British Superbikes

The faltering global economy continues to take its toll on motorcycle racing paddocks around the world. Today, the GSE Racing team announced that unless they can find a title sponsor, they will be forced to close up shop and quit BSB next season. Despite winning the last two BSB titles - with Shane Byrne in 2008 and Leon Camier in 2009 - GSE lost their title sponsor Airwaves (a brand of chewing gum) at the end of the 2009 season, and GSE boss Colin Wright has so far failed to find a replacement. The failure to find funding has meant that the team has been forced to notify all of their current staff that they are likely to lose their jobs at the end of the year.

As has been widely supposed here on MotoMatters, and nearly everywhere else in the racing press, 2009 BSB champion Leon Camier has signed to race alongside Max Biaggi on the Factory Aprilia Racing Team in 2010.   Aprilia's recent withdrawal with extreme prejudice from Moto2 to concentrate on WSBK and the proposed 1000cc 2012 MotoGP regulations, leaves open the possibility that the Noale based manufacturer will field a satellite team in WSBK in 2010 with MotoGP refugee Alex de Angelis as a possible rider next to Guandalini Ducati/Aprilia's Jakub Smrz.

~~~ UPDATE ~~~

In the wake of Sylvain Guintoli's move to the Alstare Suzuki team, The Worx Crescent Suzuki BSB team has announced that soon to be former Alstare rider Yukio Kagayama will return to the British Superbike series and ride for the British team in 2010.

As I'm sure most of the readers of this site are aware, James Toseland can not only ride a MotoGP bike at a brisk pace, but he also plays a mean piano and sings pretty well too. As his day job at MotoGP will be taking the weekend off on May 24th, Toseland will get to do a little moonlighting with his band, Crash. That weekend, the British Superbike series will be racing at Donington Park, and Toseland will be appearing in the Assembly Rooms in Derby on Saturday, May 23rd, with part of the proceedings will be going to help the excellent charity Riders For Health. So if you want to combine a fantastic weekend of racing with a chance to meet a bona fide MotoGP rider, head on up to Derby on May 23rd, then Donington the day after. Details below:

Just a few hours after news emerged that Donington Ventures Leisure Limited, the company that operates Britain's Donington Park circuit, was being sued for back rent and the forfeiture of its lease to the track, DVLL has acted to quash rumors that it stood to lose all racing at the circuit. The issue is complex, but if the Wheatcroft family, who own the track, have the lease returned for the non-payment of the GBP 2.47 million they claim they are owed, then DVLL would no longer be allowed to operate the track, and unless a company could be found to take DVLL's place, the World Superbike, MotoGP and British Superbike rounds would be in jeopardy of being canceled.

This evening, Donington Park issued a statement on the website denying that any racing would be canceled, and saying that they expected to be running "business as usual". Significantly, the statement quotes "Donington Park staff" as saying that they would be operating the track normally, and the racing would be going ahead. Normally in cases like this, such a statement would come from the CEO or Managing Director of a company, and so two possibilities exist: The most likely is that CEO Simon Gillett may have felt that a statement from himself may have created legal complications should he have to appear in court to defend the claims against the company; But an alternative - and completely unfounded, it must be said - explanation is that the staff themselves are determined to organize the racing however they can, and no matter what the management does.

It is still too early to say which side of the argument will prevail. But with Bernie Ecclestone making significant noises about withdrawing the Formula One contract from Donington, then all bets would be off, and DVLL's chances of securing an investor to stump up the estimated GPB 100 million it would require to fund the project would seem to be very remote indeed.

To many MotoGP fans, the news that Donington was to lose the British Grand Prix was bad news, as many prefer Donington's flowing layout - at least, the first half of the track, before the notorious car park section - to Silverstone's relatively flat circuit. It was seen as a loss, with another classic track disappearing from the calendar.

But it may not be such a loss after all. Ever since Donington embarked upon the project to redesign the track to make it suitable for Formula One, a stream of bad news has emerged from the circuit. First of all, the track had to reschedule and postpone a number of events after complaints about the construction. The new paddock access tunnel being built between Macleans and Coppice had meant run off in that area had been severely compromised, and the situation was only rectified after Donington Ventures Leisure Ltd promised to address the problems.

Now, Donington has an even bigger problem: The owner of the track, Tom Wheatcroft, has started legal proceedings against Donington Ventures Leisure Limited for unpaid rent. Wheatcroft claims that they are owed GBP 2.47 million by DVLL, which has a 150 year lease for the track, and are demanding payment of the arrears, which dates back to September 2008. Even worse news for DVLL is that Wheatcroft is also demanding that the lease be forfeited, effectively regaining control of the circuit.

Ever since the announcement that Donington would be hosting the British Formula One Grand Prix from 2010, there have been doubts about the feasibility of the project. DVLL needed to raise GPB 100 million to fund the massive construction planned for the new track, something many people believed would prevent a challenge at the best of times, let alone in the middle of a recession.