Inaugural Sets in the South hailed a ‘relaxed’ success as organisers plan bigger and better 2024 edition

A crowd of more than 1000 spectators was drawn to Albany’s Atwell Park Speedway at the weekend for the inaugural Set in the South Burnout competition. Organiser Paul Phillips said feedback from the 80 competitors and spectators alike had been overwhelmingly positive. “Most of the competitors and people attending said it was one of the most relaxed and smoothest running events they’ve attended,” he said. “We’re already in talks with the speedway put it back on the calendar for next year around the same time of year — we’re looking at the January 12 and 13 at this point.” Stephen Baker won the two-day competition’s Blown Class, Shannon Carson claimed the V8 title and Dayne Bairstow took out the V6 class. Mr Phillips said the event would be run “very similar” in 2024, but there would be a concerted effort to attract more people. “We’ll offer up a raffle again to win the chance to ride in a couple of the cars — we did that this year but people weren’t that aware of it,” he said. “We also expect we’ll have a lot more attendance from people bringing their cars from outside the area, which will create more of an attraction as well. “We had quite a lot from out of town this year and they said they all had a blast and that they’d be coming back bringing extra cars next year.” Mr Phillips also said he spoke with police following the event who reported that there was no bad behaviour on the roads during or after the event. “There’s always a concern that people might leave the event and play up,” he said. “One of the biggest things we stress is that the point of holding events like this is to allow a facility for people to go to so they are not doing it on the roads.”