A book detailing Newcastle East residents' fight to access information about the Newcastle 500 has been released.
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Christine Everingham, co-author of Wrong Track, said more than 200 people attended the book's launch at The Station on Saturday.
"I can't tell you how much it meant for people in this community to be heard," she said.
"All the complaints we had about Supercars, we'd write to the minister, we'd write to the government, we'd write to council - they'd just say to us, 'go and ask Supercars'.
"Nobody was exercising any control, there was nobody to tell, so we decided to write a book."
Ms Everingham said her motivation to write the book came from the "incredible distress and grief" the Supercars event had brought to the Newcastle East community.
"[The Newcastle 500] was all done in absolute secrecy and we had to chase information," she said.
"We had to take them to court to find out was going on, to get the deals that were done.
"In the end we decided that we had to tell the story ourselves and the more I got into it, I found a great political scandal.
"No wonder they wanted to keep it secret."
Ms Everingham said the self-published book was about "something much bigger than the car race" and revealed "what's happening with our state government".
She also wanted to make it clear the residents' group was not against motor racing and said many from the industry had expressed support and interest in the book.
"They do not like the government spending all this money on these temporary circuits," she said.
"It's totally not what the motor racing industry needs.
"They need purpose-built, permanent tracks."
The book, co-written by Therese Doyle, is available for purchase on the Wrong Track NSW website in e-book and print formats.
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