Symmons Plains is ready for its 100th ATCC/Supercars Championship race this weekend, with the Tasmania Super440 set to begin after months of upgrade work funded by a $1.2 million state government capital works package. Opening Supercars practice is scheduled for 2pm local time today, and the circuit has spent the summer racing to finish key infrastructure changes before the cars roll out.
The money is part of a three-year deal to keep the Supercars event at the Tasmanian circuit from 2025, and Motorsports Tasmania has worked with Supercars and Motorsport Australia to decide which jobs came first. That list has been heavy on practical fixes: the paddock area has been resurfaced with fresh blacktop, about 2km of underground cabling has gone in, the paddock toilet block and septic system have been updated, and a new lift beside the pit building will soon be up and running.
Donald Potter, who is leading the work, said Supercars came with a clear list for the contract. “Supercars had a wishlist of what they wanted to do for this three-year contract,” he said. “They wanted power in the ground for the trucks, a drain for the water to get away and of course fixing the potholes that were here.”
Potter said the upgrades were about more than appearance. “We had all these things we needed to do for safety and the nicety of the event. The government understood that we’re trying to keep the circus coming each year,” he said. The circuit also asked Supercars not to place portable buildings on the new paddock asphalt this year, a small sign of how carefully the fresh surface is being protected after the investment.
Safety work has taken a visible turn around the circuit. Potter said, “We’ve done a couple of new armco fences where old tyre walls were and the hairpin has new, FIA-approved tyre bundles,” and added that “they also wanted the tyre barrier extended under the bridge [at Turn 3] where there was a big TCM accident last year.” Two new armco fences now sit where the old tyre walls once stood, while repainting jobs and improvements to the public address system are also part of the package.
The push to get everything ready has been compressed into a short window. Work began on January 5, and Potter said the deadline has been relentless. “If we’d had another month I reckon we would have had a lot more done. It’s been full-on since we started ripping things up on the fifth of January,” he said. “We’ve spent everything the government has given us for the job, so we’re actually spending bank money now to finish it off,” he added. “There’s a lot of things we haven’t finished, but while we’re on a roll, we want to get them finished.”
The pressure now shifts from the builders to the track. Symmons Plains will welcome one of its biggest weekends in years with a milestone race, a paid-for upgrade list and a long-term contract hanging over it. What happens next is whether the unfinished items, including a new flag point and some kerbing, can be closed out without getting in the way of the event itself.
