It’s all a bit fuzzy now, the finer details lost in the fumes of one too many VX Commodores in close proximity.

But it definitely happened sometime over the weekend of the fourth Clipsal 500 on March 16 and 17, 2002.

Labor’s Mike Rann had been miraculously elected Premier just over a month earlier courtesy of an unlikely miracle performed by the Liberal rebel, the independent Member for Hammond, the late Peter Lewis, who gifted Labor the 24^th seat it needed to form government.

I’d been invited to the new government’s VIP suite but was imperiously waved away by Labor and Liberal fixer and lobbyist, the late Geoff Anderson, who was making short work of the smorgasbord. The guest list was an uncomfortable shandy of the outgoing Kerin Liberal Government and the incoming Rann Government, a political version of the Star Wars cantina scene.

It was stinking hot inside the big white marquee. I grabbed a plateful of lukewarm prawns and headed outside to the balcony overlooking pit lane. Former Liberal Premier Dean Brown was leaning on the railing and we chatted while looking down on the bloody big V8s idling below.

The heat mixed with the fumes from the engines, and the heavy metal percussion from the thunk-thunk-thunk of the exhausts, scrambled something deep inside my being. Or maybe it was the prawns. Or maybe all of the above.

Feeling crook, I headed home, but not before vomiting in the blessed shade of the olive trees on the park’s perimeter. I was nauseous and dizzy for months.

Apart from work commitments in a past life, I have never since voluntarily darkened the doorstep of an Adelaide 500 supercar race, or the VIP tents, and never will. Hate the whole circus with a vengeance.

Which is a long way of saying I should be seriously cranky about the imminent return of the Adelaide 500 supercars to our city streets, and parklands, from December 1 to 4.

But the revival of the car race, honouring a Labor election promise by Premier Peter Malinauskas, is good news.

Why? Because after the two long years of the COVID pandemic, it signals a community weary of the new normal, trying to navigate a way back to the old normal.

Premier Malinauskas seems determined not to let anyone rain on his parade, not even his newly reappointed chief public health officer, Professor Nicola Spurrier, now fading back into the departmental wallpaper.

Dumping the supercars was super dumb of the former Marshall Liberal Government, as was flogging off the infrastructure just before the March election – a churlish and wasteful step.

The “unofficial” Moriarty-Rowley review into the Liberal loss cites the supercar decision as one of the party’s many policy blunders, stating that “once again, the Marshall Government was seen to be disengaged with the voters’ wishes”.

“When announcing the cancellation of the event, the Marshall Government announced that they would be forming an alternative body that would be bringing other events to Adelaide,” the Liberal stalwarts remind us in their review. “It would be difficult to name a single event that was new.”

Christopher Moriarty and John Rowley do name some policy positives, describing the work of then Environment Minister, now Opposition Leader, David Speirs, as a “shining light”. Fair point, too.

By opening dams, lakes and reservoirs to recreational use, Speirs offered a glimmer of hope, and fresh air, to a buttoned-up, locked-down city.

It’s called good news and, surprise, surprise, voters like it. This concept is really not that hard and yet some political parties make hard work of it.

As we emerge from the long winter of our COVID discontent, the thirst for a return of our happy touchstones is palpable.

The Royal Adelaide Show is triumphantly back this week after a three-year COVID-induced shutdown. It’s hokey, over-priced and just plain happy.

A year ago, it would have been classed as a COVID “super spreader” event. And maybe it will prove to be so, but judging by the almost total absence of masks, nobody seems to care.

Why should they?

The Albanese government, and all the state premiers, are now shamelessly running a “let it rip” policy, based on alleged “health advice” which is stuck on a Qantas luggage carousel, never to be seen again.

The unanimous support by the nation’s leaders to cut the COVID isolation period from seven days to five, when it should be 14, isn’t based on health advice. It’s based on governments pretending the pandemic no longer poses a threat to human life.

Premier Malinauskas has now flagged scrapping all mask mandates, except for some health care settings, and completely doing away with any isolation period for COVID infections. SA, in line with other states, is also dropping daily COVID case and death updates, making them weekly.

No news is good news and he and his fellow premiers have sniffed the public mood for good news.

In Opposition, Labor’s treasury spokesman Kevin Foley privately mused that whoever won the 2002 election would be in the box seat for a long stretch in office. This is because the Howard Government had introduced the GST in July 2000, and the rivers of cash were about to start flowing to state treasuries.

He was dead right. It was a pivotal election.

Armed with barrowloads of GST dosh, Foley served as Labor Treasurer and deputy Premier to Mike Rann from the 2002 election right up until 2011 – the state’s longest serving deputy premier and third longest-serving Treasurer.

The same argument could apply to this year’s March state election. It was a good one to win, a bad one to lose.

Despite rising interest rates, low wage growth and mind-boggling state and federal government debt, a largely vaccinated nation is emerging with its fingers crossed, the worst of the pandemic behind it. That’s the crazy brave plan, anyway.

Premier Malinauskas seems determined not to let anyone rain on his parade, not even his newly reappointed chief public health officer, Professor Nicola Spurrier, now fading back into the departmental wallpaper.

We’re getting an announcement a week on the return of the car race. The new swimming centre plans were unveiled this week. A paltry two-hour extension of shopping hours on Sunday mornings, being spun as a retail revolution, also lobbed this week.

And before you know it, the Christmas Pageant will be back where it belongs, rolling down our city’s streets to the Magic Cave.

Start your engines and send in the clowns. Bring on the old normal, we’ve missed you.

Matthew Abraham’s political column is published on Fridays. Matthew can be found on Twitter as @kevcorduroy. It’s a long story.