Drag Racing: Tas Dragway announce decision to walk away from lease

Tas Dragway made the recent decision to not continue with their lease of the Powranna motorsport complex.

Complex owner Damon Routley explained to The Examiner that insurance was at a critical juncture between the two parties.

The announcement left many drag racing fans wondering where they will be able to enjoy their hobby, given it is unknown whether the track will continue as a dragway.

However, Routley indicated there was still a future for drag racing at the track for a willing partner.

"If someone's willing to pay to do the correct insurance, there's no problem with the place I'd love to return it to its state," he said.

"Whoever is going to run it has got to pay the right insurance.

"It'd be great for people to continue to use that arena because it's quite a profound, well-known arena in Australia."

When contacted by The Examiner, Tas Dragway said there was no animosity between the two parties over the decision to go in different directions.

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In a statement on their Facebook page, Tas Dragway was explicit in not placing the blame on the track's new owner.

"We feel our relationship with new owner has become untenable and do not want to risk either party investing more time, effort and money into the venue and having a major breakdown between us and the owners and losing our investments," they said.

"Whilst we are already several thousands of dollars into this, we feel it is best to cut our losses now. This by no means is the fault of any one party and is a mutual decision between both parties so no one individual is to blame."

Routley expressed that there was no animosity over the decision and praised the character of the Tas Dragway team, including including Tim Parremore.

"Tim has been very dignified with the way he's handled it, he's got a lot of respect with how he stands in the automotive industry and in the racing scene and he's done some great things at the venue," he said.

The decision means that Tas Dragway has started processing ticket refunds on their scheduled November 20 event which will not proceed while they encouraged pundits to seek Australian Auto Sport Alliance licence refunds if possible.

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The track was popular with racing fans and hosted a few major events like the Tasmanian Drag Racing and Burnout Titles, including the annual Tassie Nats, in recent years as well as test and try days down the quarter mile.

The organisation acknowledged that the refund process would likely be a significant financial loss for them while they confirmed they were unsure what the future plans were for the property.

There is a suggestion that the property's owner is looking to lease the track to someone else in the future which leaves the door ajar for drag racing to continue.

"We also know people have put time, effort and money into their cars for this event," they said.

"We are sincerely sorry and thank you to all those who were behind us with support, we tried."

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