Townsville 400 preparations underway

Preparations are underway for the Townsville 400 V8 Supercar race.

The 2010 installment of the Australian Supercar Chaampionship will run from 9th July 2010 to 12th July 2010, and a little over a month out from the event, the concrete barriers and temporary seating structures have begun to appear.

The street circuit in Townsville will take shape over the next five weeks to once again welcome stars such as Jamie Whincup, Craig Lowndes and Garth Tander back to the city in North Queensland.

Townsville being a street circuit, naturally the actual track will not be closeed off until the day before the racing starts, but last year there were some complaints by Townsville residents unhappy with the confusion about which streets were to be blocked off for the event.

Townsville city council is confident that this year the dates and times of road closures will be more clearly defined and better advertised than last year, with organisers better preapared and Townsville residents more aware.

Current standings in the Drivers Championship have James Courtney in front of Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowndes at the moment with all three featuring in last months Winton Raceway event.

Before the V8 Trouppe hits Townsville, they have one more race in Darwin to be run, but fans in Townsville can look forward to an advertising blitz over the coming weeks as the V8 Supercars rev up their media machine before the cars hit town.

Townsville Accommodation looks set to be sold out over the coming weeks, with most operators expecting the "House Full" sign to be needed for most of the two weeks either side of the three day event.

A record for an inagural V8 Supercar event, last year crowds turned out on mass to reach almost 170,000 and organisers are again expecting huge numbers to attend over the three days of racing and off-track events.

While crowds of that size will almost always cause issues, there were surprisingly few last year with toilet facilities and pedestrian bridges causing the most angst for racegoers.

At the conclusion of last years event, V8 Supercars events general manager Shane Howard said more pedestrian bridges would be installed for this year to reduce queuing and improve the flow of pedestrian traffic, and negotiations would be entered into with council to install permanent sewer outlets for improved toilet amenities.

This year looks like possibly being bigger than last years inagrual event so Townsville will be bracing itself for a weekend of interuptions, roaring engines and some exciting racing come July 9-12 2010.