NEXT YEAR'S South African round of the World Superbike
Championship is under threat due to a mismanagement of funds and
circuit safety, despite promoters paying over £35million to host the
world-class event.
Following an investigation by the country's
award-winning news channel 'Carte Blanche', one of South Africa's top
motorsports officials and a noted sports promoter have both disclosed
the world-clas motorcycle
event is in turmoil, even though it's still scheduled to go ahead on
May 16th 2010, according to next year's official WSBK calendar.
Carte
Blanche News Channel reports that Selwyn Nathan, CEO of sports
promoters 'Knightsbridge' was paid over R55-million (£4million) to
secure a selection of high-end motorsports events for the country -
including the WSB races at Kyalami.
Nathan explains how he
sealed the WSB deal: "...we saw the Flamminis ...(the brothers that own
the Superbike series). And then the game was on, the game was on. The
decision... the negotiations went on for a few weeks or a month and we
pulled and pushed, negotiated and did everything we can to get the best
deal..."
Nathan goes on to explain he negotiated to pay
R444-million to host the Superbikes and Superstars (V8 car racing
series) at Kyalami. That's over £35million of South Africa's taxpayers'
money.
On the back of Nathan's admission, Carte Blanche
interviewed the sport's regulatory body, Motorsport South Africa. Their
Chairman, Roger Pearce, explained WSB won't be returning to Kyalami
until major revisions to the circuit have been made. The track is
scheduled to run next year's WSB races on 16th May.
Pearce: "The
A1 and the Superbike can't come back here again until more money is
spent on the circuit. There were some changes made to it which weren't
completed and we were lucky to have them here, but they cannot come
back again until we've fixed a few corners at Kyalami."
Kyalami,my old favorite SA racing track for cars and bikes.This era came to a dead stop when Peter Revson tragically died following a fatal head injury in the early 70's due to a young over eager track martial and his fire extinguisher,sadly corruption and bribery has become the real deal over there in recent years..they do still have the track in Welkom where a WSB meeting was held a few years back and another in Pretoria called Zwartkops which is regularly used for local meetings. Kyalami is used today mostly by auto manufacturers and car mag's for test drives,econo drives and photo shoots...the north eastern side of the track is a highly populated business centre and close to the south western side is a large off road track for 4x4 quads and dirt bikes .I loved the old Kyalami track atmosphere it was great! btw last year in May the WSB races were still held there the weekend i left SA.
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