As expected the announcement of the  V8 Supercar street race at Sydney’s Olympic Park is official. According to  a story on the V8 Supercar website the announcement to be made Monday afternoon AEST will announce a five-year contract with the New South Wales Government to stage the race around the former Olympic precinct in Homebush, Sydney.

The ‘Sydney 400’ will be held in December 2009 and will become the Grand Finale of the 2009 V8 Supercar Championship. V8SA are claiming that a crowd  “in excess of 150,000” will attend over the three days of next year’s event.

“This is big, big news for Sydney,” said V8 Supercar boss & colourful Broadway impresario  Tony “The great mephisto” Cochrane “Already we have been in talks with some of the country’s largest companies about being an integral part in this signature event that will provide Sydney with just what it wants – an annual, international-scale event.”

The move to support the event could come at quite a cost to new NSW Premier Nathan Rees, already a group of local councils and residents groups have warned that they will take out their anger at the race in the up-coming Ryde By-Eleclction. Even Mr Rees’s own candidate has come out in opposition to the race, as have the Sydney Olympic Park Trust who administer the area.

The support for the race comes in spite of a damning report into the running of the failed Canberra street race and at a time when both track attendance’s and TV ratings are falling.

With the doubt over the Sydney race now ended V8SA is expected to release the full  2009 V8 Supercar calendar at the launch of the Sydney event this afternoon.