Catalina Park

Motorsport venue
Name = Catalina Park
Time = GMT +10
Location = Katoomba, New South Wales, Australia


Owner = Blue Mountains Sporting Car Club
Operator = Australian Racing Drivers Club
Opened = 1960
Closed = 1969
Turns = 7
Record_time = 0:53.6
Record_year = 1969
Record_driver = Leo Geoghegan
Record_team = Lotus 39 Repco
Record_class = Australian Formula 1

Catalina Park is a disused motor racing venue, located at Katoomba,in the Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia.

Overview

The 2.1 km circuit opened in the early 1960s and remained in use until the 1990s.Originally used for top level motorsport including touring car, open wheeler, motorcycle and sidecar racing in the 1960s. The mountain location caused problems with fog causing delays in the race programs, also the track was very narrow by today's standards and surrounded by walls, armco railings and hillside. The track became used less with the opening of other circuits nearer to Sydney such as Oran Park and Amaroo Park. Bruce Weston is the current lap record holder.

In the 1970s the circuit was used for Rallycross, where the cars would use half the bitumen track and a dirt infield section with jumps, like Motocross.

By the 1980s the track was only being used for lap dashes with single cars on track at one time and was used until the mid 1990s for this.

The circuit still exists and can be walked around however it has deteriorated quite badly with grass growing through the track surface on what was Lockheed Straight and Dunlop Corner, and water seepage has caused part of the track to collapse between Craven A corner and Castrol corner.
* [http://www.tasman-series.com/misc/lostcircuits/lostcircuits.asp Tasman Series Lost Circuits]

A Possible Comeback

The Catalina Park Race track may be getting a helping hand. An Australian Kart Racer, Peter Franklin is planning to start up an appeal to raise money to help rebuild the track to better then ever condition. Peter hopes to get the race track back up and running by 2011.

Nothing has been done about this yet, but you can be sure something will be done soon.

You can read more about this on Peter Franklin's Website at [http://www.57racer.page.tl www.57racer.page.tl] .Peter Franklin comment. "It is hard for me to see a race track gone under, I love race tracks and not much can get me down, but when I read about this track, I knew I had to do something, and I will try to.

Links

* [http://www.57racer.page.tl Peter Franklin's Website]