Archive for September, 2009

We realise that there has been a great deal of unrest at the lack of information about the location and date of the next round of the British Championship. However behind the scenes there has been a tremendous amount of work, phone calls, miles travelled and meetings made to try to resolve the problems which every one must remember have been no fault of the British Championship. We feel that a full explanation should be forthcoming and therefore this is quite a long message in order to cover all the points. Before we go into the current situation it is worth looking back to the reasons that BSMC was created.

 At the end of the 2007 season the future of the British Supermoto Championship looked bleak. The historic collaboration between the ACU, AMCA and NORA sport had come to an end and with no dates, no organisation and no venues and the prospect of no official series seemed very realistic. However at the last minute Ken Winstanley, Stuart Smith & David Dearden, all who believed passionately in the sport came together and decided to create BSMC 2008 Ltd to promote Supermoto racing in the UK. 

 The blueprint we came up with created a championship with the following conditions;

• To maintain the sporting link between the two main motorcycle sport licensing bodies in the UK, the ACU and the AMCA.
• To run a professional series that would replicate top level Supermoto championships around the world.
• To encourage riders to participate in a National series regardless of ability.
• To find and develop new venues around the country.
• To attract outside sponsors to the sport in order to grow it’s appeal.
• To develop existing venues to ensure that Supermoto could flourish 
• To ensure close competitive safe racing in a friendly atmosphere.
• To take the views of all competitors into account.
• To ensure our meetings don’t clash with other domestic & World championship events.
• To be non profit making (but not loss making) and reinvest any surpluses into the sport.

Looking back now we feel that we have worked within that framework and delivered in all areas. Although we often face criticism, we have used it in a constructive way to enhance what we do and for a bunch of enthusiastic volunteers we feel that the last two seasons have been broadly successful. We have invested money at Rowrah to create a new off road which transformed the track. We have helped the Scottish Club put Crail on the map as an exciting SM venue. We built a tremendous track worthy of a World Championship at Lydden Hill and combined it with the innovation of running at two tracks in the same weekend. And of course we broke new ground in the UK with our Sportscity events. At every meeting we run we always try to innovate and change the track so that it enhances the racing for you the competitor.

 The big problem in Supermoto is that there just aren’t enough regular riders and with track hire of the premier circuits costing multi thousands of pounds an organiser has to be very careful to mix up the venues and ensure that there is no date clashes to allow a championship to break even. One of our main conditions is to avoid running on the same weekend as the FIM World Championship, as soon as Youthstream announced their 2009 calendar we put our dates together and announced our calendar a good two months ahead of other domestic championships. Unfortunately the World Championship has had to change a number of dates and locations and Youthstream where unable to confirm their dates to us until the 18th August and even then there was uncertainty.

 When we created the 2009 calendar almost a year ago we had started discussions with Brands Hatch about their development of a stand alone Supermoto track. Unfortunately the track wasn’t up to standard and would need significant investment in order to meet our requirements and in the current economic climate that investment would not appear in the short term. We were determined to run a meeting in the South as there has been great support for our Championship from Southern based riders and there is a shortage of good tracks down there so as part of our development role we felt it was important to try to find a venue in the South. Over the last few months we have followed up a number of leads, including the 02 Arena, Docklands and Brooklands. These have been worthwhile discussions but they are for future years.

 It is very important to us that we complete our scheduled number of rounds as too many championships in other disciplines have cancelled events or run shortened series. It is also important to us that we don’t visit two venues in the same season as we don’t feel that is a true British Championship when you run at the same location twice.

 We found ourselves with a problem with our September date as the World round in Andorra was re-scheduled to run on the same date. It was also difficult to get absolute confirmation that this event was going ahead. We looked at running at Bordon on Sept 6 with SSM as we feel Borden has real potential and we visited the track and gave our input. The 6^th Sept was never really on as well as clashing with a World round it also clashed with Nora at 3 Sisters. We have tried to find a stand alone date but unfortunately with the MOD & Bordon Flying Club usage nothing could be scheduled to fit the very crowded September/October calendar. With Lydd having no off road capability & Lydden Hill not available even running at the same venue again was not on.

 At the same time as trying to find a Southern based venue we also re-opened the dialogue with Teesside one of the best circuits in the UK for Supermoto, we were really pleased to get approval back for Supermoto racing so this became a possible solution to our problem. Not being a Southern track was an issue but the quality of the track would get everyone’s approval. Unfortunately the earliest date available was Oct 3 & 4 which was a date already in the NORA calendar. As we don’t want to clash with any other meeting and the NORA venue was yet to be decided we contacted Toby Taylor to see whether he would want to share the venue. Toby had just confirmed and booked Blyton for his next round and therefore couldn’t accept our offer but kindly gave us the option to join him at Blyton. After thinking through the whole process this was discounted as both series run to different formats and to change rules at the end of the season would be very unfair to competitors. All other available dates for Teesside until December clashed with other meetings such as Mettet or our Northern Irish round.

 One other circuit we had been considering for the British Championship was Dale. After a visit to the track & a meeting with Mark & Andy who look after the circuit we came back impressed by their enthusiasm and the great potential of the venue. There are certainly drawbacks but the plans that are in place to improve facilities need the support of Supermoto in general. Tracks for our sport are becoming harder & harder to establish and a venue that has no noise problems and large areas of land are very rare indeed. The organisers are willing to put a lot of effort in to upgrading the circuit in order to accommodate the British Championship and hopefully the meeting will establish the track as a permanent venue for future years

 Therefore the next round of the British Championship will take place on 26^th & 27^th September at Dale, Haverfordwest Dyfed Wales.

The following reasons brought us to this decision.

 The only circuit available before December without date clashes

• A fantastic off road section as good as any we have ever seen
• Plenty of scope for different track layouts on the very grippy road section
• Potential to develop a meaningful circuit for future use.
• A true British Championship location as we now visit England, Scotland, Ireland & Wales.

As the venue is lower cost than other circuits we visit we can also pass that saving on to our competitors and this meeting will attract and entry fee of £60 for all pre-payments and £75 on the day. We will also be running a non-championship clubman’s/novice class open to any tyre choice to encourage the beginner or track day enthusiast to have a go at racing on the same day as the British Superstars with full insurance, medical cover & transponders.