World Superbike’s wackiest team, Effenbert Liberty, has once again called it quits mid-season.
The CMG faithful will remember last year’s ongoing series of articles featuring Effenbert Liberty’s ups and downs; Canadian racer Brett McCormick saw his season in a constant state of flux with the team, as they skipped rounds and canned racers left and right, then bad-mouthed them.
Surprisingly, WSBK management let them back into the fold this year (they missed the first race), and unsurprisingly, they are leaving the series again, mid-way through the season. There is no word yet on where Mark Aitchison, who was piloting a Ducati 1098 for Liberty, is headed.
Here’s what their press release says:
“The LIBERTY RACING TEAM EFFENBERT thanks Dorna WSBK Organization Srl that allowed to the team to be present at the start to the 2013 season, and try to recover the substantial value of the investment in marketing and promotional activities carried out in the Superbike World Championship from 2008 until today , first in sponsorships and then with direct participation.
Whereas, as noted, the main goal of our team is the use of racing according to the parameters necessary for the promotion of the brand of our main sponsor and our other partners, we have found, on our opinion, some difficulties during these races in pursuing this targets.
Anyway, we believe that the continuation of the adventure of the team in the WSBK 2013 is not of our further interest, as the sponsors and partners have decided to direct the promotional investment in other channels at this time achieve the value economic effort / visibility more appropriate to the volume of investments.
In the next days will be communicated in detail the operational programs. The Team takes this opportunity to thank publicly all those who have shared this adventure and all those who have spoken and written of us, whether good or bad.”
