No Pain No Gain as Adelaide celebrates a milestone anniversary
Michael Lynch: Adelaide was devasted when it lost the F1 to Melbourne in the mid 1990s, but after 25 years the locals now love the V8 carnival as much or not more than they did the F1 cars of old.
Sometimes you don't know what you have won - even when it feels like you have lost.
There was widespread dismay in Adelaide in the mid-1990s when then Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett announced that from 1996 onwards the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix would be staged around the bucolic environs of Albert Park in Melbourne, with Victoria regularly hosting the first round of the new season's championship.
The South Australian capital had maneuvered itself into pole position as the F1 capital of Australia in the mid-1980s when the state government had struck a deal with then-F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone to host the final race of the Grand Prix season.
The event was a resounding success. Sometimes because it was tension-filled as the championship was decided on the streets of Adelaide, but more often because the title had been wrapped up before then and the drivers, pit crews and team bosses descended upon South Australia in a festive mood, ready to party in the Australian sunshine to bring down the curtain on another demanding season.
So when Kennett "stole '' the race there was widespread depression and anger in Adelaide, a bitterness that the jewel in their sporting crown had been hi-jacked by the Victorians.
It was all of a pattern, they believed, with so many footy stars having moved to the old VFL in the pre-AFL days, and so many top local jockeys and trainers shifting from Adelaide to Melbourne, where the bigger prizes and more prestigious races were held.
But there was to be a silver lining to this disappointment, although it took a few years to appear.
In the late 1990s Tony Cochrane, an Adelaide-born but Queensland-based entrepreneur, had taken control of the ailing Australian touring car championship determined to make it appointment viewing - something it no longer was, except for the classic Bathurst 1000 every year.
Cochrane renamed the championship V8 Supercars and sought fresh investment and some new teams to bolster the familiar old names.
He also approached promotors and new circuits with the pledge that he could rebuild the old Ford v Holden contest and rekindle the rivalry that had been such a big part of the Australian sporting scene in the 1970s and 1980s when men like Peter Brock transcended their sport.
He was also smart enough to target state governments, who wanted big-time events that could promote their capital cities or regions and bring in national, sometimes even international tourists
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Which is where the SA government comes back in. They recognised that their street circuit, round the parklands of Adelaide adjacent to the city centre, was still a huge draw, very popular with drivers and TV viewers alike: why could they not take what they had with the F1 race and make it even bigger with Supercars?
Thus in 1999 the Adelaide 500 was born: a four-day extravaganza around the old F1 circuit, a race that took in some of the more famous parts of the track over which thunderous V8 Falcons and Commodores could roar, belch, squeal and shudder in the sort of bright sunshine and party atmosphere that usually accompanied the F1 circus a decade earlier.
To say that it has proved popular is an understatement. It is often regarded as the Supercars’ best event of the season, whether it is the opening event of the year or, as this year in its 25th anniversary, the final and title-deciding round.
It has become a major part of the SA sporting psyche, and while the Supercars (now GM Corvettes and Ford Mustangs rather than Falcons and Commodores) might lack the glamour and sophistication of the F1 machines, they make up for it in sheer noise, grunt and tight racing.
This year proved no different, with Red Bull Racing's Will Brown winning the title in the penultimate race of the campaign on Saturday in just his first season with the storied squad, seeing off teammate Broc Feeney for the crown.
“Right now I don’t know how to take it. It’s really exciting, I’m over the moon. It’s what I’ve been working on for a long time now. To join Red Bull Ampol Racing this year and to win with them in my first year is fantastic,’’ he said after clinching the title.
He showed his champion qualities once again in Sunday's final race of the season, fighting back to finish second having been pushed to the back of the field after a spin in the early laps.
He and Feeney are both young and they will make the Red Bull outfit, as ever, the team to beat next year as well.