A Bathurst Regional Councillor thinks there is potential for the Bathurst 500 to become a regular event.
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The race meeting was held at Mount Panorama from Friday through to Sunday, seeing Supercars run two 250-kilometre races, along with facilitating several support categories.
Cr Warren Aubin said the event was a huge success and thinks there should be attempts made to bring it back.
"I've floated the idea with Supercars, why not run a speed week and have the 12 Hour one weekend, bump out, bump in Supercars for the next weekend? Wouldn't that be mega?" he said.
The potential for the Bathurst 500 to return is hampered by two things: the limited number of full-track closures permitted, and fitting the event into the Supercars calendar.
However, Cr Aubin thinks his idea is worth looking into, saying "anything is worth a try".
He was pleased with the crowd numbers and thinks future sprint races at Mount Panorama would continue to draw in fans post-COVID.
This event could run as a stand-alone event.
- Cr Warren Aubin
"This event could run as a stand-alone event. Obviously this event is on this weekend because ... Adelaide didn't want to set their street circuit up during COVID because it's just way too expensive if something had happened," Cr Aubin said.
"They pulled out of the opening race, so that left this as being the obvious choice.
"[The Bathurst 500] has proven very successful, it's great.
"I don't think Bathurst could run a sprint event any later in the year, because it would be two races in close proximity, I don't think you'd pull the crowds that you wanted to, but the start of the year and the end of the year, I think it'd be great."
While Cr Aubin and fans would love to see the return of the Bathurst 500, the idea has effectively been dismissed by Supercars CEO Sean Seamer.
On Saturday, Speedcafe reported him as saying "No, I don't think so" when asked whether the category would consider having two parallel Supercars events at Mount Panorama again.
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"I think that this is special. It's great that we're able to start the season this way, but the intention is the [Bathurst] 12 Hour would stay at the start and then, as you know, we've got Newcastle as the first round from next year," he said.
"You'd never have a Mount Panorama 500 and roll into Newcastle. That's a lot in one state in one period in time."
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