After 16 months of planning, May’s Thredbo Sprint has been cancelled, Mountain Motorsports have announced.
An official release on the event website, event director, Peter Washington, commented:
“In recent days, the resort management company, Kosiousko-Thredbo, has withdrawn its support for the event. This is mainly due to a number of protestations from NSW Parks and Wildlife Service, who are concerned about the danger to fauna from tarmac rally vehicles during the event.
The Parks and Wildlife Service, who had initially supported the event, has now decided withdraw their support.
Kosiousko-Thredbo, which leases the area we would have been using from the Parks and Wildlife Service, also subsequently decided the event was not in the interest of the resort.
This is a most unfortunate and disappointing outcome.
To launch a new event such as this has required Mountain Motorsports Pty Ltd to invest significant time and money, in preparation of the event.
This effort also included developing a unique cable based communication system to cope with the rugged terrain.
Naturally, we are highly disappointed at the attitude of the Kosiousko-Thredbo Resort Board, who had initially approached Mountain Motorsports Pty Ltd, lobbying our support to stage such an event, after observing the resounding success of the Mt. Buller Sprint.
Currently we are working on a replacement event, which if successful, will be held in September 2008. Whilst details are confidential at this stage, we will inform you of the location as soon as possible. The Mountain Motorsports managment team are highly confident the new event will go ahead and be exciting.”