IF you ask councillor Warren Aubin, an opening round of the Supercars Championship at Mount Panorama could attract more fans and attention than the traditional destination.
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With the Bathurst 12 Hour cancelled and confirmation that the 2021 Supercars season will start in NSW, there's a lot of speculation that Mount Panorama will be the venue.
The Adelaide Street Circuit in South Australia has been the location of the opening round since the early 2000s.
Cr Aubin said the Adelaide 500 is a very popular event, but he expects Mount Panorama would grab a lot more attention if Supercars does choose to host an event there.
"Adelaide's pretty good. I used to go there when the Formula One was on, which was on basically the same track and it was a pretty good place to go," he said.
"It's a good thing, but the Bathurst track for sure is the best in Australia and the most exciting. If you can get the fans back up the top again, then it's all there - a brilliant track, a brilliant race, bring it on."
He suspects Supercars would opt for a supersprint format, which would involve several shorter races and ensure it's a different event to the Bathurst 1000.
Given the nature of the track, he believes people would love to watch rookies and seasoned professionals take on the challenge after several months away from racing, and it would make for exciting viewing.
As the recent Bathurst 1000 proved, even the most seasoned professionals can make mistakes on the mountain.
It's unknown what COVID-19 restrictions would look like in February, but Cr Aubin hopes they would have been scaled back enough to allow for a bigger crowd than what was seen over the weekend and that camping would be available.
If that were to happen, it would help businesses that missed out on their usual October boost.
"The visitors will mean the world, especially to your hospitality businesses around the town, because they're the ones that have suffered from not having the races come to town," Cr Aubin said.
"They're the ones that are usually packed to the rafters and really make a decent wage out of it if the races are on.
"I'd say the businesses in town would welcome that announcement with open arms."
While it does seem likely that the first round will be held at Mount Panorama, Supercars has yet to confirm this.
An announcement is expected to come with the release of the 2021 calendar, due out some time in November.
