It would be interesting to know just how much effort Orange City Council put into its submission because we’ve got all the attributes to be home for the school, including a perfect lifestyle, the best hospital and medical facilities in country NSW, a university, three golf courses and lots of sporting clubs.

Dubbo made the shortlist along with Wagga Wagga, Alice Springs, Bendigo, Launceston, Mackay and Busselton.

Our airport has two runways: one that’s just been strengthened and lengthened to 2,213 metres, and another that’s a grass cross-strip that’s 900 metres in length.

The main runway is 213 metres longer than the 2,000 metres that’s needed for Boeing 747-8i, 737 or A340 jetliners if not fully loaded and if that was necessary.

It’s also 500 metres longer than Dubbo.

The council owns lots of land out there now the proposed industrial area has been scrapped so there was heaps of room for new buildings for a pilot school that’s planned to train not only Qantas pilots but those from Jetstar and QantasLink.

We should have had a better result.

THOSE V8 supercar drivers belting around Mount Panorama this weekend don’t realise how good they have it.

Cars with wide-tyre slicks that stick to the road like glue, brakes that stop them dead, driver radio contact with their crew and, more importantly, a hotmix road surface as smooth as a baby’s bum.

But this weekend go back to the 1966 Gallaher 500 when the most famous shoe boxes on wheels – the Minis – reigned supreme and filled the first nine places outright.

The British Motor Corporation wanted to show the world what its amazing little flying bricks could do on the racetrack so they brought out two of its top works drivers, European rally champion Rauno Aaltonen and Monte Carlo Rally winner Paddy Hopkirk, to partner local drivers Bob Holden and Brian Foley along with a three-car factory team.

Orange motor dealer Keith McCallum entered a sky-blue and white Mini Deluxe driven by myself and John Smith.

The race for us was a chance to show the big guns in motor sport what a couple of boys from the bush could, but there was no bells and whistles like today.

The tyres were skinny, the brakes after a few laps were struggling to pull you up and the first wheel change had to be done with the tools carried in the car.

Filling the tank was done from drums with no fancy gear used by today’s V8s so a fast pit stop changing a wheel and filling the tank seemed to take half a day.

And the track surface? People complain about Orange’s streets but Mount Panorama back then wasn’t much better, and the corrugations at Forrest Elbow almost shook the car to pieces.

But our Mini went around all day without missing a beat while down the straight the speedo needle hung motionless right off the dial and over the E-for-empty mark on the fuel gauge.

We finished 7th in class A after avoiding specially-built factory entered Datsuns led by a Japanese team of totally mad drivers who eventually filled the first two class placings.

Aaltonen and Bob Holden won the race with the highest-placed non-Mini a V8 Valiant that was six laps behind.