Road racers Paul Jordan and Mike Browne will compete at next weekend’s opening round of the Dunlop Masters Superbike Championship at Mondello Park after the cancellation of the next two planned meetings at Oliver’s Mount, Scarborough.

The Barry Sheene Classic was due to take place at the 2.43-mile woodland course from June 26-27, but the event has been called off after safety issues came to light concerning ‘many of the aged buildings at Oliver’s Mount’. The Oliver’s Mount Festival (July 31-August 1) has also been axed.


A statement from Oliver’s Mount Racing said:

‘Scarborough Borough Council have recently conducted detailed inspections of their entire estate, including Oliver’s Mount. Their surveyors have found several serious issues with many of the aged buildings at Oliver’s Mount that make it unsafe to hold meetings at the venue at the current time.

‘The safety of the public, competitors, officials and staff must always come first’.

The statement added that the Steve Henshaw Gold Cup meeting has been moved from its original date of September 11-12 to the following weekend of September 18-19, opening up the possibility of attracting more riders as the new dates do not clash with the Cookstown 100 or the British Superbike Championship.


In May, the Dungannon-based Burrows Engineering/RK Racing team made the trip to Scarborough to compete at the Spring Cup with Jordan and Browne.

Team boss John Burrows planned to return to Oliver’s Mount for the Barry Sheene meeting and said the news on Wednesday had come as a big disappointment.

“The boat was paid and we were all set to go back to Scarborough with Paul and Mike for the Barry Sheene meeting,” said Burrows.

“We went testing on Wednesday at Kirkistown because we had a few issues to iron out from the Spring Cup and I had literally put the bikes into the garage when I had a message from Andy Hayes (Director, Oliver’s Mount Racing) to explain what was happening.

“Andy has put a serious effort into getting the racing going at Oliver’s Mount this year, but this is just something that is out of his control.

“We’re very disappointed because we are a road race team and we want to try and concentrate on the roads with our two riders, but there is nothing we can do and we have to accept that it’s not happening,” he added.

“Thankfully, we have been able to make alternative plans and we’ll be going to do the first round of the Mondello Masters instead.

“Our intention was to do the full series of the Masters this year with the exception of the first round, which clashed with the Barry Sheene Festival, but hopefully we will manage to do them all now alongside Armoy, Cookstown and the Scarborough Gold Cup.”

The Armoy meeting is set to be the first Irish road race of the year next month, but whether or not the national event goes ahead centres on spectator numbers.

Currently, there is a limit of 500 spectators at outdoor events, which is due to be eased on July 5 after the indicative date of June 21 for a further easing of Covid-19 measures was pushed back by the Northern Ireland Executive.

The additional lifting of restrictions has been delayed due to concerns relating to a rise in the number of cases of the Delta variant.

Burrows said:

“Hopefully these restrictions on spectators will lift. As I keep saying, we’re a road racing team and over the past two seasons we’ve only had the Cookstown 100 in 2020 and the Scarborough Spring Cup this year, so we’re eager to get the team out on the road.

“We’re all in good shape and ready to get going, but these things are just out of everybody’s hands and we’ll just have to hope we get the green light.”

The Armoy Road Races are scheduled for July 30-31.