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Percat slams Adelaide 500 critics

Supercars driver Nick Percat has unloaded on "infuriating" detractors of the revived Adelaide street race.

Scott McLaughlin, DJR Team Penske Ford

Scott McLaughlin, DJR Team Penske Ford

Dirk Klynsmith / Motorsport Images

The famous event is set to rejoin the Supercars calendar as the 2022 season finale after being controversially dumped by the previous government back in 2020.

Its reinstatement comes as part of an election promise from the state Labor government which swept into power earlier this year and is expected to be formalised imminently.

As part of the race's return, which will take place in early December, there will be significant resurfacing work required which will create some disruption for Adelaide road users.

That's has led to some criticism of the decision to bring the parklands circuit back to life.

In a radio interview with ABC Radio, Adelaide City councillor Alex Hyde said that, with the road works, the build and pack up time for the circuit will be five months, which is a concern for the city.

"The standout is that the total time to set up and pack down is gong to be five months, which is a serious amount of time. That is a concern," said Hyde.

"Most of that disruption is on the occupation of particular parks and parklands, but then on top of that, we're going to be seeing longer road closures inside of the event. Not huge increases necessarily, but it's a couple of days before and a couple of days after.

"We're talking about some primary arterial roads. We think that's going to be quite disruptive."

Percat, who is from Adelaide, was invited on the show to respond to Hyde's comments, and did so by blasting "short-minded" South Aussies that couldn't see the big picture of the event's economic benefit.

"You're talking about five months of closures. It's not five months of closures," he said.

"You guys are so short-minded sometimes in South Australia. This event injects $45 million into the economy and you're worried about missing out on one weekend.

"It's not five months of road closures. They start working there five months out because the event has not been there for a few years. Then they have to resurface some roads, which happens every day, because roads deteriorate.

"You guys are just missing the big picture of putting South Australia on the map. Tailem Bend serves its purpose and it does not inject anything like [the money] this event does.

"You guys are just so short-sighted, it's unbelievable. Honestly. Just be happy that you'll have a major event back in South Australia injecting money into the state.

"Open your eyes. Every other state is getting on with it and wants big events coming through. And then we have Adelaide, still pushing back.

"It's infuriating, honestly."

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