New Castle Motorsports Park Cancels RoboPong 200
With great disappointment, New Castle Motorsports Park must announce the cancellation of the 2016 RoboPong 200. Despite a large social media campaign to help secure enough entries to put on a successful event the amount of entries received over the last couple weeks was unfortunately not enough. NCMP has every intention of bringing the Robopong 200 and support races back, bigger and better, in 2017.
Just a few seasons ago the RoboPong 200 easily fit on most karters calendars with no races within 2-3 weeks of the race. It was a great way to end the season for many racers with a fun, unique, stand-alone event. With the current increase in regional and national series, the RoboPong 200 is now surrounded by numerous karting events. With a summer full of races, many back to back to back, we have seen a dramatic drop off in entries as the season has gone on in most series and unfortunately the economics of this situation has also affected the RoboPong 200.
With all this in mind we will be carefully scheduling the RoboPong 200 in 2017 to mitigate this new reality in karting as much as possible. We are also looking for cost reduction measures for the event as well. Our hope is to increase the fun factor and decrease the cost. The RoboPong 200 is possibly the most unique event in US Karting with karting’s top drivers competing alongside some of motorsports biggest stars! We want this tradition to continue but only if we can give the race the true attention and support it deserves.
Thank you to everyone who has entered the race for 2016 and thank you to everyone who tried to help us secure enough entries to hold this year’s race. The karting landscape has changed and the RoboPong 200 has to adapt to these changes. We know the RoboPong 200 can stand on its own in the future and we will do everything we can to put on the best Robopong 200 yet in 2017.