Knoxville, Iowa and Warrnambool, Australia have a shared passion for sprint cars, and for years have had an informal sister city relationship. At Monday night’s City Council meeting, this relationship was renewed.

Warrnambool is the home of the Grand Annual Sprintcar Classic, the Australian equivalent of Nationals; the races in January attract drivers from the United States as well as from all over Australia.

This naturally led to the two cities drawing closer together to promote their sporting interests; Knoxville Mayor Brian Hatch tells KNIA/KRLS News the time had come to further cement the bonds between the two cities.

“And with new council members on our side and their side, we thought it would be a good idea to just renew the agreement between both cities and try to kind of rejuvenate that relationship between the two of us and see if we can’t help that relationship grow a little more,” Hatch says.

The sister city arrangement could be expanded beyond racing, to include cultural, economic and school exchanges as well as increased promotion of tourism and business between the two cities.

Warrnambool has sister city agreements with several other towns where sprint car racing is popular, and officials from there have said these arrangements have worked out well for each party involved.

In other action during Monday Night’s City Council meeting, Tricia Kincaid was formally sworn in as the new City Clerk; and the city entered into a medical transport services agreement with Accura Healthcare.