WHILE the selected site for Bathurst's new go-kart track remains an issue that has divided the community, it's still easy to understand the excitement that's building among track supporters as we count down the days to the proposed start of work next Monday, March 8.
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There will no doubt be more protests in the lead-up to the start of work, and more still once the work is under way, and it's a shame we have not found a solution that could bring the community together.
But what will be the long-term impact? Will the track always carry that stigma of opposition or will the addition of another world-class sporting facility, and the money it ultimately brings to Bathurst, outweigh the concerns? Only time will tell.
For kart club president Mark Dunbar, though, the long-term legacy of the track might not be in karting but in Supercars racing.
"This track will be built on the icon of motorsport in Australia and I'm hoping that one day one of the young Bathurstians that starts his racing career on the top of mount Panorama on the track built in Bayliss' paddock stands on the podium down the bottom as a V8 Supercars legend," he told the Western Advocate. Again, time will tell.
While Mr Dunbar has been the public face of the kart club through this process and he and other members have faced unfair criticism about the site selection, it is worth remembering that this is no longer a DA lodged by the Bathurst Kart Club.
The club lodged the initial DA in 2015 to build a track in McPhillamy Park (as it had done previously to build a track in Alec Lamberton Field before those plans were rejected due to noise concerns) and those plans were unanimously approved by councillors at the time.
Council then took carriage of the application and lodged its own DA seeking to modify the plans from a 950m track to an 1100m international-standard track.
It was only when the DA returned to council that the most vocal opposition began. Had the new DA not been lodged, it's most likely a 950m track would already be operating in McPhillamy Park.
So who is right in this fight, and who is wrong? Well, like everything, that entirely depends on your personal perspective.
But with work on a new go-kart track likely to start in just seven days, our community needs to start findings more things to unite us rather than divide us.
What do you think?
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