DARREN Glynn came from Marrickville in Sydney's inner west to see the 2023 edition of the Newcastle Supecars.
With "43 Bathursts" under his belt, Glynn is a seasoned motor sport fan.
"It's the noise, mate, I love it," Glynn said at the end of Friday's first day. "And the smell. Burning rubber. And methanol."
If attracting visitors is an aim of Supercars then it's succeeded as far as Glynn and others the Newcastle Herald met trackside yesterday are concerned.
"Everyone's so friendly up here, I love it," Glynn said.
Like many racing fans, Glynn was unhappy at the demise of the traditional Holden versus Ford rivalry, replaced this season with the Chevy Camaro on the General Motors side, and the Mustang in the Ford camp.
He'd just forked out $40 for a flag - even if it wasn't quite the one he wanted - and he thought $32 for a team colours cap was a bit steep.
But he'll be back today, cheering for Chevy.
The Newcastle track has been criticised for the limited opportunities it presents for passing, but Glynn said that was "the thing about street circuits versus race tracks".
"On a race track there's grass if you come off," Glynn said. "Here, there's concrete barriers right on the track. If you come off, it's trouble. But that's what everyone's waiting for!"
Crowd numbers are hard to estimate across such a sprawling area but the Foreshore area, especially, was a throng, with numbers bolstered by a sea of students visiting the race as a school excursion.
When the Herald asked one teacher whether there were still lessons going on at his school, he pointed to the activity around us, saying: "This is the lesson!"
Shortland parent Grant Strickland was there with his 10-year-old son Andrew, who loved the cars, but with respite from the roaring engines on the track beside him thanks to a pair of industrial quality earmuffs.
Two more fans, Kathy and Peter ten Cate - "it's a Dutch name" - moved to Merewether recently from Parkes, and they, too, were fans of the noise and the speed and the smell of motor racing.
"Elvis is still rock and rolling," Peter ten Cate said in reference to the famous Parkes Elvis festival.
"But we love it here."
On the Shortland esplanade section, just down from where the cars race up Watt Street and turn left towards the beach, Maitland truck driver Shane Wise was in a trackside bunker as one of a crew of track marshals, while his daughter Prue was absorbed in capturing the action with a long-lens camera.
It had been a quiet day for the marshals, but with the cars careening around the 2.64 kilometre circuit in somewhere between 70 and 90 seconds, depending on their classification, the trackside sensation of imminent danger is never far away.
Most people the Herald spoke with had sympathy for the affected residents, but as a freshly made banner - "Welcome back to Newcastle V8 Supercars - draped on a Fort Drive verandah indicates, not everyone in the East End hates them.
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