Townsville drag strip under threat of closure

[Jim Goose]

A bit of history first...

The drag strip has (as the article says) been there for 30yrs and built on top a WW2 airstrip (the remains of the old runway are still there just past the end of the drag strip).

Across the road is the Townsville go-kart track.

Now the Bohle is an industrial area, until 2009 whereby the current council rezoned it it residential (in a move which upset all the established businesses there).

The gokart track is privately owned and was apparently offered to be bought out by council for a sum of $2.5MILLION in 2009. The owners told the council where to go.

Last year the gokart track owners reached an agreement with council and developers in regards to noise issues as there was a fear that they would be forced to close because of council noise regulations in residential areas. Housing estate is to be built all around the gokart track and roads have already been been built next door where the land has been subdivided.
(just remember this facility has been there over 10yrs and it was miles from housing).

Now before we got a the $55MILLION WHITE ELEPHANT V8 street circuit (which gets used once a year), there was a idea of a perminant street circuit (race track) to be built at the Bohle and land was allocated.
Council REFUSED the idea and said it was unsuitable (brown paper bags from developers), instead they built a useless circuit in the middle of town.

Now again we see a lack of vision, lack of planning (rubber stamping housing at all costs) threatening an established 30yrs old facility.

TOWNSVILLE dragway could close within a month and ther are fears it would cause an upsurge in deadly street racing on the city's public roads.

Kingsun Investments owns the land on which the dragway is built, at Bohle, and is in a joint-venture with Parkside Development to turn major parcels of land into new housing estates.

Townsville Dragway proprietor Jean Mobbs said the facility could close within a month if she was told to vacate the land by the owner.

"We have no idea how long we can stay, but we are assuming that we haven't got long," she said.

"It's a case of waiting to get that phone call telling us we have to leave."

Drag racer Darryl Chapman, who last year survived a 250km/h race crash at Barcaldine, said the closure of the track would force young drivers to illegally street race.

"The street meets here give everyone a chance to race their cars in a safe environment and teach everybody to keep the racing on the track," he said.

"If this place gets shut down the racing will just move to the highway or the back streets around town.

"Someone is going to get killed for sure if we lose this track."

Mr Chapman said technology was making it easier for illegal street racers to evade police.

"Now everyone is on Facebook and they can organise an illegal street race over the internet and have lookouts sitting on their mobile phones," he said.

"If we take away the track, people will just take (the racing) underground."

Mrs Mobbs and her husband Ray built all the improvements to the dragway over a 30-year period and the couple would suffer a significant financial loss if it was forced to close.

"Everything that's in there at the moment we built," Mrs Mobbs said. "To replace it would cost about $9 million because we would have to do everything in one hit."

"We can't afford that and when we leave from here everything comes with us."

The State Government in 2009 offered Townsville City Council a parcel of land also at the Bohle for a driver training and motorsport facility.

Councillor Vern Veitch said the site chosen by the State Government was unsuitable.

"Independent experts (commissioned by TCC) found the noise level was too high in nearby housing areas to run any drag events," he said.

"We need somewhere far away from the housing growth boundary. There needs to be some serious work done to find the right spot away from potential new developments but not too far out of town."

Bruce Kingsun, owner of Kingsun Investments, said the land on which the dragway is located will eventually be turned into housing.

"It will be turned into a housing development at some stage, but that's all I'm really prepared to say about it," he said.

A drag for street legal vehicles will be held this weekend, weather permitting.