There will be 25 per cent more racing at this year’s 25th Anniversary Phillip Island Classic Festival of Motor Sport from March 7-9, but spectators will also be travelling a lot faster too.
The final Stage 7 of the Bass Highway Duplication that runs from Woolmer Road to Phillip Island Road was completed late last year and will carve up to 10 minutes’ travelling time to and from the Phillip Island Grand Prix circuit.
The new link road now diverts more than half the traffic from the Anderson roundabout ‘bottle-neck’, improving traffic flow and safety.
The completion of this final stage completes the Bass Highway Duplication that was commenced back in 1999, with the latest Stage 7 commenced in 2011.
The President of the Victorian Historic Racing Register, Ian Tate, said the completion of the works would be appreciated by visitors to this year’s 25th Anniversary historic event.
“Attendance at the ‘Classic’ has been steadily growing over the years to the point where it is now Australia’s most popular historic motorsport event,” he said. “This is great news for everyone – both competitors and spectators – attending this year’s event, as it has already been proven to increase traffic flow.”
The expanded four-race format, with two races for each category on both the Saturday and the Sunday of the meeting and Friday reserved for practice an qualifying, should also assist traffic flow.
“As Sunday’s program is largely a carbon copy of Saturday’s, we are now expecting crowd numbers to even out more over the weekend,” said Tate.
“And with Monday being a public holiday, many will take the opportunity to stay overnight on the Sunday and either take in the sights or return at their leisure on the Monday.”
A bumper entry of around 500 racing, sports and touring cars spanning nearly a century of motoring has been received for this year’s Phillip Island Classic Festival of Motor Sport, with capacity fields in Production Sports Car and ‘big banger’ open wheeler racing car events.
Ten-lap feature races this year include the combined Group C & A Touring cars spanning the 1970s and 1980s, with seven-times Bathurst winner Jim Richards racing his 1990 Australian Touring Car Championship-winning Nissan HR31 turbo for the first time at Phillip Island.
Meanwhile four times Australian Champion John Bowe will be at the front of the capacity grid of Formula 1, Formula 5000 and Indy cars driving Joe Calleja’s 1974 March 741 F1 open wheeler.
Another highlight of the 25th Anniversary meeting will be a demonstration event for many of the actual Ford and Holden V8 Supercars that competed in the decade from 1993-2002, some in the hands of their original drivers.
Admission prices for the 2014 Phillip Island Classic Festival of Motor Sport are:
Friday, March 7: $30.00
Saturday, March 8: $35.00
Sunday, March 9: $45.00
Two-day (Sat-Sun) pass: $70.00
Three-day weekend pass: $90.00
Children Under 16: Free
Pensioner concession: $5.00
Paddock entry: Free
Gates open 7am Saturday and Sunday.
On-site camping is again available at the circuit, call (03) 5952 2710 for bookings.
All tickets sold at the gate will come with a free program, which normally cost an additional $5.
The 2014 Phillip Island Classic Festival of Motor Sport presented by the VHRR is again being supported by Shannons, CoolDrive and Penrite, with additional support this year from Dutton Garage, Repco, Zagame, RDA Brakes and Trico.
