The Circuit
Surfers Paradise Raceway included a dragstrip along the main straight, with a very fast right-hander under the Dunlop Bridge leading to a tight corner that turned the track back to a medium-length straight. Then a fast left hander before rushing into a series of rights and lefts that skirted the only hill on the property (commonly known as Qantas Hill). A slow right called that opened up brought the track back to the main straight.
Within the circuit lay an airstrip and quarter-mile speedway similar to the one that used to sit within the lower part of the Amaroo Park circuit in Sydney. Drag racing commenced at Easter in 1966.
Keith Williams sold the raceway in 1984, and the circuit closed at the end of 1987 after 21 years of operation. At the end of its life, the outright lap record of 1:04.3 was set in 1986 and was held by John Bowe driving a Chevrolet powered Veskanda Group A Sports Car. After years of neglect it was finally destroyed in 2003. The site has since been redeveloped as Emerald Lakes canal estate.
Read more about this topic: Surfers Paradise International Raceway
Famous quotes containing the word circuit:
“each new victim treads unfalteringly
The never altered circuit of his fate,
Bringing twelve peers as witness
Both to his starry rise and starry fall.”
—Robert Graves (1895–1985)
“Within the circuit of this plodding life
There enter moments of an azure hue,
Untarnished fair as is the violet
Or anemone, when the spring strews them
By some meandering rivulet, which make
The best philosophy untrue that aims
But to console man for his grievances.
I have remembered when the winter came,”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)