The opening event of the 2022 Repco Supercars Championship has been postponed to later in the year due to the current concerns around rising cases and hospitalisation in Newcastle.

The Beaurepaires Sydney Supersprint will now become the season’s opening event held March 4-6 under lights at Sydney Motorsport Park.

Newly appointed CEO Shane Howard explained the decision “Given the continually evolving and unpredictable COVID situation, it has become too challenging to stage a complex multi-faceted event on the streets of Newcastle for tens of thousands of race fans in March.

“Putting on an event of the scale of Newcastle, in the middle of its CBD, requires an enormous amount of work to ensure it runs to a world-class standard.

“We have been in consultation with the City of Newcastle throughout January and understand that constructing and operating an event of this size during the current COVID period has caused concern in parts of the community.

“As a street circuit built in the heart of the CBD, the event provides enormous economic benefits to the region, and we want to ensure that happens again in 2022. We are working to confirm the rescheduled date as soon as practicable. 

“We thank our fans, volunteers, local businesses, Destination NSW, the NSW Office of Sport and City of Newcastle for their ongoing support.

We fully intend to stage this year’s Repco Newcastle 500 in Supercars‘ trademark style, and we are confident that we will be able to do this later in the year successfully.

Lord Mayor Cr Nuatali Nelmes said that while the Repco Newcastle 500 would have been subject to a strict COVID safe plan for March, the right decision was to postpone the event given community concern remained high.

“City of Newcastle staff have been in regular contact with Supercars regarding the local situation. We all agreed that right now, and regardless of the additional precautions taken to run the Newcastle 500 safely, the community would feel more confident about the race proceeding later in the year. 

“The Repco Newcastle 500 has attracted a growing number of visitors from all parts of NSW and throughout Australia and New Zealand. With people still hesitant to travel due to the high number of COVID cases across NSW and the NZ border remaining closed, the right decision was to postpone the race and wait for visitor confidence to rebound over the coming months,” she said. 

For existing ticketholders for the 2022 Repco Newcastle 500, those tickets will remain valid for the yet to be announced new date of the event.