Indycars for Rockingham farewell

ROCKINGHAM

The British Racing and Sports Car Club may reduce the number of meetings it runs next year following the demise of Rockingham.

The BRSCC is one of four organising clubs to have race meetings at the Northamptonshire venue this year.

The British Automobile and Racing Club is the other club to have multiple meetings at Rockingham, but has the benefit of operating its own circuits, such as Thruxton and Croft, where it controls the calendars.

The BRSCC doesn’t operate any tracks and so relies on the availability of circuits owned by other organisations. BRSCC competitions secretary Dominic Ostrowski admits losing Rockingham is a blow for clubs.

“It’s a problem, really,” he said. “If we can run a couple less meetings and still offer all of our championships what they need, then we would do that and not run some of the less profitable meetings.

“But it [the loss of Rockingham] might help the likes of Mallory Park, Croft and Pembrey. We haven’t run a meeting at Pembrey for many years and that is something we might look at now.”

The BARC has the most Rockingham club dates in 2018 with six, and the club’s general manager Ian Watson says it will be a challenge to try and rehouse them.

“It’s very sad to see it go,” he said. “We were fortunate enough to be involved from the very first day as we helped to organise the first meeting.

“We have quite a few meetings there and will hopefully try and pick up a few extra dates at other venues.”