Road Race Southwest/CCS Southwest is suspending racing operations for the 2012 season due to low participation numbers, according to series co-owner Patrick Bertinelli. “We had our banquet yesterday,” Bertinelli told Roadracingworld.com on Monday, “and we told all of our racers that we’re suspending it for 2012; because of the economic conditions, we continue to drop racers.” Bertinelli, who co-owns Road Race Southwest/CCS Southwest with Tyler Smith, said the organization had a total of 70 riders participating in 2011 as opposed to a high of 189 racers participating in 2006. “We’re hit hard down here in the southwest with housing [market] and things like that,” said Bertinelli. “There’s not a lot of disposable income, and as you know motorcycle racing isn’t cheap. So that’s what we’re doing. We’re hoping to bring it back for 2013. We’ve talked to Kevin [Elliott, head of CCS] about it. “It’s unfortunate. Tyler and I did our best. We did a lot out of pocket, but as a business it’s just something we can’t continue. We can’t pour good money after bad.” Bertinelli and Smith also co-own XCEL Track Days, and they plan to run a full schedule of track-day events in 2012. “We are keeping that going,” said Bertinelli. “We’re talking right now about continuing the racer’s school so we can keep racers going and keep getting new racers involved in the sport, because we’re not walking away from it. We’re just suspending it for the year, and we’re going to re-evaluate it mid-next year and see how the local area is doing economically and see when we can bring it back. “XCEL Track Days, we already have dates at Inde Motorsports Ranch, we’ve got dates at Arizona Motorsports Park and we’re trying to get our dates at Firebird [International Raceway]. We’ve got three tentative dates at Firebird. So we have a full track-day schedule. We want to keep track days available for local participants and local racers. “And we’re going to continue to sponsor our racers, like our number-one plate holder Ray Thibedeau. He’s going to go race at Chuckwalla [with CVMA] and some AMA Pro rounds. So XCEL Track Days is going to continue to sponsor him. We’re definitely going to be all-around involved in the sport and see what we can do and what it’s going to take to come back from 2013.”