Heavy rain overnight on Friday and on Saturday morning forced the cancellation of the Jack Willsher Cup and a sprintcar twin feature event at Premier Speedway.

Formula 500 series co-ordinator Maria Olsson said discussions were under way with Premier Speedway to find a suitable date to run the feature race. “We’ll hopefully have that sorted out in the next 24 hours,” she said. 

“It’s been a hectic couple of days, we didn’t address rescheduling on Saturday. Our president is discussing the options with David Mills at Premier Speedway to find a solution that suits us both. 

“The Jack Willsher Cup is a race that will have to be run. It’s just a matter of sorting out a date.” Olsson said the washout was disappointing because 49 cars had registered, with strong interest from interstate drivers. 

“We had some cars from Tasmania who have already gone home, so I don’t think we will see them for the rescheduled date,” she said.

“The cars from Queensland will be around for Speedweek, so it’s just a matter of finding a date so we can get the interstate cars here again.” 

It’s the third formula 500 race meeting that has been cancelled this season. 

“It’s really disappointing,” Olsson said. 

“We have had two stampede rounds — our opener at Portland and one at Avalon — washed out already this season. 

“So hopefully Saturday night’s washout is our third strike of bad luck.”

Premier Speedway general manager David Mills said it was disappointing to have to cancel a meeting that had attracted strong numbers. 

“We had 70 sprintcars and 49 formula 500s nominated for the night. It’s massively disappointing to have to cancel and not a decision we made lightly,” he said. 

“It was a quality field with a couple of American drivers nominated in the sprintcars. We’ll have a discussion at a club level about rescheduling. The Jack Willsher Cup could be held in conjunction with one of the formula 500 events scheduled for later in the season. 

“As for the sprintcars, it may not warrant rescheduling as a stand alone race meeting because I think it would be hard to attract such a high quality field.”