AS WE already know, Tassie sports fans are a hardy lot.

Whether it’s sitting on the hill at Bellerive Oval watching the Big Bash Cricket in ten-degree temperatures when it’s supposed to be summer, or watching the Hawks play York Park in a Launceston winter, they’ll generally turn up regardless.

Hence the solid turnout, Sunday especially, to the Tassie Supercars round at the weekend despite borderline insulting mid-winter scheduling at a racetrack that at its worst can make Phillip Island’s ‘gateway to hypothermia’ feel like a tropical resort on Hamilton Island.

Symmons Plains is a fantastic place for car racing. Every race series needs its ‘bullring’, a short and sharp lap where things happen quickly and more often than they do at circuits much longer. Symmons sits alongside Brands Hatch Indy, Bristol’s half mile and the DTM’s Norisring as being such a place. The track itself, summer or winter, rain or sun, is fantastic and should never be changed.

One thing that winter did expose, however, was the fact that dear old Symmons is probably due some loving in other areas.

While the fine weather of March’s Race Tasmania papered over the cracks with sunshine, August’s event exposed the areas where Symmons now sits firmly at the back of the field when it comes to Australia’s permanent circuits.

The comparison is made even more unfair by the fact that for many on the tour, the last significant stop was at Queensland Raceway – a circuit that in the past had similar facilities (or lack thereof) as Symmons but also the massive disadvantage of being located in Ipswich, rather than the stunning, bucolic surrounds of Tasmania’s North and adjacent to a great town like Launceston, filled as it is with excellent Pinot Noir and Boags’ finest.

However, QR has since been Tony Quinnified and as such now makes visiting Ipswich much more appealing than it has ever been.  

Wintery conditions showcased that Symmons, on the other hand, badly needs some investment in amenities because in the grim early dawn of a winter’s morning, the old girl feels just a bit old.

Mud-filled paddock carparks when the weather is wet are understandable (reference; Moist Bathurst circa 2022), but the potholes in the Supercars paddock filled with muddy and freezing water were a trip hazard and are much more avoidable.

The access road from support paddock to pit lane had potholes that at best would remove the front splitter from a Porsche Cup Car and at worse posed a real drowning hazard for an Aussie Racing Car driver should they accidently drive their car into one.

The toilet facilities – a major, unique and very positive selling point in Tony Quinn’s racetrack developments – were admittedly well maintained all weekend, but have not evolved in twenty years and are less than positive places in which to lighten the load. They are but some examples.

Don’t get me wrong, Symmons is broadly still fit for purpose and not every track can be The Bend, I know, nor is this a crack at the small but incredibly hard-working team at Motorsports Tasmania.

The pit lane building and race control areas are all entirely adequate and don’t need to change and it’s still one of the best spectator circuits in the world: sitting up on the hill with a majestic view of all the entire track in front of you is a must-do Aussie race fan experience.

What the place needs is some public or private commercial support to tidy up the trimmings around the edges that need to be improved, edges that have been trimmed at places like Wanneroo, QR and Hidden Valley and purpose-built into places like Tailem Bend.

Much paddock conversation at the weekend was centred around the fact that Supercars are due a new deal in Tassie, which should hopefully get done soon.

And that’s good – Supercars must absolutely continue to race at Symmons Plains and the fact almost 30,000 turned out last weekend – despite predictions of doom and literal gloom on the weather front before the weekend – is proof it is a valuable and important market with some of the best racing fans around.

Obviously, Supercars need to do their bit to ensure they keep turning out.

The first-time Hobart activation was excellent and there is no reason why it can’t be expanded to the full field in 2025, and bringing a more inspiring race format with more racing and less practice than the current SuperSprint format would be a good reward to Tassie fans in the future.

There’s also the GRM-promoted Race Tasmania earlier in each year to consider, too.

But it’s got to be a two-way street; a new deal needs to come with some form of investment from the locals too, be it government or otherwise, to ensure that Symmons’ keeps up with the Joneses (or indeed the Quinn’s and Shahin’s) when it comes to permanent circuits.

A $2-3m spend on some new pavement throughout the paddock, a couple of nice new amenities blocks and some improvements to access roads to mitigate the potential for rental car rally action would strike me as an affordable investment (indeed, $748m less than the new Hobart footy stadium) into what remains the state’s largest sporting event.

It’s important to ensure those hardy fans are rewarded with a good experience when trackside, that mainland competitors see value and are rewarded for making the (very and increasingly expensive) trip across Bass Straight, and one that comes with less risk of sinking an ankle into a freezing, muddy water-filled paddock pothole which I can tell you, puts a real dampener on your day.

Just don’t touch the track itself: Tasmanian expansion is for the AFL, not Symmons Plains and I’ll be the first to chain myself to the bulldozers if they ever try to change that fantastic, historic and racy little track just outside of lovely Launny.