Simon Crowcroft said he was open to the idea of expanding Jersey’s Rubis International Motoring Festival to resemble one of the world’s most popular motor race meetings, the Goodwood Revival.
He added that the Jersey event, which started in 1999, was an important date in the Island’s calendar and was great for Islanders and tourists.
It comes as one of the organisers of the annual event said expanding the festival was part of a ‘five-year plan’.
Steve Royle said they had now started to experiment with music and food attractions to broaden the appeal of the three-day event.
He said: ‘Expanding the festival is certainly part of our five-year plan. There have been suggestions of making it a week-long festival in the future. We want to get more visitors to the Island from all sorts of backgrounds.
‘I would love to get more Formula One cars, particularly like the old Grand Prix cars, and those are the sorts of things we can be aiming for.’
Mr Crowcroft said: ‘I am certainly open to the festival being grown. I have supported the Motoring Festival since it got under way and I think the Island could be host to a sort of Goodwood Revival-style event.
‘It is great for the Island in terms of Islanders and visitors. Jersey does need to do that sort of thing.
Meanwhile, the possibility of bringing back a monster truck display team to the Island has not been ruled out despite the Waterfront site used for last year’s display being turned into a temporary car park when work on a new financial centre at the Esplanade begins.
Jason Maindonald, of the Jersey Development Company, which organised the event in October last year, said that it had been in discussions about the possibility of using the People’s Park to accommodate a similar event.
‘We know that the People’s Park is available and the trucks can perform on grass – they have done it in the past. We have been in discussions with the parish to rent the park.
‘There is certainly a high possibility that something will come back but I am not sure whether it will be the monster trucks yet. We are in discussions and have spoken to the motorcycle display team the White Helmets. We are certainly trying to sort something out.’
Mr Crowcroft said bringing the trucks or a motorcycle display team to the Island was something he welcomed.
‘Whether they would be suitable at the People’s Park is something we would have to look at, especially in terms of damage to the grass and awareness of the neighbours such as the Grand Hotel and the residential home. But we will look at every application to use the People’s Park,’ he said.
JERSEY’S motoring festival has ‘huge potential’ to become an important date on the international sporting calendar, said ex-Formula One driver Derek Warwick.
The JEP Motoring columnist and former racing driver believes that the RUBiS Jersey International Motoring Festival could go on to much bigger things but needs backing from the States to fulfil that potential.
Mr Warwick said: ‘I went along to the International Motoring festival in 2013 and I have to applaud Steve Salmon and his team, who work tirelessly all year to put together such a fantastic event.
‘We had Victoria Avenue closed for the Moonlight Sprints on the Friday evening, while on the Saturday there was the Westmount hill climb and display of so many historic cars and bikes, and a good representation of trade stands at the show on the People’s Park, as well as the exciting Wall and Globe of Death.
Following the Second World War there were no motor racing circuits in operation in Britain, and no venue for the British Grand Prix because Brooklands, the old site, had been bombed.
Jersey was then used as a street circuit in the 1940s and 50s, with international drivers attracted to the Island to race.
The circuit chosen was from West Park to Bel Royal along Victoria Avenue, which at the time was a single lane road – a distance of 3.2 miles.
The races were stopped in 1952, with Jersey’s roads deemed too small for the high-speed cars that were becoming more common.
