WA responds to Australian SuperBike disappointment

In a savage blow for Western Australian road racing it was announced last week that the Australian SuperBike Championship would, again, not visit WA.

CEO of Motorcycling Australia, David White, released a statement, which included the following. "Unfortunately, due to financial constraints, it will not be possible to hold a round in Western Australia in 2003."

We queried Mr White as to what costs he referred to, "With the amount of sponsor dollars we (MA) have available in 2003 it just became untenable for the Championship to have six rounds considering the costs of television footage and extra prize money."

WA was on the original draft calendar as a provisional round for 2003.

Western Australia missed out on a round of the national series this year, 2002.

While in 2001 WA race fans felt insulted when the bike companies, as a group, saw fit to boycott the round. Suzuki, to their credit, broke that boycott and did field a team at the Western Australian round. Craig Coxhell also broke ranks from his Radar’s Yamaha Team and rode his own machine at the round.

The hard working committee of the Motorcycle Racing Club of WA are bitterly disappointed that the provisionally scheduled 2003 round will not go ahead. They released the following statement.

"The allocation of a round to the Winton Circuit over Western Australia stuns us.

"The Winton round has not been without it's problems or controversy, all well documented in the media - unpaid prize money, lack of officials, track safety issues, culminating this year with MA stepping in to take over as promoter of the event - just days before the round.

"Distance has always been a point of contention with some competitors. In WA the Promoter has negotiated cheap transport packages for privateers - which no other state has offered."

The MCRCWA statement continued, “With five state rounds and two support race days run year after year this Club has a strong number of volunteer officials and competitors. But it is increasingly hard to retain good Level 4 officials and impossible for Level 3 officials to upgrade their accreditation without a national round. Our five State rounds are conducted on a professional basis with the support of several major sponsors, some of whom are from outside of the sport.”

The MCRCWA statement finished there but perhaps did not quite highlight the amount of mainstream media coverage road racing receives in Western Australia. Even without a national round it is safe to say that motorcycle racing receives more coverage in WA based newspapers than in the rest of Australia’s newspapers combined.

Both WA based newspapers run road racing stories on a weekly basis. ‘The West Australian’ will quite often dedicate half a page a week to road racing coverage. While in ‘The Sunday Times’ road racing sometimes even spreads across two full pages, often in full colour with a number of large pictures. Often this takes pride of place on the back of the ‘Motoring liftout’.

‘The Sunday Times’ has an audited readership of 918,000; ‘The West Australian’ achieves similar figures. This represents excellent coverage for the top riders and teams, and perhaps just as importantly, the series and class sponsors. In fact these readership figures are larger than all of the Australia wide specialist motorcycle print magazines put together.

The motorcycle arm of the WA Motor Traders Association also expressed their disappointment via their new chairman, Chad Peters.

"We are absolutely incensed that once again the sports governing body has seen fit to exclude WA from hosting a round of the 2003 ARRC.

"Motorcycling Australia received many thousands of dollars from all competitions and clubs in WA to administer and promote the sport, but unfortunately WA is not receiving due recognition in return.

"Maybe it's time that WA club competitors and our local body Motorcycling Australia WA investigate alternate means of ensuring the viability of motorcycle racing in WA.”

The MTA was also at a loss to explain why teams from the major manufacturers have not seen fit to support championships rounds in WA, particularly in recognition of the volume of motorcycles sold in Western Australia. Even the most conservative estimate puts the size of the Western Australian motorcycle market at well over $50,000,000.

While these statements are deliberately reserved, the feeling on the street, in the bike shops and amongst the racers is much stronger. Racers feel betrayed; the public feels cheated, and the motorcycle dealers believe they have been forgotten.