Over the last three days at Mount Panorama the world’s leading downhill racers have participated in an event known as Newton’s Playground – Australia’s premier gravity racing competition.

Now in its second year, the event has attained World Championship status from the International Gravity Sports Association which means that Bathurst attracted the leading downhill skateboarders plus street and classic luge racers.

The mission for organisers is to build the event into one which will attract greater numbers of spectators and sponsors and a shift to October is one they think will help the cause.

“We are going to hold the event in October next year – a week after it [Bathurst 1000] when university is still in. The last couple of years we have held this event when university hasn’t been on,” Newton’s Playground project manager Peter Smith said.

“The last two years we’ve done it at different times when uni hasn’t been in and if we do that, we think we will get a few more people up here.”

The other big change the event has made from its inaugural running in March 2008 has been adopting a more back to basics approach this year.

Rather than having off track events such as a skate ramp, BMX racing, wingsuit flying and a concert on the Saturday night featuring Grinspoon, Newton’s Playground 2009 was purely about racing.

It featured downhill skateboarders, street and classic luge racers, inline skaters and gravity bike riders from Friday to Sunday.

While the racing in 2008 was still excellent and competitors enjoyed Mount Panorama, Smith admitted that last year’s festival director Simon Rollins had aimed too high, too soon.

“He [Rollins] turned it into a mega-festival event, it went a bit big for the first year. He made it too big, it wasn’t profitable, it never could be in a format like that, and it was all overboard, so this year we what we are trying to do is bring it back to the core of what it is supposed to be and make it an event to build on,” Smith said.

“Maybe next year we will have a bit more infrastructure with a bit more sponsorship and if we can afford it, maybe one small stage with local bands playing at night.”

This year’s event still had innovations, such as a screen for competitors to watch their rivals and quick feedback of results.

“We’ve a got a time system that as soon someone crosses the line they get a digital read out and that time is then entered into a computer. The computer is connected by internet to a computer at the top of the mountain so other competitors can see the time with like half a minute of them finishing,” Smith said.

“We’ve also got a screen so they can watch what is happening, this is one of the only events in the world that has that.”