What started as a war of words between now-defunct Tamworth speedway operator Wide Open Promotions and Racing Sedans Australia has escalated to now involve Gunnedah Speedway.
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Gunnedah Speedway has entered the fray by barring RSA drivers from using its track.
In a Facebook post in the wake of the Leader revealing on Thursday that Wide Open Promotions had shut its doors after Greta-based RSA barred its drivers from using Oakburn Park, Gunnedah Speedway promoter Barry Towers said "promoters can not [sic] be threatened".
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"What happened at Tamworth is the same that happened to Gunnedah last year," he said.
Towers said he had suspended "all RSA divisions that compete at Gunnedah until further notice".
When contacted by the Leader on Friday, Towers initially only said that "until we sort the mess out" RSA drivers were barred from the track.
But when the Leader informed him that RSA president Adam Parker had claimed that he was difficult to work with, as Parker had claimed Wide Open Promotions was too, Towers said he had worked "successfully' with RSA for 15 years.
"The current [RSA] committee are difficult to work with," he added. "And Adam [Parker] made a decision last year to stop RSA cars running at Gunnedah, as he did with Tamworth."
Towers said "the track will miss the RSA divisions, but the losers will be the sport, the local clubs and the public in general".
Parker said speedway in Tamworth would "go ahead in leaps and bounds" after he spoke with the Oakburn Park operator, the Tamworth Motorcycle Club, and Speedway Australia.
He "guaranteed" that there would be speedway in Tamworth this season.
"And unfortunately for Barry, if that's the way he wants to play the game, it's not far from Gunnedah to Tamworth - and those [RSA] cars are gonna be welcome at Tamworth," he said.
"Again, I've attempted from day one, when I got the job [last year], to work with Barry Towers. And, unfortunately, he's been reluctant to work with us ... he wants to run everything his own way instead of working together."
Parker said RSA was a "fairly sizable" organisation "with a lot of cars on the books".
On Wednesday night, Daniel Gesell - who founded Wide Open Promotions with his father, Darren, and elder brother, Trevor - had a heated phone conversion and subsequent text message exchange with Parker, in which Parker threatened to deregister RSA-affiliated drivers who competed at Oakburn Park.
In a Facebook post on Thursday, the Gesells said "after events last night and being threatened by the President of RSA to cancel [the] registration of any and all RSA cars that attend our track ... we are pulling away from RSA and anything to do with them at this point in time".
In response, Parker said he gave the Gesells a chance to work productively with RSA and when that failed, he was left with no option but to threaten to deregister drivers.
