The Independent Race Series are pleased to announce that they will be hosting the last ever Oran Park race for the Australian Super Truck Championship.

After a history spanning over 20 years, the Super Trucks will have their final race meeting at Oran Park as part of Round 2 of the 2009 Independent Race Series.

Australian Super Truck President Stan Seton said he "was very pleased to be part of the Independent Race Series Program " and is "keen to work with Rod Dale and Garry Willmington to ensure that the trucks go out with a bang at the last truck race to be held at the Camden circuit."

Garry Willmington has a special connection with truck racing at Oran Park. Garry took part in the first ever truck race at Oran Park and what's more that was at the wheel of the Leppington Pastoral Company owned Volvo F12 co-driven by the late Gregg Hansford.

A large crowd is expected to turn out to see the trucks for the last time at Oran Park on May 15th and 16th.

The popular Future Racers will rejoin the Independent Race Series in 2009, participating at four rounds of the series.

Future Racers are an excellent platform for close, hard-fought racing, featuring a chrome-moly spaceframe, carbon fibre panels, and a motorcycle-derived engine. The tightly controlled cars offer affordable, fair racing, and align closely with the philosophy of the Independent Race Series.

Lookout for the Future Racers from the first round of the Independent Race Series at Morgan Park, 20-22 March, 2009.

The 2009 Independent Race Series has secured an exciting TV highlights package.

Coverage will be produced by AVE, and highlights from each round will be screened on Fox Sports.

The Independent Race Series caters for a variety of categories including: Touring Car Challenge, Formula Tasman, LM Sports, RocketSports, Muscle Division and Production Racing Cars. The focus is on value for money racing, with entry fees at $395 per round.

The first round of the series is set to take place in just over one month, 20-22 March, and Morgan Park.

Keep up-to-date with all the details on the official website: www.irace.net.au or sign up to the official newsletter here.

Le Mans Sports racer, Scott Bingham, has provided some excellent onboard footage from Oran Park.

Entries are open for Round One of the 2009 Independent Race Series.
Entrants who use the online system will have the option of paying by cheque/money order (by post), credit card (by fax, telephone or post) or via the secure online PayPal system.

The Online Entry Form for Round One is available by clicking here.

The old-school PDF for printing and posting/faxing is available here.

As always, all of our forms and administration are available from the Admin page of the site - irace.net.au/admin

Rewards Available

As a celebration of our brand new sytem, and to encourage competitors to get their entries in early, we also have another exciting announcement: the person who submits the first paid entry for each round will receive half price entry for the following round. (There are a couple of conditions: 1) each competitor may only win once during the year, 2) the half price entry is only available at the following round - ie; the first paid entrant for round 1 will be eligible for entry at half price for round 2 only.)

Round One of the Independent Race Series for 2009 will be held at Queensland's Morgan Park.

The 2009 iRace Launch Day is all systems go, and a full set of directions are now available.

Please click here to download the directions in PDF format.

Video footage from the 2008 Oran Park round of the Independent Race Series is now available.

The footage is still in a partially raw format - the voiceover has not yet been completed. View the individual videos below in the online player, or download the files in high resolution format (MP4) by clicking the links at the bottom of this article.

Here at iRace HQ we're continually trying to think of new ways to make racing more accessible, and achievable for more people.

With that goal in mind, we're launching the brand new iRace Meeting Point. It's a section of the website dedicated to helping our competitors help each other. The Meeting Point will be a central location for competitors and anyone else associated with the series to offer services, help, assistance or recommendations that might be useful to their fellow competitors. It will also be the place for competitors who are seeking assistance getting their car to the next round, or trying to find a reputable service provider in their area.

Submissions can be made via the website, and once completed they appear instantly on the Meeting Point page.

This sort of thing is not new to the Independent Race Series - a series well known for the generosity of its competitors, and with a strong community atmosphere. Now it's just a lot more organised, and the information will reach a lot more people a lot faster.

Things we hope to see on the Meeting Point page in the future include:

Competitors with space in their trailer or transporter
Competitors car-pooling to an event
Competitors sharing accommodation at an event
Competitors recommending a service provider who has helped them
Drives (or drivers) available either for Lease or Barter/Trade
Positions on teams for volunteer pitcrew
And many more - we hope you can manage to surprise us!

The iRace Meeting Point will be within the Classifieds section of the site (click on Classifieds, then click on Meeting Point), or access it via this direct link. It will also be available as a RSS feed you can subscribe to (instructions here).

To submit a post to the Meeting Point, click the Meeting Point Submission link on the Meeting Point page, or use this direct link.

The first round of the Independent Race Series for 2009 will take place at Morgan Park 20-22 March, with a Launch Day scheduled at the Marulan Driver Training Centre 18 January.

The 2009 Independent Race Series Launch is go for liftoff, and there are some exciting additions to help make it an even bigger event.

In addition to the on-track sessions, with some driver tuition available, and the BBQ lunch, the following additional activities will be taking place:

Licence and Logbook Processing

Competitors eager to get a head start on their 2009 administration can get all their paperwork out of the way at the event. iRace HQ staff will be in attendance, and ready to help you with your forms. (Relevant forms are also available for download here.)

Marketplace

Buy, sell, swap your racing gear. If you have a racecar or equipment you are selling, the 2009 iRace Launch Day is the perfect venue to display it to prospective buyers. If you have a larger item, or a car you wish to bring, please get in contact with Garry Willmington on 02 4841 1422 or Fax 02 4841 1017 or click here to email.

Anyone who has an item to sell or lease can list the item on our free Classifieds. Please visit the Classified Submission form here to submit your ad.

Get a head start on the 2009 Independent Race Series, get yourself to the Launch Day - 18 January 2009 at the Marulan Driver Training Centre.