By Dale Budge

As a motorsport fan the hurt of losing Pukekohe Park Raceway has been there since the announcement last year.

It is very real now that we are days away from motorsport being a thing of the past at a place that has been the spiritual home of the sport since the 1960s.

But it is Pukekohe as a whole that loses something this week. The race track is a massive part of our town’s identity.

Ask someone from elsewhere around the country about Pukekohe and they will tell you about onions and about the race track – those two single things define our place more than anything and now one them won’t be there anymore.

Imagine Kinleith without its paper mill, Rotorua without the mud pools and geysers or Otorohanga without the Kiwi House.

Pukekohe loses something this weekend and we cannot replace it.

Motorsport fans can drive 15 minutes down the road to Hampton Downs and in time they’ll see that as the local track.

But the sound of race cars down at the track will no longer be a thing in the background on summer days in Pukekohe. Sure, some won’t miss the noise but the town will miss the revenue that the track brought in.

People driving from Auckland or Hamilton for race meetings, stopping for gas, stopping for food, stopping for those little things they need that we’ve all benefitted from for the past 60 years.

And what of the motorsport industry that is so prevalent here in Pukekohe because the track was right next-door?

There are numerous businesses directly related to motorsport all within a stone’s throw of the race track. What for them now? How quickly before they up and move to be closer to a track?

Auckland Thoroughbred Racing will get better use out of the facility in the years ahead and there is opportunity for more activity there on a daily basis, which is a good thing.

But the flow on implications of a move away from motorsport is significant – maybe more so for the town than for the motorsport fraternity.