The organisers of the prestigious Sunflower Trophy races have admitted their plan to switch the event to a new date in August backfired in spectacular fashion.

Denis Wilson, of the promoting Hillsborough and District Club, revealed Northern Ireland’s leading short circuit motorcycle event would ‘probably’ revert back to its traditional October slot in 2013.

However, he refused to rule out the possibility that the race meeting could still go ahead this year in the autumn after a failed bid to host the popular race at Bishopscourt in Co Down on August 3-4.

The thought process behind the plans to bring the Sunflower Trophy meeting forward by two months was based on the assumption that an increased number of British championship riders would opt to compete at Bishopscourt at a time when the BSB series would be in the midst of a five-week summer break.

Ironically, it transpired that fewer BSB teams were prepared to make the trip to Northern Ireland for the ‘Sunflower’ as they were, understandably, unwilling to run the risk of their riders picking up an injury with the British Superbike and Supersport championships yet to reach a conclusion.

By Tuesday evening - when the decision was made to shelve plans for the meeting - only six entries had been received by the club.

Mr Wilson told News Letter Sport the organisers were left with no choice but to cancel the illustrious race, which was won last year by Ian Lowry on the Relentless TAS Suzuki.

“Up until Tuesday night we had six entries and the BSB teams were committed to the British Superbike Championship.

“Originally, some of them had indicated that because there was a five-week break during the BSB season, they could probably fit the Sunflower in,” he said.

“But when it came to the bit, they were fully committed to BSB and said they weren’t coming.

“We have got to have a big crowd coming to the Sunflower to make it viable and if you haven’t got a couple of BSB teams, then they just won’t come.

“We couldn’t afford to take a serious loss,” he added.

“We thought that with the five-week break in BSB due to the Olympics that it would be okay, but it wasn’t.”

Mr Wilson intimated that the Sunflower meeting would be switched back to a date in October next year, but also hinted that the race may yet still run in 2012.

“We’ll have a think about things again for next year and we’ll probably think about it [moving back to the traditional October date] because we need a more suitable time,” he said.

“We will have an appraisal next week and come to some sort of a decision one way or another.

“I’m not saying the Sunflower will run this year, but we haven’t made a decision as yet.”

The MCRRCI and Killinchy and District MCC also moved to cancel its planned Irish Superbike round at Kirkistown on July 14 due to a lack of entries.