A Commemoration of Queensland's first-ever Australian Grand Prix - The weekend of August 21st & 22nd 2010 will see the showcase of one of the most significant motoring events in Queensland and one of the State's biggest regional events staged, when the 15th annual Leyburn Sprints takes place in the small rural community of Leyburn. While the sprints concept is still enjoying its infancy on the Australian motor sporting calendar, the associated stories of Leyburn's hosting of the 1949 Australian Grand Prix makes for some interesting reading.

It was through unusual circumstances that the history of Queensland motoring has been shaped. Who would have thought that the events leading up to the first ever Australian Grand Prix held in the State, would go on to provide a valuable legacy for a small country town of just 150 people? Certainly the well entrenched locals of Leyburn all have their own story to tell, about the day that their rural community grew to in excess of 30 000 people, the day that Queensland first hosted the Australian Grand Prix on Sunday, September 18, 1949.

To complement such a significant time for Queensland motoring the historic Leyburn Sprints recaptures that sense of achievement annually. A record 15,000 plus people descended on this scarcely populated rural domain during 2009. The Sprints concept caters to competition in 14 historic classes and an array of open wheelers.

2009 marked the 14th anniversary of the Historic Leyburn Sprints concept and the 60th anniversary celebrations of the Australian Grand prix in 1949, the event has maintained around 15 000 visitors annually over the two-day format. Those sorts of figures provide a massive injection into the local economy that is a welcome financial boost for the town of Leyburn, the Warwick Shire and the entire South-West Queensland region.

Motor racing in Australia came of age in 1928 with the inaugural AGP held at Cowes on Phillip Island. A short 21 years later, after enjoying a lengthy eight year stay at its original home and then stints at Victor Harbour (South Australia, 1937), Mount Panorama, Bathurst (NSW, 1938/47), Lobethal (South Australia, 1939) and Point Cook (Victoria, 1948) the plan was to strengthen the national significance of the event and the door was left open for Queensland to snare its own slice of motoring history.

What a history that turned out to be. Lowood was the first choice Queensland town to play host to the who's who of Australian Motor sport due to its growing popularity at the time. With the AGP scheduled for the traditional Sunday racing time slot, this hit a moral nerve with Lowood locals who confronted the Queensland Motor Sporting Club, voicing resistance to scheduling a sporting event during church mass and so the event was re-scheduled to take place at Leyburn, about 75 km south west of Toowoomba.

"At the time Leyburn, like every small country town in Australia, was rebuilding following the Second World War and the opportunity to host the Grand Prix provided a real highlight for the township," 2009 Race Director, Mike Collins said. "An air of excitement and anticipation filtered through the community in the lead up, but not even the most supportive of locals could have imagined the flood of spectators that made the journey to witness the 14th Grand Prix," Collins added. "That occasion still stands as the most populated time in Leyburn's history and those who have come along in recent years to the Historic Sprints will appreciate what an amazing scene it was to see 30-odd thousand people descend on a community so small."

1949 represented just the third year that the AGP had been reintroduced on the annual sporting calendar after a seven-year lay-off between 1940-46. World War 2 had played a significant part in all activities in Australia during that time and ironically it too would provide another chapter to the Leyburn story when an abandoned WW2 airstrip just outside of the main township was used as the venue for the '49 feature.