Copyright 2003, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.
CCS/Formula USA announced its tentative 2004 racing schedule last week, which listed the 21st annual Race of Champions (ROC), at Daytona International Speedway, for October 20-24 – the same weekend WERA (CCS/F-USA’s main competitor in the club-level/semi-professional-level motorcycle road racing market) had already scheduled its 28th annual Grand National Finals (GNF), at Road Atlanta.
Considering the fact that many racers participate in both of the heavily-attended, highly-lucrative year-end events, both organizations would have suffered substantially.
According to CCS/F-USA boss Kevin Elliott, the scheduling conflict could have resulted in about a 25-30 percent loss in participation for his organization.
“We can’t do that to the racers,” WERA Operations Manager Sean Clarke told Roadracingworld.com in a telephone interview Monday. “Neither of us would do it on purpose. I wouldn’t do that with any of the bigger events that we have or they have.”
Elliott told Roadracingworld.com he was unable to change the date of the ROC because “Biketoberfest” is scheduled by the Daytona Beach Chamber of Commerce, and then Daytona schedules the ROC based on the “Biketoberfest” dates.
The conflict was averted, however, when WERA officials recognized CCS/F-USA’s compromised situation and Road Atlanta allowed WERA to move the date of the GNF.
“They (Road Atlanta) were very cool about it,” said Clarke. “I know Kevin (Elliott) can’t get anything changed on the CCS end of things, not with Daytona, because they’ve got the whole Biketoberfest-type thing. As soon I posted it (2004 WERA schedule), Kevin e-mailed me and let me know that Daytona put him on that weekend. We got it all sorted out.”
Now, the 2004 WERA Grand National Finals, which incorporates the Suzuki Cup Finals, will be held October 13-17 at Road Atlanta, and the 21st CCS/Formula USA Race of Champions, which starts with the Team Hammer Advanced Riding School on Wednesday and concludes with F-USA finals on Sunday, will take place October 20-24.