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Mondello Park Opts Out of British Superbike Championship in 2008 |
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Wednesday, 17 October 2007 |
Following
five years as part of the BSB calendar and following careful
consideration, Mondello Park has decided not to take up its option to
run a round of the British Superbike Championship in 2008.
With the BSB teams looking to reduce the number of races for budgetary
reasons, and the fact that it costs Mondello considerably more to host
a round than any of the British circuits, the County Kildare venue has
decided not to take up its place on the 2008 calendar. The decision
comes despite an offer from the MCRCB to allow the Irish round to run
over two days, rather than the normal three day event, which would have
resulted in reduced costs for the teams, but not for the circuit.
Mondello
Park is unique among the circuits on the BSB calendar in that along
with higher fixed costs for running Irelands BSB round than British
venues incur, the circuit also funds the teams travel to the tune of
€130,000 annually. This travel fund has primarily been provided by
Failte Ireland, with assistance from Stena Line, but due to a change in
policy towards “arena events”, tourism funding reduced in 2007. This
factor in conjunction with Mondello offering reduced price tickets to
this years event, contributed to the circuit losing money on its 07 BSB
round. The reduced backing from Failte Ireland is unlikely to increase
significantly for 2008 and as a result it is not currently viable for
Mondello to continue to host a round of the British championship.
Speaking of the decision Mondello Park’s Managing Director, John Morris
said; “Obviously we’re very disappointed, but we could never have
hosted BSB without Failte Ireland and we’re extremely grateful to them
for their support of a multitude of events at Mondello Park over the
last 7 years. There is a great spin off from the big international
events for the local community and I’m as disappointed for them as for
ourselves and the many Irish and UK fans of the Mondello event.
However, Mondello Park is a business and it’s a commercial reality that
we cannot run events that either lose money, or are simply too marginal
to take the risk. We may be out for 08, but clearly we’ll continue to
work to try and put a deal in place in 09 and beyond. We’ve simply
invested too much in both the venue and BSB and we’ve made many new
friends long the way. I’m confident that this isn’t the end for! BSB at
Mondello Park”.
In order to
keep a major motorcycle event on the circuit’s calendar Mondello Park
is considering the possibility of running a big prize money open event
on the Sunday before the NW200. Morris commented; “Many of the
principle teams will be coming to Ireland for the North West and they
may be interested in trying to head there with some extra prize money
in their pockets. We have the date pencilled in on our calendar and if
there is sufficient interest, we’ll certainly look at putting the prize
fund in place”
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