Copyright 2003, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

By David Swarts

The WERA Sportsman regional race event scheduled to take place at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Alabama April 18-20 has been canceled due to community pressure over noise from the facility. The WERA race would have been the first motorcycle race ever at the state of the art, $54-million facility.

“We got a call from them at 4:00 p.m. Saturday (April 12) during our National Endurance event at Carolina Motorsports Park telling us our event was canceled,” Evelyne Clarke, President and CEO of WERA Motorcycle Roadracing, Inc. told Roadracingworld.com Monday. “It is Easter weekend, and they are up against a lot of neighborhood pressure over noise. I think they (the track) are setting a very bad precedent. The people who shut them down, now they know they can shut them down.”

Clarke said WERA tried negotiating with the track by proposing quiet time hours on Sunday, as used at other racetracks, and even offered to not start any race engines until after noon on Sunday, but WERA efforts to save the event were unsuccessful.

WERA had 155 racers pre-entered for the inaugural Barber event, which is usually 30 percent of an actual race event turnout, according to Clarke. With each of the projected 325 racers entering an average of 2.1 races for a total 1085 race entries, WERA stands to lose a great deal of money over the cancellation.

“It is huge for us, very, very difficult,” said Clarke, who added she and her staff were in the process of personally calling each pre-entered racer to inform them of the cancellation and discuss refunds and credits.

Barber Motorsports Park management is trying to give WERA another date during the year, says Clarke, but fitting it into the WERA race schedule will be difficult.

The WERA National event scheduled for September 12-14 at Barber Motorsports Park is “still a go,” according to Clarke.

The Team Hammer Advanced Riding School and Talent Search clinic event scheduled for Tuesday, April 22 is still scheduled to take place.

The AMA Superbike season finale, scheduled for September 19-21 at Barber Motorsports Park, could not be confirmed with AMA Pro Racing at post time.

Calls seeking comment from Barber Motorsports Park were unreturned at post time.