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Why are new model releases SO damn boring now? One Snore50 looks the same as another to me.
Remember 1981.? That was a freaking model year. Yes, I'm old.
I was telling her as a kid, that I would wait in great anticipation each year for the 6-7 month gap between the actual June race date of the USGP at Carlsbad and its eventual showing on Wide World Of Sports the following winter.
Of course I already knew who won, because I read about a couple months later in Motocross Action, usually in the September or October issue!
I also remember with the advent of the VCR, that I could record the race and relive it lap by lap for the next several months until the VCR tape finally snapped from the constant strain of stopping and rewinding the tape to check out sticker placement on Magoo's Honda fender, or the cool flame paintjob on Lackey's helmet before anyone even really styled a custom painted helmet of any sort.
Finally a couple years later, I wised up and got a subscription to Cycle News, where by the time it arrived to my door on the East Coast I was only a couple weeks behind. At the track, this made me feel like an "insider" with all the latest moto news.
By the early 90's, I could go out for a date on Saturday night, drop her off, and still catch the 1 or 2 am airing of the PREVIOUS week's Supercross race on ESPN. Of course you'd be upset if the rodeo coverage bumped that nights Supercross airing back another hour to the 2-3 am hour slot (or sometimes knock it off altogether).
Things have changed to where I remember 2-3 summers ago on 4th of July I was sneeking away from the party on my back deck with a beer and dog in hand and watching Red Bud as it happened live on the TV.
My parents went to High Point this year and took my nephew and I was at home working in my yard discussing the race with them from the lap by lap timing I was getting on my Iphone.
I'm so spoiled now, that if my DVR has an unwatched race and I already saw the photos, read the results and race report on VitalMX and watched the incredible crashes on Youtube, that I can just hit the "DELETE" button on the remote without ever having watched the complete race! Of course this is needed to free up some space for the DVR to record the next race, or the next episode of The Moto: Inside the Outdoors, or an Arenacross or any show, event or program that has "motocross" or "motorcycle" somewhere in the title or description!
So I admit to being spoiled now by everything we could only dream about years ago when we wondered where this sport might go one day.
However- maybe I'm not spoiled after all.
The other day I drove by an old race track near where I live that has been closed for over 30 years. It was a damp, fall morning and the sun was popping up over the yellow and orange trees.
I saw vans and pickups and people shuffling around with steam coming out of their coffee and dew on the seats of yellow and black Yamahas.
I saw red Maicos with yellow stripes on the tank and gold rims, and how I dreamed of the day that my legs would be long enough for me to be able to straddle one without falling over!
The feeling instantly transported me back those 30+ years and was just exciting as the days when I was standing there on that damp October morning, witnessing it with my own eyes and soaking in all of the sensory overload I felt when I was just a ten year old kid at a motocross race.
It has changed, but motocross is the one thing I'm happy to say that I never grew out of.
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The second post said it the most succinctly. Money, nothing else. Factory riders went from box vans to haulers. Amateurs are getting paid and given a paddock of factory bikes. Homeschooling, trainers, mechanics and dietitians. Taking out mortgages to get little Tommy to the Nationals and try to make it to the big time.
Money. Our sport grew up and has joined the true ranks of motor sport.
"Sometimes".....it's just "you". Believe me , I know how some of you guys feel. I felt extremely burnt out on the sport a few years ago , especially right after I got hurt. I didn't want anything to do with it. But over this past year , since I got a new bike and started riding again , it's made me realize how much I missed it and appreciated it.
If you are feeling burned out on the sport , take a step back , enjoy some other things in life and come back when you are ready.
Bottom line.....we are all different. But we also have one thing in common......we all love MX. And 9 times out of 10.....if you leave the sport for a while , there is a good chance you'll find your way back. And we'll all be here waiting for you when you do.
People view porn, and drugs as being a "necessity".
The amount of information available today to the core fans is overwhelming. Tweets, feeds, Same day, same minute, live coverage that we never imagined possible.
BUT.....we had an interesting experience this weekend at RedBud. We brought a teenage (16yrs old) friend of my daughter with us. She had never been to a motorsports event of any sort. She was pretty sure motorcycles had two wheels and that was about it. My daughter prepped her with information (the result of more SX,MX and Supermoto races than she can count) but the live experience is different than a story from your friend.
Her impressions of our sport were very telling (and should give us hope).Her thoughts were something like this -
She was amazed at the size size of the event.
She was in awe of the big rigs and set-up in the pits.
She saw live in person the names she had heard in various X-Games coverage.
She was very impressed by the fervor of the fans.
She thought it was "super cool" that Red Bull, Oakley and others were so involved.
Dungey is cute, Reed is really cute..
Odd that she never mentioned the incredible skill of the racers.........
When I asked if she would like to come with us to another race her answer was " when can we go?" I think she drank the Kool-Aid.
What does this mean ?? If the goal is to expand the overall fan base, the sport is heading in the right direction. Does that make some of the core fans (me) happy.....well mostly yes. Would it be cool to see some old school type races out of box vans on natural terrain ?? Yep.....but that doesn't work in the grand scheme of things. Change continues to march on and if the view of one 16 yr old means anything...... things aren't so bad. I know all the arguments about how many strokes, factory vs privateer, expensive bikes, fuel prices, yen vs the dollar and everything else but...............RedBud was packed and new people are experiencing our sport. That is good.
Now if we could get our old heroes on the track to race (bless you Dowd and Brown) at these nationals it might satisfy some of the "core" folks !!!
Remember the Legends race at RedBud a few years ago.......hhhmmmmmm.......maybe ??
It's the average Joe [sorry Joe] rider that disappeared.
Pit Row
It's the same reason George Bush Sr. feels the need to skydive at 140 years old. He said it himself, it's the only thing that can give him a thrill anymore because he has seen and done so much.
Same for us motocrossers. We are jaded now. When we were young and everything was new - it was easy to get excited and now we can only look back on those memories with great admiration. Now that we are all a bit older - the extreme excitment is harder and harder to recapture.
I still feel it every once in a while. When I line up to race myself, or at the first race of a new pro mx or sx season.
This is why I smoke crack now.
I will exaggerate to paint a bolder picture, but imagine a field of RM125s, and that same group of riders riding 883 Harleys on the same track.
Wouldnt be the same race. Obviously the difference between a YZ250 and a KXF450 is much less severe, but a difference does exist, and that difference is what changes the way the tracks are raced.
It's ok though, something will give. It's not going to stay 450cc forever. In 1985, if you told someone that the 500cc class only had 7 years to live, they'd have laughed. "But they just got liquid cooling!"
I think a lot of the differences of opinion here are a result of about half the forum not being old enough to remember what motocross looked like in 1997, especially the 125 class. That was straight-up DICING.
Can you see ANYONE doing that in 2012? Ralph Shaheen would probably start talking like a valley girl and mention Twitter 6 times if it happened. At least Fro and RC would be laughing.
That was commonplace in the 90s.
Not to mention ghost riding his bike into Chicken in Vegas.
1. I must be the only one that can ride a 4-stroke multiple seasons without grenading it. my 07 yz450 has an unknown stupid amount of hours and has only had the engine apart once to replace a bent shift fork.
2. The pro racing has been awesome recently. Not so much at this particular moment in the 450 class but it has been better than the years of MC and RC domination when I was a kid.
3. Unless you listen to pulp or dmxs you don't get a whole lot of personality out of the riders.
4. I used to go race every weekend when i made a whole lot less money than I do now. the price of a bike is one thing (all my new 450s since 05 have held up better and required basically 0 performance mods to make me happy so the bike cost difference is basically nonexistent for me) but what kills me is the cost to go racing. It used to be $20-25 per class around here, $20 or less for me to get there in gas, and $10 to cover food at the track or on the way home. The only thing close is the food. Now it takes $60+ in fuel, $10 spectator fee all the tracks like to charge the riders now, and $30+ per class. So the price is double what it used to cost me just to throw the bike in the back of the truck and go to the track by myself. You can double that (or more) again if the old lady wants to come along and bring the toy hauler, more food, beer for after the race, dogs, run the ac, ect. And for the young kids the cost is higher and the possibility of a job right now is even lower than when I was 16-18.
1). The money and politics are so hard that riders struggle to be themselves and say stuff like it is on the podium cause they don't want to upset anyone.
2). The hate that get shoveled around by message boards and all the new social media also sucks
3). As much as respect the hell out of every guy out there, the sheear heart to race is only embodied by a few. And all but one are broken right now.
4). And finally The Xgames
"I can remember Damon Bradshaw winning one particular SX in 92, pulling his jersey off, grabbing the checkered flag from the finish line and wheelying up and down the start straight with the checkered flag tucked in his arm pit, shirtless. Mullet and mustache intact."
Can you see ANYONE doing that in 2012?
I could see Barcia doing it, he has the stashe but we would have to give him a pass on the mullet. Its going to be a while before any of the guys start rocking the mullets again.
I think DC nailed it on the Original Post, technology gives you instant gratification, no more waiting on a phone line or magazine like some of you older guys talk about back in the day. Everything and more is right in your pocket just one click away.
I watch it once in a great while on TV or see clips online. but the way the tracks have become and how they are raced doesn't have good real bar banging action or at least for very long anyway. We all know that the top 1-5 guys will do what they do and the rest will wrestle around behind there.
FOr a racer who has done this stuff about 40 years now, I can't stand to watch the way racing is now. A very dear and much older friend of mine who is a grand national champion and his son is or back in the day was a LL champion simply told me that they stop racing MX and doing that kind of thing when it turned into a "show" and the racing was secondary. THis is coming from this now 92 year old, who said this to me in 1985!!!!
We also know that watching this sport on any type of electronic device makes it look easy. Sitting in a stadium 200 ft from the track makes it look easy. We all know it is NOT easy at all, but doesn't change the appearence of the sport. When the focus of the racing changed from corners and man against the terrain, and to big air, it changed the whole aspect of racing.
Tracks actually have gotten easier today. THey are much faster, bigger but forgiving jumps, and well its why we see the injuries we see. The sport is not very "old" but it has changed alot and well some things are cool, others not so much.
I started in 75, today i ride woods with my kids, it is what they choose to do. I drag them to a moto, and all i hear all day long is when can i ride is it time yet? Our sport took the easy route back in the day when it came to increasing the prices. Tracks never wanted to have a price increase, so it was easier to add classes, and have more "winners" .;.................but less track time. Many tracks today are doing 4 lap motos. but you can run 4 classes. seems like the people who we see at our track like the amount of classes and the "sprint" type races.
Not sure i do that much.
there are a ton of other factors but these stated here are some i am not sure riders/ enthusiasts pay attention too.
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