By PGTravelTips Reporter.
One of Australia’s earliest grand prix racing tracks, Longford and the ‘Flying Mile’ in Tasmania, is to be reopened 42 years after it closed.
It will roar into life once more for a spectacular new motor racing festival next year to be held directly after the Australia Grand Prix in Melbourne and right before the 20th Targa Tasmania.
The new Longford Revival Festival, 1 – 3 April 2011, will once again put Tasmania under the spotlight of the motor racing world.
Motor racing greats of yesteryear right up to present day – from Sir Jack Brabham and Stirling Moss to Damon Hill and Australia’s very own F1 local hero Mark Webber have all expressed a desire to be part of the revival which is the culmination of a dream by Octagon, the company that stages Targa Tasmania and represents Silverstone’s victor, Webber. In the 50s and 60s, Longford was regarded as one of the world’s greatest race tracks and saw its best drivers – Hill, Surtees, McLaren and Brabham – and their cars compete on its 4.5 mile track, including the 1959 and 1965 Australian Grand Prix.
Closed since 1968, sections of the track still remain today and the most famous section, ‘The Flying Mile’, where cars today would reach over 180mph, will play host to a revival festival to celebrate the track’s amazing history.
The festival will take visitors on a journey through time back to the sixties when top racing drivers of the era ruled the flying mile at Longford. Next April, modern day motoring legends will also mark the occasion and ‘fly the mile’.
This festival will be a celebration of Longford’s motor-racing heritage – not only legendary cars being driven by famous drivers, but also fashion, music and Tasmania’s world class food and wine.
Its timing, the weekend after the Australian Grand Prix and leading into the 20th Anniversary of Targa Tasmania, which will itself have a record line up, will give international visitors the potential for a three week motoring adventure in Australia.
For more information see www.longfordrevival.com.au
For more information on Tasmania visit www.discovertasmania.co.uk
