Wheel to wheel in the V8 race poll

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

The V8 supercar race has split Auckland down the middle. A Herald-DigiPoll of 1000 people - half in Auckland City and the rest from the wider region - has found 47.8 per cent in favour of closing streets around Victoria Park for the race, and 43.9 per cent against.

The poll found 47.3 per cent of Auckland City against closing the streets for several days for each of seven years from 2006, compared with 46.1 per cent in support.

More of those living elsewhere in the Auckland region favoured street closures, 48.5 per cent compared with 42.4 per cent against.

Despite the wafer-thin majority support, Auckland City Mayor John Banks welcomed the poll results last night as "very good news".

"If I've got half the voters of Auckland with me on election day, I will be very happy," he said.

Mr Banks said it was no surprise that city residents were more opposed to the race than those from farther away, as they were the ones most fed up with traffic congestion.

But he said there was still plenty of time to win them over by allaying their concerns with a detailed traffic management plan.

"With careful planning, this event will happen - we can't afford to let this opportunity slip by."

A critic of initial planning for the race, North Shore Mayor George Wood, is meanwhile preparing to meet Mr Banks to discuss the event and how it might be run without disrupting Transit NZ plans to widen the Victoria Park motorway flyover.

Mr Wood said yesterday he appreciated the V8 race was important to Mr Banks, but he felt the same urgency about fixing the flyover, which limits the flow of traffic across Auckland Harbour Bridge from his city.

The poll findings follow a warning from the owner of the race, the Australian Vee Eight Supercar Company (Avesco), that New Zealand risked long-term chances of hosting a leg of its championship series if Auckland gave the cold shoulder. But it has agreed to a 90-day extension of its contract deadline of December 31.