WHETHER motorsport – and in particular spintcars – is your cup of tea is neither here nor there. The Grand Annual Classic Sprintcar Classic this weekend is good news (and good fun) for locals and visitors alike.
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So – as they used to say in the 70s – get your backside trackside. It’s as simple as that.
Warrnambool has a unique position as a large regional centre and as such attracts or holds various large events such as the classic, the Warrnambool Cup, the Melbourne to Warrnambool cycling race and – in the nation’s recently anointed No.1 tourist spot Port Fairy, the folkie, Moyneyana and a seemingly never-ending list of community-run festivals.
It is easy for locals to sidestep the classic, the cup or the bike race. They’re perennials, they’ll always be there, we can go next year … unfortunately, this is not the case.
Similar to Fun4Kids, if we don’t use it, we lose it. Sure, life keeps changing fast and there seems to be more things we have to do and less time to do them in, but community is what matters.
Port Fairy grabbed the No.1 tourism crown because it is the little town that could. The community has banded together to own and run festivals and the events agenda in general. And that is why those events stay strong, they refresh themselves and the community run them differently to a government or a corporation. And their big events return money to the community in a virtuous, self-perpetuating loop.
In Warrnambool, that community ownership is not as apparent. As a city, Warrnambool finds itself not big enough for some things and too big for such grassroots drive. So Warrnambool residents must put their money where their mouth is. And increase it if large events that bring multiple benefits to the city are to continue.
Warrnambool’s leaders also need to do just that. Why is Warrnambool not working hand-in-glove with Port Fairy, Portland, Camperdown, Terang and Hamilton (to name a few) to put together a festival of the south-west? Surely our whole is greater than the sum of parts?
