Motorcycling Australia (MA) has informed us that the 2009 Oceania Motocross Teams Championship has been cancelled.

The A.C.T. Motorcycle Club was set to host the event – catering for New Zealand and Australians senior and junior racers – at the Fairbairn Park Motor Sport Complex in the nation’s Capital from August 29-30.

Chairman of the A.C.T. Motorcycle Club’s Motocross subcommittee, Andrew Campbell, said that a lack of entries caused by a wide variety of reasons resulted in the club’s executive unanimously deciding to cancel the event.

“The lack of entries has simply caused the event to no longer be economically viable for the club,” Campbell said.

“It is extremely disappointing for the club, and especially for the people who have worked tirelessly in the lead-up to the championship.

“The club had pinned high hopes on hosting a successful meeting and to subsequently put funds back into improving our facilities… none of that will be going ahead now which is very disappointing,” Campbell concluded.

Future event details will be made available as they come to hand via the MA website at www.ma.org.au.

Below is the letter of explanation that arrived from Allan McNeice, president, ACT Motor Cycle Club:

Ladies and Gents,

You are all stakeholders, volunteers, officials or supporters for the 2009

Oceania MX Teams Championship that was planned for 29/30 August 2009.

By now you may have read this mornings e-mail from Andrew Campbell, the

Chairman of the ACT MCC’s motocross sub-committee, about the cancellation of

the event.

Members of the Club’s Executive and MX sub-committee met last night to

discuss the risks of running 2009 Oceania MX Teams’ Championship with

insufficient entries and decided not to proceed.

We needed about 120+ riders for the 5 championship classes and similar

numbers for the 5 support classes to put on a good show for the riders,

supporters, MA, FIM and paying spectators for the 2 days.

Despite a $27,000 prize pool on offer, with $2000 for a Pro Class win, and

$500 for the winners of the other 7 classes, when entries closed a week ago

we only had @50 entries and not enough expert riders to put together a 10

rider Australian representative team. This was disappointing.

The Kiwi’s had put together a strong 10 rider representative team, including

Darryll King and Hamish Dobbyn, and were working hard to arrange sufficient

bikes for them.

The risks of running the event with insufficient riders are:

* An unacceptable and uncontrollable financial risk for the Club. The

budgeted costs for running the event were in excess of $100,000. We were

relying on promoting high profile riders to the paying spectators to pay for

the show; the spectators were relying on us to put on a good show, and we

were relying on the riders for the good show.

* A risk to the Oceania’s reputation as a high profile international

country of origin event, featuring Australia’s best MX riders versus NZ’s

best.

* A risk that a scaled down event with insufficient competition would

result in dissatisfied riders, supporters, sponsors and paying spectators.

The likely consequences are that a couple of thousand MX fans would each

tell up to 10 friends and this would affect numbers for future events at

Fairbairn Park.

The risks of not running the event are:

* Disappointing the riders who had entered; the NZ Team and Officials,

the MA and FIM Officials, the ACT Government, our Club members, and the

reliable hardworking active volunteers of the organising committee.

* A risk of financial penalties/losses for cancelled travel,

accommodation, transport and outsourced services.

There may be many reasons why entries were far less than expected, despite

our enthusiasm to host a great event.

During the last couple of weeks Margaret Davenport, the Oceania MX Race

Secretary, John Tisdale, an MA Motocross Commissioner, and Kevin Williams,

Promoter of the MX Nationals, worked really hard for us to get more entries.

They called up lots of favours and asked the Pro Teams and riders to get

behind the Club and their country.

We are not making excuses for the lack of entries, but in the last couple of

weeks we have learned that there were factors beyond our control that were

affecting entries.

Lessons learned;

* Tighter Pro Team budgets. Teams have targeted those events with the

highest profile; MX Nationals and SuperX. Their riders are contracted to

enter particular events, and rely on bonus payments to boost their base

salaries and earnings from prize money. They were not contracted to ride

this event.

* Unlike Intermediate A&B Class and Clubman Class riders, Pro and

Expert rider’s treat riding as a business. If there is an opportunity to

earn more from Coaching etc on the same weekend, their choice is easy.

* We moved the event forward from the original dates 12/13 Sept,

closer to the end of the MX Nationals season, and further away from the

start of the SX season. We also had to avoid clashes with 2 other major

spectator events in Canberra, the 2009 World Mountain Bike Championships and

Floriade, plus the current sitting of the Australian Parliament, all of

which take up all available accommodation in Canberra.

* The MX Nationals series finished earlier this month. The top Under

19’s from the MX Nationals represented Australia at the World Junior MX

Championships in New Zealand last weekend. The Pro and Expert riders have

already changed their bike setup, mindset and training program from MX to SX

for the upcoming SuperX series.

* Team managers focused on winning the Australian SuperX series may be

unwilling to risk their riders competing in a lower profile event.

* There are rounds of at least 3 other MX events in Southern NSW and

Victoria that have drawn potential A, B, Clubman, Women and top level junior

riders from this event.

Last night we had to accept the fact that a total of about 80 entries for the 10

classes was not going to cut it.

We have always put on a good show for riders, spectators and sponsors, and

have promoted or hosted many successful events with lots of riders;

* 530 at the 2006 Australian Junior MX Championships;

* 60 plus at our 2008/2009 Dirt Track Club Championship events

* 130 at the 2008 Australian Classic Dirt Track Championships;

* 100+ to the 2009 Kings and Queens and Canberra Cup Dirt Track

events;

* A 40% increase for our 2008 MX Club Championship events

* 216 to Round 1 of our 2009 MX Club Championship;

* 5100 spectators to Round 2 of the 2009 MX Nationals;

* 185 to Round 3 of our 2009 MX Club Championship; and

* 135 Pros, Expert, Clubman and Juniors to the Yamaha MX Cup last month.

We don’t want to run a fizzer, so we bit the bullet and will move on.

No doubt we will all hear from the non participating armchair experts who

will blame one or all of us, but that’s life.

I would rather be condemned for being part of a team that has had a go, than

being a critic who’s never had a go.

Regards,

Allan McNeice

President,

ACT Motor Cycle Club

Photo by Andy McGechan, www.BikesportNZ.com