Posts
267
Joined
6/28/2009
Location
Coeur d'Alene, ID, USA
Edited Date/Time
1/27/2012 2:55pm
for the increased number horrible injuries and death?
Number of really bad injuries & deaths have definitely went up over the last decade. We just had a local rider pass away this past weekend @ Airway Heights raceway park.
I don't think you can blame the tracks either, the tracks are changing because of what these 4 strokes are capable and not vice versa.
Face it, it takes a lot less skill to go fast on a 4 stroke than it did on a 2 stroke. This is the bottom line, the chicken and the egg argument with regards to bikes vs tracks. But the bikes becoming this easy to go very fast on have had a real bad impact on this sport and have caused many changes (for the worse) on the tracks.
Number of really bad injuries & deaths have definitely went up over the last decade. We just had a local rider pass away this past weekend @ Airway Heights raceway park.
I don't think you can blame the tracks either, the tracks are changing because of what these 4 strokes are capable and not vice versa.
Face it, it takes a lot less skill to go fast on a 4 stroke than it did on a 2 stroke. This is the bottom line, the chicken and the egg argument with regards to bikes vs tracks. But the bikes becoming this easy to go very fast on have had a real bad impact on this sport and have caused many changes (for the worse) on the tracks.
Also the tracks have changed to meet the demands of four strokes. Since thumpers were clearing jumps that were hard for two strokes to make tracks made jumps bigger. The freestyle craze fed into this too I think.
People always get hurt riding dirt bikes but now tracks have bigger gaps and bikes (four strokes) allow newbs to be able to easily clear those gaps even if they don't have the experience to be able to do it safely.
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Faster bikes, riders are going way faster today then they were 15 years ago, getting into positions where talent runs out and gravity punishes way harder.
Now is it the fourstroke or would we have gotten here without it?
It's not the track. When 1000 riders go over the same terrain without a problem and one comes up short... its not the track.
I don't think it is less skill. If you can crank open a four stroke, you can crank open a two stroke. Maybe it is easier on a thumper, or maybe the thumper showed us how to go faster. Either way It takes skill to go fast on either bike.
Riders are going faster through training and racing. You want to win, you must go faster.
Engine aside, what do you do? Clip the suspension and slow them down?
If you can only ride once a week like me, hitting some of that stuff without more riding time could be a potential job -ender.
Big jumps are sure fun, but for a guy with a job, a family to feed and a mortgage, its not worth the risk, especially when you hear of people getting killed or paralyzed hitting big stuff that they should not be jumping.
I've ridden a KX450f and KX500. The 500 scared the crap out of me. It was loud, vibrated and I could tell I was being propelled at a very high rate of speed. The 450? It was heavy but didn't vibrate, felt like a big couch. So smooth. I didn't realize I was going so fast and the suspension helped minimize any oh-shit moments I would have experienced on the older bikes.
With two strokes most mere mortals were doomed to singles or small doubles because most mortals were unable to keep it on the pipe and keep their momentum up enough to clear stuff, especially doubles out of corners.
Yes suspension improvements have definitely made it easier it go faster too, but the ability to not even need to touch the clutch or even shift the damn bike (hi 450's) has made the 4 stroke extremely easy to go fast on. Too easy perhaps.
Enter the four stroke. Now it's easier to go faster. That 10% that can handle the track just turned into 50% who think they can handle the track. Now that everyone is going faster the track owners had to step it up and make the tracks even weirder. Bigger jumps, bigger gaps, kickers on the takeoff of every blind jump with no flagger in sight.......
And the one thing that really blows me away after all these years, obstacles right along the side of the track. Road racing on a velvety smooth surface has runoff room, sand and gravel traps all over the place. Go to your local motocross track where people are riding at the limit of control and beyond over a constantly changing surface of ruts, sand, loam, mud, hardpack, marbles, rocks, roots, acceleration bumps, braking bumps, potholes continuously developing on the faces of jumps and lo and behold where is the first turn for 40 riders to dive into? Right there at the giant 1200 pound dumptruck tire...poor Swap. Where is the lightpole? It's right there at the edge of that fourth whoop or in between two jump filled high speed straightaways. See the trees? Those are the track markers.....stay between the trees please. Look at the National tracks. They require 10 - 40 feet between the edge of the track and the mesh fencing but put the Rockstar can and tower two feet inside the Acerbis track markers just after exiting a fairly high speed turn. Supercross, let's not forget RC trying to test drive the boat in the middle of the main. And then everyone whines when they hear of someone suing a track owner. Track owners have to realize they are dealing with the general public and a good portion of them are sue happy assclowns and that they are making themselves easy targets.
And it happens to both pros and noobs as well as it happens on different elements on the track. Not just the jumps.
I think the reason is these days we get to hear of every accident all over the world via www social medias.
But there is no doubt this has been a year peaking the stats. Sweden alone has 3 accidents since June 2011 with fatal outcome.
Pit Row
The idea of taking a kid moving up or inexperienced rider and throwing them straight onto a open class two stroke is just plain dumb. Yet putting them onto a 40+ horsepower 250F is seen as the first step towards moving up to something even faster. This is why I lament the loss of the 125's so much (besides the awesome sounds).
My opinion being stated, I think another thing to consider is the amount of people riding nowadays as compared to what it used to be. Obviously, the more people riding, the higher risk there is that someone crashes and gets seriously injured or killed. The ratio of serious injuries or deaths could stay the exact same, but it would seem like a lot more because we would hear about it a lot more often.
Edit: Also, you have to remember that cars also are getting faster, as are dirt bikes. However, they are obviously able to compensate for this by having much improved safety features in case of a crash. There is obviously no way to make a bike better and faster while at the same time making it safer for the rider. NASCAR can do that, as can regular automobile makers and just about any other vehicle beside a machine like a dirt bike that has no enclosure or seat belt. The ONLY thing keeping that rider on the bike is his four limbs.
So the sport was safer on bikes that made it harder to clear such jumps? I guess the jumps really have nothing to do with it? There seems something wrong with the logic that bikes that make it harder to clear the jumps are safer.
I blame the tracks first, and lack of fear on the rider's part second. I think modern day handling and suspension may have as much to do with it as anything else technology-wise. Add in new techniques like scrubbing and wheel-tapping and we see the margin for error become very tiny. Think Canard at Washougal. In the old days guys slowed down some for jumps so as to not get thrown into the air, now they scrub to maintain speed.
How did 4-strokes become responsible for all of the ills of the world?
People like to blame things. Guns kill people, Cars kill people, motorcycles kill people, when in reality it is people.
Some people blame the tracks are becoming more SX, that could have an effect but in the end it is up to you to not ride dangerous tracks.
I don't know how you would be able to correlate the increase in deaths and accidents to just one thing. I would say 4 strokes have very little to do with it. 4 strokes are easier to ride, I crash less. The suspension is better now than it ever has been, so I crash less,
So I think, more bikes, out there, more difficult tracks, more riders out on the track, larger classes, probably have some impact.
So, yes. Faster, heavier four strokes theoretically make injuries more likely.
If that is the question - YES, THOSE BORING 4 STROKE PIECES OF JUNK ARE THE REASON.
It's like watching a roulette game instead of motorcycle racing.... CHAMPIONSHIPS ARE NOW DECIDED BY WHO's BIKE WON'T START, OR WHO'S BIKE CAN'T KEEP RUNNING TILL THE RACE IS OVER....
What a joke...
Makes you miss the real thing.
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