up but here links to sets on my flickr account to just a few of the series/races I attended in 2009:


Honda RJAYs Series Rd 4 - 25/10/2009

NSWRRC Day/Night Supersprint - 17/10/2009

NSWRRC Enduro - 27/09/2009

Drift Nationals - 20/092009

Shannon's National Round 8 - 30/08/2009

Historic Sports and Racing Association meet - 27/06/2009

Historic Sports and Racing Association meet shot in film - 27/06/2009

Festival of Sporting Cars meet - 25/07/2009

NSWRRC Supersprint - 31/05/2009






Farewell Oran Park
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My apologies for the double post but incase any Sydney-siders are interested, this weekend is the last series race event (held by the NSW Roadracing club) and the following weekend 23-24th will be the last ever race (multi-club event) to be held before the track is demolished.

I urge anyone who has time, to come down and enjoy this terrific circuit for a final time. I will be there... look for the loon with the yellow safety vest and big lens 👍
 
My apologies for the double post but incase any Sydney-siders are interested, this weekend is the last series race event (held by the NSW Roadracing club) and the following weekend 23-24th will be the last ever race (multi-club event) to be held before the track is demolished.

I urge anyone who has time, to come down and enjoy this terrific circuit for a final time. I will be there... look for the loon with the yellow safety vest and big lens 👍

Yeah, saw this on the website, soooo gutted I can't go. :( Absolutely sucks, ah well... Make sure you get some photos Syntax!

I also heard the track will actually be getting bulldozed about 1-2 weeks later which we actually want to see....:nervous:
 
Terrible new for all those who wanted to enjoy one of Sydney's premier circuits for one last time before it is demolished, but it looks as though the last ever race has been cancelled. Lucky I bothered to check the website again this morning as I could have easily ended up standing at the gates scratching my head wondering were the hell everybody is. Also a shame as I was looking forward to an inaugural test of my new Canon 1D for this event.

This is the notice currently on the Oran Park website:

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Very disturbing images.

Funnily enough, I was watching Avatar 3D in Gold class on Friday night and this Cadbury advert aired with a Lambo, some dogs & Oran Park!

 
indeed. I think the Cadbury marketing dept probably have the munchies as their ads are getting more bizarre with each outing.
 
A few more tribute videos I did a while back, uploaded to vimeo because of youtube Copyright.



 
:cheers: Syntax. :)

New video (i'll be uploading a lot of Oran Park videos from Shannons Nationals over the coming days).
 
Sorry for yet another double post. :scared: But I made this tribute to Oran Park Video earlier in the week, I hope you enjoy some live at the track action in this video. :)

 
Again excuse the double post (or triple :nervous:)

I just noticed the Oran Park website is goooone. :( So sad really, check first post for PLENTY of videos and pictures.

www.oranpark.com.au is what it was.
 
I've never been to Oran Park, or even Australia. But its sad to read about the loss of another track and even sadder to see the thing being torn up by the bulldozers.

Those pictures were a bit upsetting

RIP Oran Park

:(
 
I always get bummed-out when I see photos of demolished tracks. Especially when their places are taken for malls or suburbs.

Reminds me of Riverside in the USA, or the old Hockenheimring...
 
Such a great track it was. Anyone tried driving a motorcross bike there. It would be quite fun and a last hurra for the great track it was. (I'm being serious about the bike bit)
 
Found a really nice video of oran park and thought you guys might want to see it.
 
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