“Oh to be in England” (well Britain actually), it is not often that you will hear anyone who lives in the beautiful Melbourne saying, “oh to be in England” but if you are a sports fan and a traveller you can’t help looking enviously at the British summer of sport. They have Formula One drivers taking pole position and winning F1 meets. They have had a compelling Wimbledon Tennis Tournament with their own man Andy Murray nearly going the distance. They have the Ashes which is shaping up to be a sensational final match with plenty of grudge and controversy,that’s the way we like it. The British Open Championship Golf has been on and the course looks like it has been cut out of picture book, sophisticated magnificent & lush. As if that is not all their man Cavendish has been tearing up the sprints in the Tour De France and grabbing the headlines. Even on the bikes the three cylinder Triumph is ripping it up on the track. To make matters worse we Aussies have gone down to the Kiwis in the Bledislow Cup when even the UK Lions have managed a few wins. If you are still up for a bit of self torture the EPL is on this weekend.

So what is the good news? Summers is just around the corner and I live in Melbourne and let me tell you it does not get any better than this in a single city of just over 3 million! We have: the Phillip Island Moto GP, the Australian Masters Golf in Melbourne the Tour Down Under with Lance Armstrong and a host of Aussies cyclists, The Australian Open and the soon to be announced dates for the Australian Grand Prix. If I had a friend called Willis I’d be tempted to say, “That’s what I am talking about!”

2009 Australian Grand Prix will be a winner.

The first Grand Prix event of 2009 is now within sight and there is lots of concern about how the Global Financial crisis will affect the Aussie Grand Prix event.
If the Australian Open Tennis is anything to go by then it will go off. The tennis was packed, Melbourne was really humming and despite 40C plus days the stars really turned it on.
We had our biggest year for the tennis ever and even ended up with Wimbledon and French Open bookings as a result of all the online enquires so I think the Grand Prix will be a scorcher.
Why will it work ? The tennis has helped to focus the publics’ sporting eye on Melbourne which always helps. The Australian Formula One Grand Prix is the first race of the year so for petrol heads like us there are new cars, new teams, new gear for the fans and plenty of low down on who is doing what, where and with whom. The race has had a bit of a makeover after being re-secured for Melbourne which will give it a lift. The Albert Park Grand Prix course is a classic with a good balance between a street circuit like the Monaco GP and a track like the Italian Grand Prix at Monza. The prepping of the track kicks off this month which really builds the buzz. Moving the Melbourne F1 to the end of March will make it less likely to be really hot and with Easter around the corner numbers should be up were as in previous years it had been hard on the heels of the tennis and the AFL pre-season competition and in life, as in sport, timing is everything. There are some more concrete indicators that this year it will go well for Grand Prix travel and these are; we have had more advance bookings this year than in other years and the enquires are there even before the big guns have started with all the PR and marketing bizzo. So I think the pessimists be dammed, the 2009 Australian Grand Prix should get the numbers, maybe not the corporate clients but so what, it’s the fans, the teams and the drivers that make an event not how many accountants turn up. With so many international sporting events in Europe and the America’s it’s a great time of year for us, after the Melbourne Grand Prix it is into Asia with the 3 S’s, Sepang (Malaysian Grand Prix), the Singapore F1 and Shanghai and with only a 2 hour time difference meaning we can watch it live without getting up a 4am, so bring on the 2009 GP season.