Posts
1557
Joined
12/13/2007
Location
Freetown, MA
US
Edited Date/Time
4/9/2015 9:33pm
Interesting to listen to KDub, Emig and Matthes talk about the sport on the PulpMX Show. KDub was concerned about the two recent youth deaths, and seems to be passionate about pushing for change. The discussion was mostly about the exponential growth in horsepower from 250 two strokes to where the 450's are today, and the gap between the Superminis and 250Fs. There was little discussion about track issues. Mature conversation is worth a listen to.
- Need to collect data from Pro and AM races
* How do we collect data? What data do we collect?
In my opinion need to explore four aspects of racing:
* Bikes
* Gear
* Tracks
* Safety
* Types of Injuries
Need to be proactive before 1) feds step in and 2) decrease of AM interest (feeder system of sport)
- Explore best practice from other sports (example NFL has concussion spotters in stands
- Committee. In my opinion, you have a mix from (2) each current riders, past riders, promoters, and manufacturers.
- Its not only death we need to be concerned with but also long term injury affects (concussions).
- Its best to be proactive. The two greatest assets in our sport are pro riders and AM riders.
- Its important not to point fingers. The purpose to is to expand the long term health of Motocross.
- In my opinion, this biggest threat to motocross. When you have ex and present motocrossers (like football) state they would not let their kid race, its a big problem in our sport.
- Many solutions and ideas. Its important to be proactive.
The Shop
Slower driving is safer.
Slower skiing is safer.
Slower boating is safer.
Slower running is safer.
Slower rollerblading is safer.
Slower flying IS NOT safer.
I'm going to contact some statisticians tomorrow.
Anyway we were talking today and I brought up the issue of young kids dying on a pretty regular basis in what is my favorite hobby. He rattled on for hours and honestly most of it went over my head but I did take in a couple of things from our discussion.
First of all he had no idea children were out racing like they do. I pulled up a couple of videos on my ipad and he was amazed at these small kids flying through the air on their bikes and he was not surprised there are fatalities. He told me due to a child's body, and mainly his brain/skull area, That there is no way it can take the trauma that a fully mature adult body could withstand. He threw out the age of 23 for skull maturity, I have no idea. He also told me what I have thought all along, and that is one day there will be a parent that will bring this into the courts when they lose a child and once that happens it's going to be over. I asked him what he meant by that and he said the liabilty cost will be so high and the fear of multi million dollar judgements will have the tracks shut down.
It will be interesting to see if any changes will be made in the sport if this trend continues. I'm not concerned with the pros, they know the risk. it's the kids that I hate hearing about and I'm not too sure they understand the consequences
This is why W.A has no doubles
If we purposely limit the type and size of obstacles on amateur tracks, what happens when those amateurs get to the Pro ranks? You risk even more devastation than we've seen.
Your example is the perfect example of public policy intended to protect, when it actually makes people more vulnerable.
I bought my son a PW50. He is turning 5 in a couple weeks. He's ridden it with training wheels, just to get the feel of the throttle and brakes, etc.. But I have to admit that the thought of him racing scares me. I love motocross and have my whole life, but I only started riding about 7 or 8 years ago. I've crashed enough to know how bad even the smallest crashes hurt, and although I have yet to break anything, most people I've ridden with have. The fact that this is a sport of "not if but when" pertaining to injuries makes me think long and hard about how far I would want my son to try to go in the sport.
I also struggle with the price of the latest and greatest gear. I know R&D dollars are high and materials of the best products are top tier, but I hope that companies like 6D will eventually drop prices if they truly believe that their products are the safest and best. The average parent is not going to spend $800 on a helmet for a kid. It's unreasonable and most moto parents can't afford it. I cringe when I see a kid on a track in jeans and a cheap helmet with no goggles and work boots. You see it all the time. But most of us are in between that and $800 helmets and carbon fiber knee braces. But the fast kids dying due to crashes are wearing good stuff. I hate to think of the sport slowing down, but I also agree that a 450cc motocross bike is simply too much bike for the average rider. I'm average at best, and my YZ450 is certainly more bike than I would ever need or use. Lifting the ridiculous rules on 2 strokes at the pro level may help. I don't know. But bikes are not getting any slower and premier tracks are not either. A kid that wants to be pro must be able to get around a track right on the edge of his abilities lap after lap and that's getting more and more scary.
Out in the desert especially. Or Caineville Utah. Places like that.
What I think though is those kids were super skilled top riders, not a joe blow thats ridden for 2 months.
4 strokes give a false sense of ability. The amount of people in the desert or hills today hucking insane distances is crazy. And no ones ever heard of these guys because they dont and probably never will race.
And plenty get hauled away in life flight.
It easy to crack wise jokes and belittle this topic..... NEEDS to be addressed. Ask the NFL which will stand for Not For Long had they not addressed its injury issues.
Pit Row
If football is to survive there will have to be fundamental changes to the sport as I heard Troy Aikeman's agent said who really is responsible for putting the focus on concussions in the NFL. With the way things with course design have progressed to a harsh and unforgiving Rollerball level (classic 1973 James Caan film) where death and serious injury is a regular part of the experience strike people that aren't mainlining MX 24/7 think our sport is insane.
The way accidents still happen at tracks around the US with riders hitting head on, the video of the idiot IMHO hucking a 200 foot jump during an active practice session not being widely condemned, the racing is dangerous mentality that avoids looking at ways of reducing injuries I have to agree is insane.
Just the fact that upper body protection (not neck braces) is not a required piece of safety equipment shows me how ripe we are for the scenario another poster referenced with the surgeon's talk of insurance regulations killing the sport. We can't even get our of own way so how do you think this will all play out? Until K Dub stepping up I was not optimistic.
God bless you Kevin Windham. Hey K Dub check out Mike Kidd's Scramblecross series. This throwback idea is a way to get people back racing who have parked their machines out of fear of catastrophic injury. Everything goes in cycles. Four strokes two strokes back to four strokes.
We started off with MX courses that were rougher than scramble tracks and I am looking forward to a resurgence of these types of tracks. When one can let go of "why should we have to do this" objections and realize if we don't do it on our own the by product could be the death of our sport then this detuning the tracks idea is much easier to swallow.
They would always have some weird spaced out singles that would be worse when the faster, more confident guys would try to get over them.
Usually the Tabletops have the worst faces on them here too... Not to mention we are not allowed to train at any of the tracks/clubs around here during the week, and generally only on Sundays in the same format as a race day which consists of 3 or 4, 10 minute sessions.
In the recent days/weeks it seems our sport has seen some of its darkest days (it ebbs and flows). First my biggest sympathies and condolences to all the families.
As emotion does it has raised a lot of "fiery" and "fierce" opinions (just read through the first few pages of topics). What has happen is more of a debate (fight) about who's "tuff" enough to participate in this sport. I have seen very few with thought out suggestions, until this thread (which is what prompt me to post). While I agree with many, that it is no mystery this sport is dangerous and poses some sort of risk and all participants child, adult, parent assume a certain responsibility for this risk. That said knowing and accepting that something is dangerous doesn't not mean we as an entire community (not one high profile individual) should not always attempt to find a safer way. Its sad that it takes the tragedies we have seen to spawn this serious of a conversation but that is often the norm, but this conversation should be ever continuous. I think that if we are willing to assume the responsibility/risk of the sport we too should be willing to assume the responsibility to continuously improve it as well. I think that if all minds came together we could accomplish this without compromising the "integrity" (always a hot word in these types of discussions) of the sport.
bd and Jeff were off to a great start - While its the most difficult and most likely to go unchanged, first and foremost it must start with proper education from the start (whenever that maybe) as to what the bikes capabilities are and what the riders are (not implying anything in regard to the recent tragedies but we all know those guys at the track that ride more to the bikes ability than their own). There seems to be a general gap in pertinent data and information, the second step needs to be some sort of data collection. The third part is to address the actual problem. People calling to change the pro classes should re-evaluate, the issues at hand have seemed to be greatly concentrated in the amateur ranks. Many questions then are raised, is it improper safety gear, the incorrect amount of safety gear, Bike size/HP, rider size/ability (how do we quantify it). I have contested since the introduction of the 250f's that the jump from 80-85cc to 250f is to big for most size and ability (likewise the same could be said of the 65 to 150r jump) but that is just my opinion, is it really and issue?. How if any has track building changed, or contributed to serious injury?
A handful of years ago the sports biggest concern for many years was spinal injuries - a "solution" was presented in the form of neck braces. That rapidly fell out of favor in the pro ranks (comparative to the number of riders that did wear them vs. didn't, and the amount of riders that have gone back to not wearing them) mainly because of the lack of solid quantifiable data to give facts rather than opinion. I truly feel there should be more research into the "its intended to break the collarbone, rather than the neck" argument. Why? Personal perspective, like many I have been exposed to my own "information" that's given preconceived notions. I knew a kid that died wearing a neck brace and the final conclusion was that the collarbone was broken as intended, but broke it so severe that it severed an artery and he bled out internally before anyone knew anything was wrong. Again an isolated case with very limited information. Comparisons to knee braces are wrong on many fronts as there was a much larger baseline of true medical research and data readily available long before they became the norm within this sport, as not many knee injuries are particularly unique to moto aside from possibly impact, the data transferred over very nicely to our sport. Conversely our neck strains, impacts, and contortions seem to be proving to be quite unique, especially when comparing them to Hans devices in auto sports and "cowboy" collars in football.
I think the progression of both Amateur and Professional motocross/supercross has been amazing, from the spectator standpoint the professional level tracks seem to get better and better. I love both 2 stroke and 4 strokes. I don't believe we will see (soon) the 2 stroke revolution, nor do I think that will solve all the issues we face. As a matter of fact I don't believe there is one answer or change, it will be a cumulative of many small tweaks once the proper information is obtained. While I accept for me, my children, and any other friend or family member, the risks within reason for my personal taste, (and will continue to participate even if nothing changes) I refuse to believe it can't be safer without affecting the "integrity" of the sport we have all grown to love. I also feel for this type of change it must be a grassroots movement that starts in the amateur ranks, both because that's where the problem is concentrated, and at the end of the day the professionals are just that professionals, and they makes choices from a very different perspective than the vast majority of riders and racers, even the amateurs chasing and fulfilling their professional dreams. So at the risk of a Vital which burning lets stop arguing about who's tuff who's not, and start making some real progress.
My understanding is that it's been fairly successful.
Someone will kill themselves at Frankston if something Isn't done. That's a ride park. Huge Table tops, doubles etc. Pro's riding with Jnr's etc
As I mentioned in another thread. I have a young mate wanting me to go video him doing a 120 foot gap this weekend. That's a sanctioned track also.
Seriously tempting fait IMO.
WA is doing a top job of being motorcycle friendly and supporting the sport. There's some good things happening over there.
1. We would find out what the hell is going on.
2. So would the people who would love to shut us down.
I can tell you this. If promoters had to pay insurance premiums based on their injury rates things would change in a nano-second.
Tracks are too big, too fast, and riders are on machines which are "easier to ride" and "turn faster". All cool things if your 15 and looking to be the next hero. If you are 57 with two kids that like to be the next hero's not so much. Thankfully they chose to ride woods and not follow dad racing mx.
What I have seen specially today. Rider on rider injuries are the ones that really increase the likelyhood of serious injury. In Sx style racing you have to committ to a section, an obstacle directly behind another rider, assuming that rider is going to clear / keep the right speed. Not a problem on the ground in a corner as much as 15' in the air at 30mph landing into another take off.
NO C rider should be on a 450. Sorry if you are in C class, you need to earn the right to race a 450. Didn't the OEM's blow smoke up our ass to tell us 500cc machines were to hard to handle, to much motorcycle? (in realality it was because they didn't need enough parts) but today a 450 machine is fine?
Kids shouldn't be running 50 mph clearing 100' anything?
Back in the day when did you EVER hear of 50cc riders breaking femurs? Today?
Love the sport and make a living strictly by owning a riding park and stadium mx race series. But things need to change and I don't think forcing a rider to wear more gear will help. Sorry but another seat belt won't change a neon hitting a semi.
and by the way. when will promoters / clubs understand that riders need 'escape' room specially tight tracks around light poles/ trees etc. pad the crap out of that stuff.
Start straights that are 4th geat tapped need to be shorted (which i hate since i like a long start) but this could help. and NO tractor tires or big equipment tires ANY where near the track unless you are at a endurocross. that crash that mag guy had should be all the proof we need to never see those as corner markers.
who ever said it in here is right, we need to fix these issues or it will be handled for us. Then we will sit there and wonder where our sport went too.
People bitch about the bikes and jumps and blah blah blah but people would still get killed if everyone were riding 125's on a flat track with natural rolling hills. Some guy would high side and slam his head into the ground and be dead. Then what will everyone blame. This sport is not and will never be very safe at all. If you want safe there are plenty of other sporting options, or just go ride slowly through the hills. The minute you put a wheel on a MX track you are throwing caution to the wind.....ESP once you start racing and pushing your abilities on a reg basis.
250's and 450's aren't going anywhere. I'd love to see the sport go back to 125 and 250 two strokes but it isn't happening. I've broken more bones and had more concussions on 125's than I did on 250's, 250f's and 450's anyway. Most of it was youth and pushing myself beyond my abilities.
The best answer is in superior safety equipment and personal responsibility. Esp the parents. If you are one of the mini dads out there screaming down your kids throat to simply "go faster!" you are putting him in a dangerous mindset.
Post a reply to: KDub..."450's have to go".