THE organisers of Newton’s Nation hope to liaise with Bathurst Regional Council in the coming weeks to ensure the future of the action sports event at Mount Panorama.
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From Friday, riders and skaters from all over the world converged on the iconic circuit for the three-day festival.
It was a new-look format this year, with the downhill skate and luge races held at Mount Panorama. The other sports and live music have been moved to Newcastle later in the year.
This year also saw the entry fee scrapped, with organisers opting to open the event to the public free of charge.
The changes came after a dismal response to the 2012 edition of the event. Organisers said the disappointing number of spectators was a result of the event being staged on the same weekend as the Royal Bathurst Show.
Things took a turn this year, however, with Newton’s Nation “prime minister” Ben Perry expressing his pleasure that patronage had increased.
“It’s been fantastic, and we were blessed with great weather,” Mr Perry said yesterday.
“We had around 300-400 people today, and a couple of hundred on the other days. Of course, we would have loved to see more locals come up to watch, but we’re really happy with how things went overall.”
Mr Perry could not confirm whether the event would return to Mount Panorama next year. He said council was asking for a cash contributions of $5000 next year and then $9000 the following year to stage the event.
“Because we are largely volunteer-run and we’re not charging an entry fee, those cash contributions would be cost prohibitive for us.
“There are other councils screaming out for us to bring Newton’s to their towns.
“But we don’t want this relationship to end. Mount Panorama is the smoothest and best surface to race on. It’s not the fastest, but it certainly has a lot of technical elements to it,” he said.
