With all the hard work and safety improvements made by some of the clubs over the past couple of years, would it now be the time to reward them with a world championship event. This could be held at over a few meetings throughout the year at the likes of
NW200, IOMTT, UGP.Frohburg and Horice.
I'm sure if it was looked into in depth a major sponsor could be found, maybe Red Bull or Relentless.
Having a series like this would attract more top class riders from around the world and also the possibility for good prize money to the riders.
As Road Racing stands at the moment my opinion is that there are to many small meetings on roads that are no longer safe for the machines being used now, maybe just use these meetings for classics and smaller classes of bikes to bring through the newcomers.
TV would also be interested in a road race world championship and this too would raise extra revenue.
The big question would be who would run the event without taking to much out of the money generated (not the ACU). I feel that this sort of event would have to be run by a new team made up of reps from the mentioned meetings along with riders and sponsors reps.
It would work and deserves a chance.

How many motorsport world championship events are held in some of the countries mentioned. Im sure that the Tourist Departments of these countries would be interested and have the money to kick start it.

Plenty of Honda bigwigs in town this weekend Colin maybe you should gatecrash the party and hit them with you idea .............not literally

cargo Wrote:Plenty of Honda bigwigs in town this weekend Colin maybe you should gatecrash the party and hit them with you idea .............not literally

Cargo I wish I still had the drive that I once had for racing, I would have done more than gatecrash. Not just Honda here also big wigs from Yam,

I like this idea but how about, for fun, a "4 Road Race International Championship 2008" to kick things off covering NW,TT (Senior), S100 (Senior Solo) and UGP.

Going into the UGP 2008 as the final round, using Moto GP points system, the top three in the championship would look like this;

1. John McGuiness 50 pts
2. Ryan Farquar 46 pts
3. Ian Lougher 43 pts

Followed by;

Cam Donald 26 pts
Michael Dunlop 20 pts
Bruce Anstey 20 pts
Ian Hutchison 16 pts
Guy Martin 16 pts
Conor Cummins 16 pts

Quite agree Colin there should be a World Championship series for all cc classes for Road racing.After all it would just be returning to what the original championship series was all about MOTORCYCLE ROAD RACING when the series was run over predominantly public roads during the 50/60s period.
However the event would have to extend beyond the IOM and Ireland and even now beyond Europe.
If there was the will of the governing bodies to organise it I am sure it would have more relevence to the manufactures than the current WSB, BSB and GP series.
But once again money comes into the equation.Gate receipts from public road areas could never produce the revenue a WSB or GP event at Donnington or Brands where we have 100,000 plus crowds each paying in excess of £30. to enter a private facility.
I do'nt think the governing bodies of motor cycle sport no longer have the ethusiasm for proper motorcycle road racing.

Colin I think now is the right time for you to send a letter off to Bernie and Max now that he is celebrating his win over Rupert. Rupert mentioned Nazi once, but he didn't get away with it.
The biggest problem any organiser would have to overcome would be INSURANCE. But you never know the World Rally Championship is still going with people standing on the edge of the roads.

"And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star"

Don Simons Wrote:Colin I think now is the right time for you to send a letter off to Bernie and Max now that he is celebrating his win over Rupert. Rupert mentioned Nazi once, but he didn't get away with it.
The biggest problem any organiser would have to overcome would be INSURANCE. But you never know the World Rally Championship is still going with people standing on the edge of the roads.

"And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star"

Rupert failed to interpret Mr Simon's new age philosophy.

The manufacturers would jump through hoops of fire to see this get of the ground. Being a world champion would look better on a riders CV than just a win at the TT

ive been saying this for years. im glad someone else has made the connection between wrc and roadracing. and i also agree that the smaller races are too dangerous. im not sure that theyre needed to back up the 3 big races. only farquahar, amor and archibald of the top men regularly compete at these meetings, and of course the dunlops. i think an international roads championships would be better than a world championship as it doesnt put pressure on to try and have events across the world although dont forget macau and the new japanese race. i would agree that these events must be tied together in some way, if for nothing else then to give the top riders the prestige of calling themselves a champion. you could even resurect the old nurburgring, our boys wouldnt have any bother with that.
perhaps (even though its not a roadrace) a prestigous event like daytona which is sort of losing its credability in the modern race world could even be included.

crock stock Wrote:i also agree that the smaller races are too dangerous.

With all due respect, quite the reverse is true!!!

If you mean that the "bigger" races, ie the NW200, the TT and the UGP are safer, then you've got the wrong end of the stick.

All three circuits have been systematically changed over the years, surfaces improved, corners re-aligned and made faster, until riders can be led into a sense of false security.

Result - bigger faster accidents.

Places like Tandragee, Skerries, Bush, Faugheen, Kells and others carry a built-in "fear factor" which in itself contributes to safer riding.

Best of all for that was the late lamented Temple - scared the bejasus out of me, but I really enjoyed racing there!!!

We do, however, seem today to have a number of riders, usually young 'uns, who seem incapable of being frightened - this can only be bad news, and I think is contributing to the increasing number of "comings together" of pairs of riders recently, especially into corners and through tricky sections.

on

with all due respect, i think thats a load of nonsense.
the stats dont lie. the smaller road races are dangerous. there is uneven surfaces, no run off and little margin for error if any.
gary johnson said himself that skerries was more like a motocross track, i would say more like a goat track down the back. what relevance or credibility do these national road races really have? ive been following roadracing for 20 years and ive got to the stage where i really couldnt give a monkeys who wins the faugheen, skerries, tandragee or whatever. the fear factor is the very reason the result doesnt matter to me. who wants to see the rider whos least scared of crashing and being hurt win a race? i want to see the fastest rider win the race, and at the moment farquahar probably is but he has so much experiance at international level. the others, havnt a hope.
im sick of the red flag being hung out at every single meeting and everyone holding their breath waiting for sickening news. have you seen the footage from kells on youtube? another incident inches from an absolute disaster-no more please. the internationals have relevance to motorcycling history and provide top racing, with top riders fighting it out at the top of their game - im sorry, i dont buy into your argument that racers go hell for leather and throw comman sense out the window just because the roads are smoother and wider. if this keeps going then its all going to stop. how can you seriously blame inexperianced competitors for the downfall of a sport which involves racing superbikes along single track roads?
as for the temple? your living in the past. the top newcomers at the tt in recent years have all been bsb riders and i cant see that changing...too many see this sport as an 'all friends together on day out' thank god those in charge of the big races dont.

I'm backing out of this one - there's no point in continuing this discussion.

i didnt mean to sound rude there larry, i was just bashing away at the keyboard without reading over the way i came across, although i stand by the general gist of what ive said. so please dont back out of the discussion as its one that i find extremely interesting and feel passionate about.