Expect to see a reasonable crowd again line William Street for the V8 Supercars transporter parade – but also expect them to again walk away asking “is that it?”.

The Bathurst 1000 street parade used to be a highlight of the city’s calendar, giving local shops, schools and service groups the chance to take part in a parade that showed the Great Race truly belonged to the community.

No longer.

Now the street parade is just a convoy of heavy vehicles making their way to the Mount.

The sheer size of the vehicles might still bring cries of wonder from the youngest in the crowd, but older audiences lost interest years ago.

Worse, today’s parade will bring out very few local people because they will either be at work or at school.

Instead, the majority of the crowd will be out-of-town visitors desperate for something to pass the time. And this is the best we can offer?

More must be done to again make the community part of the Great Race, particularly early in the week.

By the time the weekend party in Kings Parade rolls around, attention has well and truly shifted to the Mount and the race teams and drivers cannot take part down town.

Instead, the drivers need to be available to the fans – local fans included – during the week.

The only Bathurst children able to attend this afternoon’s signing sessions will be those given a day off school by their parents, and that’s hardly the example we want to be setting.

Bathurst 1000 organisers have gone to great lengths in recent years to market the race as a family-friendly event and it will be a delight to see thousands of young fans on the Mount over the weekend.

But the Bathurst community has every right to feel it has been locked out of the fun as the race has progressively become more corporatised.

The Bathurst 1000 will always be the Great Race – we just think it can be even greater.