2024 Adelaide Motorsport Festival – Friday and Saturday

The Adelaide Motorsport Festival came to town again, bigger than ever! This premier motorsport event that is recognised as the “Goodwood of the Southern Hemisphere” uses a shortened version of the V8 Supercars track comprising the southern Victoria Park section and looping back via Wakefield Road. Static displays and the competing cars parked in their respective areas provide the general public with a chance to get up close and personal with these dream cars and drivers. The Gouger Street party on Friday night is also very popular. Organiser Tim Possingham attracted some more big motorsport personalities to this year’s event including ex-HAAS Formula 1 team principal Guenther Steiner, former Formula 1 driver Damon Hill, “part time Adelaide local” and current Kick Sauber team Formula 1 driver Valtteri Bottas (whose partner, road and gravel cyclist Tiffany Cromwell lives here), as well as Liam Lawson who is the current reserve driver for the Visa Cash App RB F1 Team (formerly Alpha Tauri team). Some of these celebrity drivers would be driving several cars during the event. There were plenty more personalities from both sides of the steering wheel, such as Formula 1 commentator David Croft.

The highlight of this year’s event was ultimately the Mazda 767B 4-rotor-engined Le Mans car (driven by Senji Hoshino), renown for its screaming engine along the longer straights. This car was the forerunner to the more famous Mazda 787B that became the first Japanese car to win the Le Mans 24 Hours event, back in 1991. Completing the endurance race cars theme, there was also a Leyton House Porsche 962C (driven by Liam Lawson) and a Iseki Porsche 956 longtail. Three NASCAR cars and a British Touring Cars Peugeot 406, local prototypes Norax C2 and Prosport LM3000, Brabham BT62, and an Elfin 300 were also in the Invitational category. Formula 1 cars had a contingent of 10 cars, noticeably with 3 Benetton cars, but sadly no Ferraris this year. A Mario Andretti Indy car was on display only. However, to make up this shortfall, would be the Ferrari Spettacolo category, comprising many very very valuable Ferrari cars worth over a million dollars each including a rare LM250, worth reputably $30 million dollars! The driver of this car would certainly be nervous with the much faster competitive drivers in their 599 FXX and FXX having an entertaining duel. The V8 Supercars were another hugely popular category with 15 cars entered. On top of that was a Former Bathurst Winners category that contained 2 Nissan Skyline GT-R 32s.

This year’s Rally category had a beautiful Group B Lancia 037 (in Martini livery of course!), a Lancia Stratos, Group 4 Ferrari 308, WRC Toyota Corolla and many local drivers, such as the Bates family (Toyota Celicas), Jack Monkhouse (Datsun 180B SSS) and Bruce Field (Mercedes 280) who entertained the crowd with their drifting style as well as one lonely Subaru WRX. Unfortunately the Renault R5 Turbo, Lancia Delta Integrale (Martini livery), another Lancia Stratos (Alitalia livery), Fiat 131 (Alitalia) and MG Metro 6R4 (Rothmans livery) didn’t go out on the track (but are featured here on Friday pits walk).

There were about 15 separate categories of cars competing in separate sprint races (against the clock, not each other technically, on the track), or as demonstration categories.

The Photos represented here are from Friday and Saturday, with Sunday’s photos in a separate post. All competing cars have photos taken from various angles and locations. Only a small sample are represented here. Contact me via the website for photos.