From July 10 to July 12, Wakefield Park successfully hosted its first major event since the COVID-19 lockdown began: The 2020 Motorsport Australia NSW State Championships.
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Though the championships were unusually quiet as no spectators were allowed through the gates, Wakefield Park operations manager, Dean Chapman, rated the event a success.
"It was a success in that the amount of entries that we had was strong during cold weather, so attendance by those levels were very good," Chapman said.
"Each team was allowed two support crews to run their cars for the weekend, and they abided by everything in the COVID-19 plan."
Despite the lack of spectators, Chapman was still sorry to turn away the roughly 100 people who turned up.
"Unfortunately, we turned away about to 100 people spectators who were just checking to see whether or not they could come in," he said.
"Everybody's itching to watch a bit of motorsport and get out of the house. Although it's painful now, it'll get better in the future."
Seven divisions raced throughout the event, and some standout drivers quickly emerged.
The starring driver was Layton Crambrook, who, after more than a decade without driving competitively, completed a clean sweep of the Holden HQ races.
He was joined in the clean-sweepers' column by Grant Doulman, who won all three of the Sports Sedan races held.
Chapman was thrilled with the quality of driving and the size of the fields in each event.
"There was a lot of action in big fields, and our Production Touring event had more than 20 entries," he said.
"The weather kindly played a bit of a factor and it made great viewing for the support crews. It was a bit disappointing we weren't able to display it for locals."
The event went largely without incident, save for a heart-stopping crash on Sunday during the first race of the Production Sport division.
Thanks to the safety features at Wakefield and in his Audi R8, driver Nick Kelly walked away from the accident without harm. The same could not be said for his car, which was severely damaged.
This, Chapman said, speaks to the quality of Wakefield's track and its safety features.
"That was the biggest crash for the weekend," he said.
"We had a lot of vehicles rubbing panels, however the Audi coming unstuck at turn one at 180 kilometres an hour and the driver walking away unscathed just shows how safe Wakefield Park is."
Both races in the Production Sport Division were won by Andrew Macpherson, in his Porsche 911 GT3-R.
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