A road race once considered one of the Island's most popular appears on the brink of extinction.

Tomorrow's Corporate Road Relay, which during the 1980s and `90s attracted up to 80 four-person teams, will go ahead - but most likely with less than a dozen teams.

As of mid-day yesterday, just eight teams had entered with the organising Bermuda Track and Field Association hoping there would be a rush of late entries. The regular deadline expired at 5.00 p.m. on Wednesday.

Sunday's event clashes with the Bank of Bermuda Individual Triathlon on Front Street although that isn't believed to be the major reason for the decline in interest.

Pat Lake who is helping coordinate the event in the absence of original race director Roger Lambert, who left this week to accompany top runner Kavin Smith at tomorrow's World Half Marathon Championships in Bristol, England, confirmed that the relay would be held regardless of the turn-out.

"It's too late to do anything else at this stage," said Lake. "We'll just go with what we've got. We've been running the entry forms in the paper for some time, I've no idea why so few teams have entered."

Of the eight teams registered, two are from Ace Insurance and the remainder from Olympia Capital, Cambridge Beaches, Bank of Bermuda, Capital G, Bermuda Press and Bermuda Government, the latter a mixed team including top runners Tracy Wright and Anna Eatherley.

The relay, in which four runners compete over a two and a half mile, three and a half mile, four and a half mile and five and a half mile leg, is scheduled to start from the National Sports Centre at 9.00 a.m.

Prizes are on offer for the fastest runners on each individual leg as well as for the top overall team and first exempt company, local company, public service, male, female and mixed teams.