The future of the Canadian Superbike championship’s XR1200 Cup is in doubt after news that Deeley Harley-Davidson has pulled their sponsorship of the series.
The series was long suspected to be on shaky legs, as Harley-Davidson has dropped the XR1200 Sportster from their lineup, meaning there were no new production bikes for racers. Now, word has come out that Deeley is ending their sponsorship of the series, almost certainly meaning the end of the series.
The dropped sponsorship means the end of a nine-year partnership between Deeley and CSBK – a partnership that started with the Canadian Thunder series (something CMG had a big hand in developing).
It also means CSBK could be go from two spec series in 2013, to no spec series in 2014. Honda’s been sponsoring the CBR250 series for the last few years, but the future of that series is up in the air after news they’ve announced a CBR300 for global markets. We still don’t have any word as to whether or not they’re going to introduce that bike to Canada, but if they do, it will surely affect the future of that series.
[…] December, when Deeley Harley-Davidson pulled their support of CSBK’s XR1200 series, we wondered what else they were planning. Now we know, with an announcement they plan to sponsor […]