{"id":797130,"date":"2026-07-13T08:06:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T08:06:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/797130\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T08:06:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T08:06:21","slug":"supercars-news-townsville-circuit-set-for-5-million-change-despite-pushback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/797130\/","title":{"rendered":"Supercars news: Townsville circuit set for $5 million change despite pushback"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Townsville
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBrodie Kostecki celebrates victory on Sunday. Image: Supplied <\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/p>\n

Townsville Mayor Nick Demetto today confirmed the plan to refresh the Reid Park course ahead of next year\u2019s event.<\/p>\n

According to Supercars\u2019 event manager Matt Ramsden, the work is \u201cwell overdue\u201d having only received patchwork since the event began in 2009.<\/p>\n

The Townsville 500 is held at Reid Park on a course featuring purpose-built roads and the pre-existing Boundary Street.<\/p>\n

A proposal to resurface the track was referenced during the weekend by Paul Morris, who described it as a \u201cconfusing\u201d move.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason the racing up here in Townsville is so good, in my opinion, is the track surface,\u201d said the Norwell track owner.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just coming good. It\u2019s got good tyre deg, it\u2019s got some bumps, it\u2019s got some cool kerbs. Some of the asphalt there is in really good nick.<\/p>\n

Tickets for the 2026 NTI Townsville 500 are on sale now. Secure your spot today.
\n Buy tickets<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s some places that might need a bit of attention, a patch or something, but\u2026 there\u2019s nothing to be gained by resurfacing this track from a racing point of view.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mayor Demetto acknowledged similar feedback from drivers but declared the cost of not undertaking the resurface could be far greater.<\/p>\n

\u201cResurfacing the track is something that needs to happen to make sure that we\u2019re keeping the condition of the track up to specification, not only for Motorsport Australia but also Supercars,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpending about four-to-five-million dollars on this track resurface means that in six or seven years time that if we get in front of it, we don\u2019t have real track degradation that could cost us in the tens of millions of dollars.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had a number of drivers actually say to us that they love the condition of the track right now, they love the rough surface, but at the end of the day, it\u2019s up to the engineers to tell us whether or not the track surface can protect what is underneath.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaking sure what\u2019s underneath holds together means that next time we hold the Supercars here in Townsville, we have a track that\u2019s going to hold up to the absolute punishment that these cars give it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last thing we want is that track surface coming up mid-race, which we did see some years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ramsden added that \u201cdrivers have a bit of nostalgia with the old surface\u201d, but underlined the reasons to complete the works.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo do it now, to really secure the safety and I guess the longevity of the event into the future is really important,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s a pretty critical part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Demetto said the majority of the track works will occur on the closed-road parts of the course, making for minimal public disruption.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brodie Kostecki celebrates victory on Sunday. Image: Supplied Townsville Mayor Nick Demetto today confirmed the plan to refresh…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":797131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,12357,85],"class_list":["post-797130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-slot1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=797130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/797131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}