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19th December 2008

The 2009 staging of Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix race meeting, which was scheduled to take place next September and feature rounds of the IRL Indy Car series and the American Le Mans Series, has been cancelled.

IndyCar Series team owner Roger Penske is the chairman of the Downtown Detroit Partnership which organises the event. He told the American magazine Autoweek that the recently announced withdrawal of the factory backed Audi and Porsche teams from the ALMS was an influencing factor in the cancellation decision. He said, "Obviously, it's something we're disappointed in, but as good businessmen we've got to make a call. We have the assets to continue on, but there's no reason at this point to have an event that wouldn't be first-class.

"This is a real economic time of distress for everyone and we couldn't sit here and count on a lot of things happening that we know weren't going to happen, especially knowing we live in such a distressed area with unemployment and all the other things going on. We had to make the decision."

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