The future's bright
By TMX Archives on 4th Jun 04
THE FUTURE of the British GP looks assured after the '04 event on the Isle of Wight went down a storm over the Spring Bank Holiday.An amazing 32,000 fans turned up over the weekend to enjoy Britain's first taste of world championship THE FUTURE of the British GP looks assured after the '04 event on the Isle of Wight went down a storm over the Spring Bank Holiday.An amazing 32,000 fans turned up over the weekend to enjoy Britain's first taste of world championship MX for four years and the event - organised by RTT Racing - set a new benchmark in GP organisation.GP promoter Youthstream's president Giuseppe Luongo certainly liked what he saw. "We saw this weekend what we'd like to see at every grand prix," said Giuseppe, "with a really nice and modern track, a good organisation, strong facilities for everybody and many fans who enjoyed their weekend."Our goal is to have 16 events worldwide at this level of organisation and we proved today that we are going in the right direction."It was not easy to find a strong British promoter but since we made the deal with the RTT staff I was expecting a great event as this team is really professional."We managed to catch-up with bleary-eyed RTT chief Rob Bradley on the Sunday evening. Tired but happy, he had the look of a man who'd taken a huge gamble but backed a winner."The crowd numbers have exceeded our expectations - 9,000 on Saturday and 23,000 on Sunday," reckoned Rob. "It's been fantastic. The crowd, the weather, the racing. We could have just done with seeing a number one British racer. As far as I'm concerned and Youthstream are concerned we'll be running the GP next year as well."We've had a few problems. You spend 90 per cent of your time looking after two per cent of the people - the fools who always seem to come - and the other 10 per cent looking after the genuine motocross fans."