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Also, they were never made illegal although there were threats to do just that. The manufacturers just quit making them because quads were superior in every way, well except maybe at riding wheelies.
Should point out that prior to that undertaking, they were losing drivers *every year*.
The claim that "you're never going to eliminate the danger of catastrophe" is true. But irrelevant. It's not an all or nothing deal. It's about making adjustments to the odds in a favorable direction.
Let me dispel another popular opinion. There is absolutely no doubt that the occurrence of catastrophic injury/death has been on the rise. That whole "We just hear about them now because of the internet" is a crock. I have been plugged into this sport for the past 30+years. If you were plugged in before the internet, you read Cycle News (all editions). Every week. And the local/regional rags like TexMX News. Not to mention the grapevine at the shop, etc. A fatality would be extremely difficult to go unnoticed. I can't recall losing even one soul every 5-10 years before 1985.
The past few years, just including the big amateur races like GNC, Florida, etc, have been brutal.
Once again, it's people seeing stuff on TV and social media with kids jumping insane sections on facebook and then they go and ride a bike or a 3 wheeler past their ability. We had a local family lose a son in a side by side accident where he rolled the Yamaha machine and was killed. Very sad but, the child was under 16 not wearing a helmet or safety gear and driving above his talent. The Parents sued Yamaha. Yamaha and their lawyers showed up in court (my friend was on the jury and he is a avid 2,3&4 wheel rider) and had their data to back up their machine as being safe had all their roll rate and speed data and all their testing they had done prior to releasing this machine to the public. It was a slam dunk for Yamaha......the family got nothing but a deceased child.
The kid rode above his skill set and pushed the machine past it's limits.
It's simple really.
Jason
The Shop
DeCal Works Huge Plastic Inventory of UFO and Polisport kits.
Luxon 4-Post Bar Mounts
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And yes, 3 wheelers were illegal for a 10 year period. As far as OEM's not being able to produce them, or dealers being able to sell them (even used). This is all on the internet for crying out loud.
http://houstonmotocross.com/theforum/viewthread?thread=53234&lastpage=yes
Jason
We can argue all day about whether there are more crashes with the faster bikes, and why, but the truth is crashes at 70MPH are going to be far more brutal than crashes at 60.
For one you're hitting the ground harder and for two, you have less time to react and position you body for the fall.
I would love to race at the highest level.
Granted I'm pretty old for that, but I train hard.
But, I have have no desire whatsoever to crash at that speed.
I ride my 125 as fast as I can and have more fun than anyone out there. I've managed my own speed by limiting my own displacement.
I propose that we make one sweeping change to displacement that will last 10 or 15 years.
Class -> New limit
50 -> 45cc
60 -> 50cc
85 -> 125f or 75cc 2-stroke
250f -> 175f or 125 2-stroke
450f -> 250f or 250 2-stroke (Maybe allow 300F)
Then provide guideline to trackbuilders on how to design for the safety and the new displacements.
I have ideas on how to handle the transition over a period of 5 years.
Industry should embrace it because:
Safer sport means more participants.
Lots of new bikes to be be sold.
Lots of upgrades and conversions, pipes, etc... to be sold.
Full gates.
Keeps regulation out of our sport.
Ryan Hughes made a good point about tracks being ultra manicured these days, and facilitating rider speeds increasing. I agree with that. Track design could really fix a lot of the problems we are seeing right now.
I can see where the starts may reach higher speeds. I noticed they show the speed on the screen in kph on the GP's and it was 30 something MPH.
Not that fast at all.
I remember at Freestone they clocked them through the Texas twelve pack over 50 MPH.
I know the River track at 3 palms a guy wore a GPS and the 90' double we were hitting at 49-50 MPH on a 450 3/4 throttle or more in 3rd.
I wish they had telemetry on a couple of the fast guys in SX & MX that would be cool kinda like F1 and Indy.
Jason
In Auto Racing they've made the cars safer.
Chassis-wise we're in a different world; however, engine-wise it would be easy to "reel it back".
In another conversation, I refered to when Senna lost his life at Imola...
F1 fixed things after that.
Jason
DC as the SX pit reporter back in 2001 when the YZ250F lined up was discussing whether 250cc double displacement was fair for the 125 class. Everyone was sleeping.
The AMA is too damn stupid and egotistical to admit to their mistakes. But, they are "protecting your right to ride" as long as the OEM's are lining their pockets.
How about riders take some responsibility for wadding
Id like to have a 750 with 100hp nd a 8 inch wide knobby and when i crash the son of a bitch I'd blame myself for it.
Pit Row
How do we go about making said changes a reality?
The AMA is a shell company that takes money for membership but gives nothing back so you can't say them.
Who and how...?
I won't hold my breath waiting for an answer.
Right now riders can pull back on the throttle and huck big doubles with ease.
I guess it would be the same ,wad on 50 hp and blame the bike for making me jump to far,wad on 25 hp and wad then blame the bike for not jumping far enuff.
Sounds good,lets do it.
I'm not sure I ever saw a quote from Mitch like that. But feel free to drop it in here.
I think back in the early days of the four-stroke revival, the novelty (and the issues they had at the time with starting, and coughing the carb out of the boot, etc.), made it easy to overlook the double displacement advantage. Now? Maybe not so much. I do think the AMA was slow to react to rule adjustments, and have said so in the past.
I like where the speeds were at back in the 125/250 days. Given that the four-strokes have had plenty of time to develop and have matured, it should be easier to figure out a formula that brings the four-strokes down back to that level. I also wouldn't mind seeing dissimilar engine packages racing together, and many motorsports have figured out how to make it work...and to adjust on the fly when one side or the other gets too big an advantage.
I'm guessing that there will be some unhappy people no matter what happens. There might also be some unintended consequences. More costs for privateers or amateurs, etc. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.
It also needs to be a global solution.
Personally, I'd love to see some kind of summit between the sanctions (FIM/AMA), folks running the races (MX Sports/AMA), OE manufacturers, and safety gear manufacturers to look at what we're doing now, to make some recommendations for change, an to set some goals for the long-term health of the sport.
) Tracks follow guidelines set by the Brett Downey foundation for track ingress and egress.
2) Common sense on track design (biggest hurdle I see)
3) Mandatory chest and back protection (neck braces way too touchy of a subject)
4) Stop thinking bike size is THE problem. If we can't do the three simple things above lowering displacement is akin to rearranging the deck furniture on the Titanic.
So we can't come to any conclusions without proper knowledge and the time to obtain, create and utilize this in now.
The question is who, should or can do this and as GB suggests the greatest starting point is getting sanctioning bodies, promoters and manufacturers together for a summit to get the ball rolling so there at least be some direction, but can the big 5, DC, Luongo the FIM and AMA all sit together and come to an agreement on a direction....
50cc
65cc
85cc 2-stroke / 135cc 4-stroke
125cc 2-stroke / 175cc 4-stroke
250cc 2-stroke / 300cc 4-stroke
Smaller bike sizes with safer track designs could help keep kids from dying, but unfortunately we will never rule out the possibility of someone dying from a freak accident where the bike lands on a kids neck as an example.
Look at F1 as the perfect example. the restrictions placed on downforce, tires, electronic driver aides etc... are all to make it so it is not as easy to go fast. That combined with engine restrictions and safety regulations has made it significantly safer.
Yet in our form of racing all of the advancements (including traction control even though there was a rule against it) are still aligned with making it easier to go faster. Chad Reed mentioned in his posting about how the bike is safer than ever. I understand what he means but in reality I feel it has the exact opposite effect.
Just like in other forms of racing, accidents at higher rates of speed will result in higher fatalities. The speed needs to be reduced regardless of how. My opinion is we need to stop making bikes so "easy" to go fast on. And we also need to remember that this will be a constantly moving target. We will not simply come up with an answer tomorrow that will be a permanent solution.
Just my take on things.
A: Power politics. The birth of the 350 was not an organic development that was market driven by consumer demand, which makes its success all the more amazing. The original idea was generated by two bureaucrats—Youthstream’s Giuseppe Luongo and the AMA’s Steve Whitelock—who felt that 450cc motocross bikes were too powerful. Their plan, which was doomed from the beginning, was to strong-arm the rule-makers into regulating the maximum engine size down to 350cc. They both used their bully pulpits to proselytize about the nirvana of a 350cc world.
The problem for Luongo and Whitelock’s crusade was that no one at Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki or Kawasaki had any intention of building a 350cc motocross bike. Why not? The bottom line. If a manufacturer was selling 20,000 units, equally divided between 250cc four-strokes and 450cc four-strokes, and it made a 350cc four-stroke, its sales department predicted that sales would not increase by 33 percent but that they would sell the same 20,000 units—only divided into three smaller groups. They would still sell 20,000 units, but the 350 would cannibalize 250cc and 450cc sales to do it. And when they factored in the costs of R&D, castings, marketing, warehousing and promotion of a third model, they saw red ink. If Luongo and Whitelock had tried to force a 350cc max displacement rule on the sport, the “Big Four” would have found someplace else to race. Thus, the 350 idea was dead on arrival.
http://motocrossactionmag.com/bike-tests/2015-test-ride-ktm-350sxf
Post a reply to: KDub..."450's have to go".