Swimming, sprintcar, basketball and motocross events are drawing thousands of competitors and onlookers to the south-west from today.

More than 600 swimmers from 38 clubs will dive into Warrnambool’s Olympic swimming pool for the 2010 Victorian Country Swimming Championships, which run from 9am tomorrow until 3pm Monday.

The Grand Annual Sprintcar Classic is about more than just the race, with revheads expected to flock to the Classic breakfast at the Flying Horse Bar and Brewery and the fan appreciation day at The Good Guys tomorrow morning before the drivers have even started their engines.

What follows will be two nights of racing action tomorrow and Sunday at Premier Speedway, with a bonus display by the RAAF Roulettes.

There’s racing of the two-wheel variety at Lake Gillear, with more than 300 riders hitting the track for the Warrnambool Motocross Club’s two-day open this weekend.

The motorbikes will be circling from 8.30am both days.

If you like ball sports, then check out the revamped Seaside Carnival, which pits 65 basketball teams against each other, with the added bonus of feature games including the Ballarat Miners, Diamond Valley Eagles and the Warrnambool Seahawks and Mermaids.

Warrnambool City Council tourism services manager Peter Abbott said accommodation across the city was “close to capacity”.

“We always knew it was going to be a busy weekend, given the speedway and the swimming and everything,” Mr Abbott said.

“But ultimately Warrnambool’s never full. We can always generally find something, even through the peak of summer.

“Our system is still showing rooms available across different ranges of accommodation.” He said the weekend’s collection of sporting events was a good boost for the city and timed perfectly because of Tuesday’s public holiday.

“After the first week of January, every week slowly drops away (but) this weekend we’ve got quite a few taking four-day weekends,” he said.

Mr Abbott said yesterday that it was hard to put a percentage figure on the city’s capacity and added that more “walk-ups” were expected to be looking for accommodation when they arrived today or on the weekend.