V8 Supercars wants to dump the Sydney 500 because, despite state government funding of the initial construction of the 3.2-kilometre circuit through the streets of the SOP precinct, it has lost millions of dollars each year staging the event since it was added to the championship in 2009. Mark Winterbottom in what could be the last Sydney 500 at Sydney Olympic Park. Credit:Getty Images While details are sketchy, Fairfax Media has learnt that a V8 street racing event in Gosford, which is 76 kilometres north of Sydney, is supported by the city council, and Central Coast state and federal government members of parliament.

Fairfax Media has also learned that the proposed track will be located on the waterfront near Bluetongue Stadium, also running around streets past the Gosford Racecourse and the surrounding area.

The course is around 3.5 km and will have spectacular views across Brisbane Waters, the large inlet from the sea that Gosford's city centre fronts.

Gosford mayor Lawrie McKinna, the former manager of the Central Coast Mariners A-League football club, is backing moves to bring the V8s to the city. McKinna was a guest of V8 Supercars at the Sydney 500 on Saturday. State and federal funding worth millions of dollars annually would be required to make the temporary circuit, utilising public roads closed for the V8 event, viable. A street track in Gosford is more likely to attract government support as a major regional sporting event. It is among a number of proposals for events in major regional cities that V8 Supercars has received and is evaluating in a bid to replicate the success of the annual street race event in Townsville.

In addition to the Sydney 500, V8 Supercars receives financial assistance from Destination NSW, the state's tourism and major events agency, for its event at Sydney Motorsport Park at Eastern Creek and the Bathurst 1000 at Mount Panorama. Destination NSW also backs the Bathurst 12 Hour international GT sports car endurance race, which V8 Supercars now also runs. The level of funding V8s receive for the Sydney 500 falls well short of the bill for staging the event, which is understood to have lost $4 million last year and is expected to record a similar deficit this year. Attendances well short of expectations, and the multimillion dollar cost of setting up the Sydney Olympic Park track and running the event, make the event unsustainable for V8 Supercars without a hefty increase in state government subsidies. There were moves to reduce expenditure and attract bigger crowds this year by shortening the track and adding more grandstands around the compacted layout.

It is believed the plan, which is thought to have involved removing the back section of the track by cutting across the existing layout along Olympic Avenue alongside ANZ Stadium, were rejected by the Sydney Olympic Park Authority and other groups involved in the running of the SOP precinct. Despite doubts about the event's future among the teams and informed speculation about a switch to Gosford, V8 Supercars CEO James Warburton was adamant that the 2016 Sydney 500 would go ahead as scheduled from November 25-27 and that reducing the track length remained an option. While Warburton wouldn't comment on the proposal to move the season finale to a Gosford street circuit, he admitted that the Sydney 500's continuation in 2017/18 – for which V8s have an option to extend – would be reviewed following this year's event. "We're committed to 2016," he told Fairfax Media. "We'll get through the weekend and look at the results, and then we'll make some deliberations. As I said, we're committed to 2016 and then we can make our decisions. "But it's not something we'll address until well into the first quarter of next year." He also indicated that the Sydney 500's future depended on being run on the third weekend of November – a week earlier than next year's slot in the calendar, which was in turn brought forward from this year's early December dates – to shorten the season and attract bigger crowds at a better time of year.

"We're not happy with next year's date," he said. "There's now a clash with Rally Australia [the final round of the world rally championship at Coffs Harbour on the NSW north coast], so yet again we'll do the right thing by CAMS [Confederation of Australian Motor Sport, the governing body] and all the other partners. "But, ultimately, Homebush [SOP] has its limitations around what we can and can't build in terms of grandstands, and various other things we could do." Warburton conceded that V8 Supercars had other options for a major event to finish the season if it decided against returning to Sydney Olympic Park. "Of course there's an alternative," he said. "We have many, many, many alternatives in our minds, but at the end of the day, we'll announce all that when we make a decision. "We haven't made a decision yet."