Rockingham drops CART

Britain's Rockingham circuit will not host a CART race next year after confirming that they had agreed with the U.S.-based series to be removed from the 2003 calendar. Rockingham possessed a five year deal to run the event but suffered heavy losses during the first two events.

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"For 2003 at least, CART and Rockingham have jointly agreed to remove the event scheduled for May 3-4 from the championship calendar," Rockingham said in a statement. "The situation will be reviewed later next year regarding a return of the series to Rockingham in the future."

Rockingham chief executive Ashley Pover said Rockingham, which has hosted a round of the championship for the last two years, had decided that the 2003 event would be "fiscally unviable".

"We have currently less than five months to develop new marketing programmes and find sponsors. Frankly we don't have the resources to make that work," he said. "If we were to plan towards a future date, such as mid-season 2004, that would give more time to achieve the targets, which makes a lot more sense."

Sources said Rockingham was paying in the region of $4.0 million to host the CART race while making less than half that from ticket sales. Pover said Rockingham would now concentrate on other activities such as ASCAR, British superbikes and Formula Three.