Barbagallo Raceway closed to motorcycle activity indefinitely
The Sporting Car Club of WA, administrators of Barbagallo Raceway at Wanneroo in Western Australia, have closed the circuit to motorcycle activity until further notice.
21-year-old Chris Adley, became the sixth person to die from a motorcycle accident at the Wanneroo circuit in 16 years after a crash at the Kings of Wanneroo event earlier this month.
An ABC News report follows below
There has been growing concern about safety and inadequate run-off areas for motorbikes at Barbagallo Raceway.
A safety audit of Barbagallo was ordered in June and the results were handed over to the Department of Sport and Recreation on Friday — the day before Mr Adley’s death.
The WA Sporting Car Club runs the track, and says the department has advised it was in the club’s “best interests” to stop all motorcycle activity at the track indefinitely.
The Department has no statutory power to enforce that position, but the car club says it is taking the recommendation seriously.
It is understood a number of events scheduled for this weekend have been cancelled.
‘Extreme risks’ at track
Department of Sport and Recreation director general Ron Alexander said the report found there were “extreme risks” at the track.
Mr Chalmers said he received the report on Monday and immediately notified Worksafe and all stakeholders.
“The report was commissioned because we were concerned that people were getting hurt at the track,” he said.
“The report says there were extreme risks at the track and so we passed it on to the people that are regulating the track to do something about it.”
The audit suggested extra barriers and run-offs could be installed at the track, but Mr Alexander was non-committal about the future of the raceway and its prospects for re-opening to motorcycle racing.
Scott Elliott, whose son Cameron died at the track in a motorcycle accident in 2009, said he thought it could and should re-open in the future.
“This will bring about some much needed change, so there will be some renovation work done to make the high-risk areas and the extreme-risk areas safe,” Mr Elliott said.
“So it’s going to be a period of inconvenience for several months probably, and then the track will be re-opened and we’ll have a safe circuit to ride on.”
