FINAL preparations are underway for the two-day 2024 Northam Motorsport Festival to be held on Saturday, April 27 and Sunday, April 28.
At the popular event, motoring enthusiasts will be able to have a close look at classic cars in action, meet speedway legends - all supported by family-friendly entertainment.
It is one of two events held annual, with the other being in Albany in June, according to events co-ordinator Randle Beavis, who represents the Vintage Sports Car Club.
"There's no where else in Australia that has this type of event - they've all been stopped or closed down, or rules and regulations change so they can't race cars side by side," Mr Beavis said.
"But fortunately for us we can have grids of 25 cars all on the track at the same time circulating, which is unique."
It is no small feat to pull together and co-ordinate about 100 volunteers, who will be working round-the-clock on the week preceding the festival to provide the right infrastructure.
"In today's world, it is super hard to completely block off the CBD of a major regional town," he said.
"It'll be a full on night job from Saturday 6pm until Sunday 7am to complete the track build build and check off all the safety requirements."
In recent years the event suffered a drop in support, so Mr Beavis reached out to Triumph Sports Owners Association of WA competition secretary, Bruce Pullock, to inject some new life into the Mount Ommaney Hill Climb.
"We have a very good reputation for running no fuss club level motor sport events," Mr Pullock said.
"We put it to our competition team, who gave a resounding yes."
The Hill Climb format will be changed this year.
"What we've offered entrants is a 2km hill climb course, where they run up the hill, through the car park at the top and back down to the bottom - that got everybody's attention because there's no hold ups, and there's plenty of rooms for spectators at the bottom," he said.
The number of entries wildly exceeded expectations.
"There'll be 50 participants but there are about 15 on the waitlist who want to have a run," he said.
"The other thing, which is pleasing for us as organisers, I put out a call out for people to be officials on the day - that was overwhelming."
The Hill Climb race will run on the first day of the event, from 10am, and will wrap up mid-afternoon.
"Spectators can park nearby and we encourage them to talk to the drivers and get involved," Mr Pullock said.
Northam Shire president Chris Antonio echoed Mr Pullock's confidence in the 2024 event.
"It's really important to showcase Northam and to do something a little bit different," Mr Antonio said.
"Because it's a free event, there's no way of tracking the numbers.
"But we expect around 1000 people coming in - the local businesses will benefit from this."
