China contract officially terminated.

Aside from the carnage filled racing at this weekend's Clipsal 500 Adelaide - the first round of the 2006 V8 Supercar Championship - series organisers announced the end of Vee Eight Supercars Australia's contract with the Shanghai International Circuit promoters.

After competing for the first time in Asia in 2005, V8 Supercars foray to the subcontinent appears to have certainly been a one-off, meaning that Todd Kelly's (Holden Racing Team) historic win at last year's round will be left unchallenged for the at least the foreseeable future.

Series Chief Executive Officer Wayne Cattach broke the news to the media at the Clipsal 500 at the opening round of the 2006 championship in Adelaide's east end, and revealed that several issues of debate failed to reach a suitable outcome.

"The main one was a suitable date," Cattach said. "We made a number of suggestions (to Chinese promoters) but none of them were acceptable."

The V8 Supercars Shanghai Round was scheduled to run from June 9-11, but was replaced earlier in the year by Winton Raceway at Benalla in Victoria's central region. The writing was on the wall much earlier than the announcement of Winton's return to the calendar in January however - with teams rumoured to have booked accommodation in surrounding tows as early as before the end of the 2005 championship.

Despite the China loss - as large as that may be - V8 Supercars will debut at Bahrain's Grand Prix Circuit at the end of the year in an international market much better suited to the series, as the regions SS Lumina cars are in fact re-branded Australian Holden Commodores.

The other international round of the championship is the traditional V8 Supercar round in New Zealand at Pukekohe Raceway - which is the second round of the championship.