About the Gold Coast 600
THE Gold Coast's annual motor racing carnival will in 2010 become a three-day motoring feast, showcasing the excitement and adrenalin of Australia's V8 Supercars with an injection of overseas talent.
The V8 Supercars will race in the Gold Coast 600 competition over two days with a radical new endurance race with 2010 will be the 19th year that the Gold Coast has hosted a motoring spectacular, with the event annually attracting thousands of visitors who revel in the action, both on and off track.
Nightly entertainment will feature international music acts, while pop sensation Pink has the face of the V8 Supercar series.
The new Broadwater Park will be transformed each night into an entertainment precinct, with major concerts featuring Australian and international acts.
Empire of the Sun, Ian Carey of Ministry of Sound fame, The Potbelleez, Noiseworks, Richard Clapton, The Angels, Kid Kenobe and MC Shureshock have all been confirmed for 2010 with international acts to be confirmed in coming weeks..
The V8-only race will see the track size slashed by almost half, and ticket prices will also be slashed.
It represents a bright new dawn for the Gold Coast event after a tumultuous 2009.
"We can get a chance here to really prove that this event in its 19th year can go up several pegs,'' said V8 Supercar chairman, Tony Cochrane.
Mr Cochrane, whose `rock and race' concept took off last year in Sydney with the reformation of Cold Chisel, is confident the exciting off-track concerts and endurance race, which will team high-profile international drivers from a range of disciplines with Australian teams, will attract an inter-national audience.
The withdrawal of the Indy Racing League series in 2008 led to a rocky year, with the A1 Grand Prix World Cup of Motorsport originally signing up for five years, before being axed only a week before the 2009 event.
The Australian V8 Supercar Series headlined the event with four separate 150km races. Support categories include the Aussie Racing cars and Formula Ford.
In 2009 Johnson and Richards were joined by their sons Steve and Steven, who also competed in the four 150km V8 Supercar events and fellow second generation racers James Moffat and James Brock - they got the chance to drive of a couple of the cars that made their dads household names.
The fleet of legendary cars and drivers proved a major hit and will be back bigger in 2010.
