MOTORSPORT: 2023 Joondalup Sprint course revealed

The Joondalup Festival of Motoring is back for another year and organisers have now made some significant changes to the headline City Sprint course for 2023, resulting in a slightly more compact but challenging parkour this time around.

For starters, the course now runs anti-clockwise around the Joondalup CBD and, although it’s now shorter than last year at 2.2km (versus 2.4km), it actually features more turns than last year and is much more accessible for festival goers both in terms of access to the festival itself and spectator points.

“We changed the course primarily to create a better spectator experience, the new layout is more easily accessible in and around the City Centre and the viewing from Central Park will be fantastic,” festival director Justin Hunt told carsales.

“We have essentially flipped the course to take advantage of the undulating road network.”

The start point for this year’s sprint will be on Grand Boulevard near the intersection with Boas Avenue, with drivers skirting the edge of Central Park before hooking left onto Teakle Court and then taking a sharp right onto a car park access road, culminating in a challenging downhill sequence onto Kendrew Cres. 

“This is where things take a turn (literally) and we have a few surprises in place, before the long run along Lakeside Drive, and then turn left into the flying finish at Reid Promenade,” Hunt said.

The course will be littered with mandatory chicanes to prevent speeds getting too high before the braking zones, though course designers say there’s no detriment to the flow of the course.

Feedback provided by last year’s competitors has resulted in the implementation of a longer cool-down stretch after each run and a bigger service centre.

Organisers also claim the new course will provide a level playing field for first-time entrants and returning competitors alike, with entries currently sitting at about 80 per cent of capacity ahead of their closure on October 30.

“Entries are looking really good,” Hunt said. “It’s a fantastic mixture of classic and performance vehicles.”

As per 2022 and other locally-run sprint events, drivers will have four runs of the course each, with the outright and category winners being those with the smallest cumulative time at the end of those four runs.

This year’s event will also feature a parade lap in which close to 100 Hyundai N cars will crackle, pop and burble their way around the course as part of the official WA Drive Meet.

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