'It's going to be big': Great Race provides a boost for businesses

Racing started on Tuesday, with Supercars to take centre stage on Sunday for the main race.

With such a bumper schedule of racing, fans have returned to Mount Panorama in force, after last year's Great Race was witnessed by a fairly small, restricted crowd.

IGA Trinity Heights manager Kevin Allen said he wasn't expecting such a big turnover at his supermarket, considering this year's Bathurst 1000 isn't being held during the school holidays and the original forecast of rain.

"On Monday, there wasn't much at all, so I thought the rush wasn't going to happen. It happened on Wednesday," he said.

"We were up 12-14 per cent on Wednesday and on Thursday we were up again. I'm now thinking it's going to be big.

ALSO MAKING NEWS:

"I was originally thinking because it was a different time of year that there's no school holidays and it was going to be wet, I wasn't preparing for a big weekend. After Wednesday and Thursday's trade, I've actually got more stock into my shop."

Mr Allen said the great turnover has been great for his businesses and others in the Bathurst community.

"It's great for local business. It's brought so much business to the shop and what it is, it's not just the campers," he said.

"People's houses around Trinity Heights are rented out too and those people come do full shops in our shop, so it's very, very good for the town."

General manage of The Oxford, Ash Lyons, said he's been particularly busy of late, combined with the rush from both the Bathurst 1000 and the Christmas party season.

"We're definitely going to have some uplift. It's really hard to say because we're right in the middle of Christmas party season," he said.

"We're at capacity most nights and probably would've been at capacity most nights because of all the Christmas parties. It's just unfortunate that everything has been pushed into the last month of the year we've found.

"The Oxford has always been synonyms with race teams, drivers and fans, having them all in. We'll have more in on Sunday. We've got some key private functions that we're hosting upstairs and downstairs, some of the key teams."

Lauren Mason, of the Bakehouse on Howick, said business started picking up for her on Wednesday.

"It hasn't been to busy but it picked up [Wednesday]," she said.

The Great Race starts at 12.15pm on Sunday.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can access our trusted content: