Diamond Dogs
The IOW Diamond Races have morphed into the Isle Of Wight Road Races, but will they run?
Possible new circuit for the IOW Road Races? The ‘Chale’ circuit runs for approximately 12.4 miles using closed public roads through Chale, Chale Green, Kingston, Shorwell, Limerstone, Brighstone and is connected by a long section of the Military Road via Atherfield.
It seems the Diamond Races are no more and the unconnected Isle of Wight Road Races have sprung up to take their place, but everything still seems to be suspended pending various consultations.
Basically the Diamond Races got the Kybosh partly from the uninvited guest COVID, which stopped everything in its tracks. It seems to have been particularly hard on fledgling events which were in the pipeline and have found it hard to regain a head of steam as things open up again. The Diamond Races slipped away and the chief of the new event, Island resident James Kaye, aims to run the road races and is ‘dedicated to delivering a world class motorcycle road race here on the Island.’
The new proposed race dates are April 20th - 23rd to start off the season rather than the October dates which were previously mooted for the Diamond Races and designed to extend the islands tourist season. Starting midweek, Wednesday to Friday will be for practice and the main race will be on Saturday (Sunday as an alternative if the weather precludes the Saturday – it is April after all so wise to be cautious)
Green Machine
There is strong emphasis on biofuels and the races being a green event, so it will be interesting to see how this manifests itself – perhaps it is the shape of things to come in motorcycle road racing?
On this topic, this is what Kaye had to say:
“The Isle of Wight is an ideal location for us to pioneer the use of carbon-neutral fuels that are less harmful to our environment” and "Our Biosphere status encourages us all to learn new ways in which we can live on our diverse and ecologically important island. The Isle of Wight Road Races will be at the forefront of promoting future energy technology.”
There are plenty of interesting things to see if this event does take place and the promoters are hoping to attract many great racing names. It is certainly easy to get to the Isle of Wight with a short very regular ferry crossing, so it has potential if it can get off the drawing board and onto the roads!
It just seems to be a case of wait and see for now, we will let you know if any news emerges...
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