Theres a lot of stuff on facebook and twitter about trying to get some races in england and even an isle of wight TT has been mentioned.
Racing is good for tourism as the Irish and IOM know well so its not a bad thing for a council to boost their areas tourism or in an unknown place they could create some,so the approaching the council bit might not be too difficult
Safety wise, you can make a road course a lot safer nowdays with the new technology in air fencing if needed, dependant on course length you could possibly run with the same ammount of Ambulances that you would use for a circuit event, then there is the marshalling to cater for, again depends on course length and then the insurance, but from what I gather from race entry fee's insurance per competitor isnt that high, I dont know the exact percantage but would guess 60-75% of an entry fee is for circuit hire?
One problem with club racing is the high cost of circuit hire, presumably you could run a closed roads event for not a lot more than hiring a circuit for a weekend at worst, but you would be more likely to get the event sponsored; Monster energy sponsored the TT for example, the energy drinks companies are tied in to motorsport in a lot of different disciplines.
There could be a way to tie the event in with other events so that the overall results from each of the different circuits counted to an overall championship ?
Anyways... just some thoughts of mine, I'm prepared for the flack
Hmmmm! Like the idea of a race around some of the roads on the Isle of Wight, a place that I know quite well Unfortunately I can never see it happening due to the NIMBY lobby, environmentalists, etc - plus of course such an event would probably never cover the whole cost with sponsorship especially in these straitened times
How about Canvey Island instead
It is true about the sidecar family - you can stop racing but you can never, ever leave!
There are certain places where it is possible, but it's certainly not a cheap option.
Back in 2004 when I owned MRO Ltd, we planned a Supermoto event at New Brighton Promenade as a pre-cursor to reintroducing Road Racing there after an absence of 3 years. This was part of a larger plan to open up more public venues to this kind of activity across a range of venues (including my personal ambition of reintroducing racing at Crystal Palace).
It was all going according to plan, albeit with a load of utterly pointless paper juggling going on with HSE, until a 'sight-impaired' rider was given a licence to compete at Blackpool sprint, where he subsequently had an accident and was fatally injured (well who could have thought that?).
Now being a neighbouring council, the local Environmental health woman (I think she was a woman, it was difficult to tell and I certainly wasn't going to volunteer for the definitive investigation on that one!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) went completely mental and told us we had to start the whole process again 'in the light of recent developments'...
Despite my assurances that I wasn't about to let Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles ride their bikes at New Brighton, she wanted the whole 3 month process restarted and I lost my patience. Apparantly it was quite amusing for bystanders, as she seemed to take offence at my quite colourful objection to having to make a safety plan to cover the eventuality of the Mersey Ferry hitting the promenade wall whilst racing was in progress....... (seriously). You see the sea wall is only 3 feet high on the land side and European legislation says it has to be 1 metre high.
I objected on the grounds that it wasn't my sea wall, it was hers.
She countered that she wasn't encouraging people to visit the site, but my event was.
I countered that, yes indeed she was encouraging people to visit, as the local council had brown signs for miles around pointing to "New Brighton Promenade Attractions".
She said they weren't her signs, they belonged to the Highways Agency.
I asked if was compulsory to be a kill joy Lesbian in order to get a job in HSE...... and that's when the fight started.
Anyway, the costs involved are more complex than you would believe. Things that we take for granted at expensive permanent circuits, have to be bought or hired in:-
Paddock PA, Public PA, Toilets, Showers, Track Protection, Road Signage, Spectator fencing, paddock security (not that I'm saying anything here, but New Brighton is 10 minutes from Liverpool...), overnight circuit security, temporary control buildings, extra insurance, 120 Fire Extinguishers, temporary fire certificates, temporary medical centre, etc etc
All of that added up to around £16,000 back then and we hadn't even got round to marshalling the course yet. So it's not a cheap option if you want to do it properly. It is still attractive from a freedom of the sport point of view, but it needs a team of people with enormous patience to get through all the various hoops first.
Interestingly, Mallory Park are looking into doing a combined Race of the Year, Post TT and Festival of 1000 Bikes over 10 days next year, which could include some stages of the Rally of the Midlands which also has a special stage in Hinckley town centre. Now a Wednesday and Thursday evening motorcycle race there just might be possible.
Aberdare Park works solely because it is an area that can be sealed and you can gain revenue from public admissions. Plus being in a municiple park, it also has public facilities already installed. Same thing with Olivers Mount.
One can only admire your patience and ambition Dave
Now Crystal Palace that is ambitious I for one would love to see it happen as the Palace has always been one of my favourite circuits as a spectator, marshal and passenger. Granted it could be a tad unforgiving if one left the black stuff but it was always a challenging circuit.
Now if racing could be restored there to include the original Glade loop ...
It is true about the sidecar family - you can stop racing but you can never, ever leave!
Ah Crystal Palace, I raced there mid 60`s even got a mention in the South East London and Kentish Mercury,the event was sponsored by the was it the GLC or the old LCC the entry fee was ridiculous no more than 30 bob,whats the matter with all the old Military stuff we`ve got Blandford up the road how famous
(is) was that, England is damned with Health and Safety, Nimby`s killjoys,,now France is littered with old circuits,on the road from Le Havre to Paris you go over the old circuit at Rouen.
well there you go, I thought I might get a good answer!
All bases covered there, I suppose the other thing is that it could be a potential washout too, the nw200 has had problems for the last 3 years, a lot of investment could go to waste.
I suppose the other way to do it is to get the council to realise a lot of tourism could be brought in and then the councils and tourism board pay a club to run it
Firstly, apologies to any "Ladies in comfortable shoes", no offence was intended but the 'woman' concerned was horrible. If there are any nice looking ladies of that persuasion reading, I'm quite happy to come to a party at your house to show that I'm most certainly not anti..... (hope Bernie doesn't read that, or I'm dead).
I did get quite a long way with Crystal Palace too and in truth it was me that chickened out. I wanted to run the Glade section and use the terrace area as a start/finish with a new loop across from the stadium end of the Glade across the grassed area to join up with the infield road. The council there weren't interested in contributing financially, but they were willing to let me do the work if I could find the funding. Patrick ??? was the bloke in charge back then.
At the time I needed just over £130,000 to do the tarmac and purchase all the safety equipment needed (which included refurbishing the old St Johns building up by the car park). Now that is a lot of money today and back then it was even more, but if I had invested it I could have expected a 10 year deal with the park to share any gate income and trade fees. I would however still have had to pay £11,000 per day to the council to rent the ground. This made it something that I needed to consider as a long term deal as it meant I would be out of pocket from year 1 to year 7 and only end up the 10 year period with a theoretical surplus of about £15,000 (which wouldn't even service the interest on the loan). I still wanted to do it though and went through the process of working out what a track licence would require and what kind of machinery I would be able to cater for.
Supermoto wasn't a huge problem, as I figured the ACU would let me run 20 bikes on a grid, but the Road Race categories were looking tough to get more than 10 allowed to start and only sub-600cc multi cylinder machines (and no sidecars). At the time I didn't think that market would be appealing enough to either the competitors or the general public, so I dropped it as I had other ongoing battles with the ACU at the time that needed my full attention. I went back to it in 2008, but the new council didn't even have a record of my original plan and weren't particularly keen on it as they had in the intervening period established an annual car sprint that brought them in the publicity and income they wanted.
Having since done Aberdare Park, my thoughts are that it is possible with the right backing and that it could be a fantastic event if marketed in the same way as the Goodwood Revival using predominantly period machines up to circa 1972 vintage. I attach my write up from Aberdare Park last year, which I did for Bikesport News the day after the event, which to my surprise on the Saturday morning, I ended up running for Derek at the Aberaman club. (Don't trust him if he ever says "Just come down for a look, we don't expect you to do much" .... I actually thoroughly enjoyed it)
So if you really want it, I think the opportunity is there if you have the time, money and determination........ "The Crystal Palace pageant of power" ???
One thing that you may have overlooked Dave, although I doubt it,is the original reason for cessation of racing at the Palace that of 'noise pollution' occasioned by some legal bod having purchased a property backing into the Glade. Would that be a problem there today?
It is true about the sidecar family - you can stop racing but you can never, ever leave!
Noise isn't an issue provided you remain within the 12/24 day rules at any venue. Crystal Palace can make unlimited noise for 12 days each year, the racing finished because it was more profitable to use those 12 days to hold pop concerts than race meetings.
There was a fantastic motorcycle hill climb held every year untill recently at Saltburn north yorks, on closed public roads near the seafront, it would also have made a great race circuit. Anyone know why it has been discontinued ? The local council must have had a roads closing order as it was not in a sealed area.
The photos are all copyrighted to Mike Lambert at Gridshots, but he is fine with anything that promotes the event. If you look through that whole gallery, you'll see about half of the course I proposed using and you'll probably be able to see why I had a budget for 9,200 straw bales in my original plan in addition to 240 meters of recticel.
If anyone has a tame contact at the London Mayors office, that's the place to start.
Unfortunately I can never see it happening due to the NIMBY lobby, environmentalists, etc - plus of course such an event would probably never cover the whole cost with sponsorship especially in these straitened times 
I for one would love to see it happen as the Palace has always been one of my favourite circuits as a spectator, marshal and passenger. Granted it could be a tad unforgiving if one left the black stuff 
but it was always a challenging circuit.
