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... ride Martin on Sunday or something? haha as someone that works with most of the tracks you are insinuating, I feel as though I can throw my five cents at this - feel free to just DM haha that being said, wouldn't hurt to voice certain opinions directly to the tracks - it's such a small world, you can walk up to anyone haha
first month(s), dirt is normally pretty messed up from winter / snow / rain - until it gets worked in, its going to be deep / peaky ruts & when we have an overwhelming amount of C Riders > "Fast Guys" the lines aren't exactly going to form in a fun manner (hooked, more choppy, blown out, etc. etc.). Some tracks are in an unfortunate area that always gets drilled by rain at some of the most inconvenient times... especially Spring (basically KZOO & Allegan County tracks - so if you rode this weekend, sorry haha - I can assure you, at least one of the tracks didn't run a water truck all weekend tho). but to circle back, a blend of limited resources to play with / accessibility to expand (i.e. Equipment), April / May Showers, Changing of the Guards (in terms of Old Generation Owners > Next Generation Owners - some tracks are more of a fight than others to get change done), etc. Excuses? Yes, but that's just what I can attest to. Ironically had a talk about berms yesterday, & bringing them back to a couple of the tracks in question. We all miss what you are saying, it's just a matter of finding a balance & making those changes come into fruition.
Red Bud hasn't had the Valley Triple / Double-Double in damn near 20 years - and as the benchmark for American MX (other than the Leap & the Step Up [on Pro Day]) I can't recall a Double there? Dutch moved away from Rhythms after a terrible accident (again, ~20 years ago) & the peaky triple on the treeline still hosts some of the gnarliest crashes every weekend (even though its a poppy, single-table), Martin has tried a LOT of rhythms - just some people ride over their heads & inadvertently ruin the fun for everyone else - again, some pretty brutal ones going down there (namely, in the 6-pack). Big Air has fun flow, just never the means to move & change up stuff drastically (also, can think of a life flight from the infield Triple that helped tame that place down for a while) - now it is with new owners from Outside the Sport, so massive props to them for joining the party! Log Road seems to still have McCarthy's & a bunch of jumps I've been hurt on before haha Morelands & Valley are what they are - enjoy them for what they are. Grant does a lot with his spot & it's a blast. Valley reminds me of Practice Tracks in France & I love it for that - but its jittery & rowdy haha Grattan was all tables, I can't remember it being anything other? Epic Concrete start though. Baja is & will forever be the same (so, the lone outlier). Half of the Glass is like, "we have a lot (to ride) - therefore we shouldn't complain" - BUT there is nothing wrong with wanting more / holding people to "higher standards". It's just - it's going to take a little time to move the proverbial needle.
Believe me, I would LOVE for a couple little changes to be made overnight - I mean, they are coming - it's just going to take some time. Stay Positive haha
The flip side of ruts is blown out and crappy, which LACR was on Saturday. They lost the moisture in the dirt early on and it was crappy most of the day. Ah, the dog days of summer and dusty tracks is upon us. lol
LACR has always been a unique beast. It's hard pack with a dusting of soft stuff on top I wouldn't even call sand. I call it "fake dirt". The result is a skatey surface that catches people off guard all the time (mostly those unfamiliar with the track).
In the 25 years I've been around that track I've never seen it ripped deep, if at all. It's fine. It's been years and years of consistent monstrous jumps on the main and a fairly fun and mellow vet track.
Has there ever been a rut there deeper than 10"? Haha...
Ripped and watered is good, just not a swamp ripped 2-3 feet deep. Many do it this way so they don't have to do any track prep on race day. It never dries out all day. We used to start out with a good moist track and they would hit it again about 1/2 way through and it stayed good all day. Every now and again it's ok to have a hard packed track because that is another skill to learn.
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It was really nice most weekends after all the rain we had this year, and actually built up some nice rutted corners. Funny thing is, the main track is easier than the vet track now.
And the pussification of moto gets more woke.
It's like in the 90's when yuppy businessmen started buying Harleys and leather jackets forming silly little clubs and riding on weekends pretending to be bikers...till real bikers shut that shit down.
Now we have pretend racers on pretend race tracks pretending to race what a joke.
Lot's of ways to have safe fun on a dirt bike. A mx track shouldnt be forced into being such a place.
You are core, dude.
I want everyone to know I'm not advocating for massive sketchy booter's that send people to the hospital. I have a job and responsibilities myself and don't want to be hurt. But it seems like tracks are taking out rhythm sections, doubles, basically old features you would see on a motocross track that made things interesting. Every year I see more and more obstacles being taken out in the name of "safety" but really all it is doing is increasing the speeds on the track. Most of the crashes I see go down are now mostly high speed and not pleasant.
As far as the tracks you had mentioned, yup those are the tracks that I frequent. Having seen Martin's layout this year get dumbed down even more I can honestly say that I am not excited to go there. I've been riding there since it opened as Zeeland MX Outdoor back in the day. I wish Paul would put back a lot of what he took out and build up the jumps with proper landings. He built some really cool rhythm sections in the past, but it seems all of that is gone now. The front 4 pack since the first is a roller, the lips are not poppy enough to send you to the landings. The jump past the finish line needs to have its lip build up another 3ft to clear to the landing. Again, you need to hit that thing with so much speed then compression bounce to get over it that if you mistime it you are definitely going over the bars. Lastly, the back single table has no landing. Basically landing to flat... Martin just seems like a corners track now that gets ripped to China and ends up being a slot car track. Lots of Loretta's people train there so I guess that's what he caters to... Paul does a fantastic job, just the track is getting more and more stale.
As far as Big Air, the back stretch they took out the two table tops leading up to killer and now its just a long straightaway that seems like its more dangerous than before. Everything else is fine, but they need to do something to slow that section down.
Valley MX is my favorite, but they are hardly open throughout the year except for races and seem to be catering to the offroad truck crowd/side by sides more than anything.
I have made suggestions to track owners before, constructive criticism and mentioned tactfully, but its met with "why don't you own a track and see what its like" and "don't like it go somewhere else." So what do you do?
LOL. Your profile pic tells us all we need to know about your "core" opinion on this matter.
"Woke"? lol... Got anymore meaningless gotcha slang to throw out there?
No one's forcing tracks to do anything. They're probably tired of watching riders (young and old) get wadded up. I race 20 weekends a year with the 30+ crowd and NO ONE complains about big jumps or the occasional whoop section. Hell, barely anyone complains about slot car prep either... I'm just not a fan of it being that I grew up riding the SoCal desert. Didn't stop me from racing Hangtown last month though.
Tracks are going to limit their exposure to risk and cater to the guys spending money. That's all there is to it. Kids who (occasionally) practice just to post instabangers aren't who they cater to.
Still, booters are alive and well out here. Lake Elsinore and LACR deliver on that front. Cahuilla usually has a couple good hits. Perris recently tamed things down again, but I'm sure they have their reasons.
Glen Helen is pure motocross and will forever be my favorite track. Love when it's extra sandy too!
Just wanted to say that I do agree that tracks are lacking rhythm sections as of late. Connecting a few small doubles and an on/off type deal is always super fun. It's also generally harmless when built right.
Only thing worse than this are the ruts on the amateur track 😂
I have been riding for 25 years and have always been a "jumper..." My worst injury ever (femur break) came from a little jump that had a soft spot in it that I had already jumped 50 times. Never did get hurt on a huge jump
The big scary gap jumps (especially right out of corners) used to scare people into rolling them if they weren't experienced. Now, absolute beginners pin their 250fs off of long, high speed tables and wad it up.
I know the popular thing the cool kids are saying is that vets are old slow beginners but i disagree… I’ve ridden for over 35 years and have made it to the local A/Expert level in the late 90s and early 2000s, and even though I don’t ride at that level anymore by choice my favorite parts of tracks are the small technical sections that you guys that love yuuuge behemoth nonsensical booters can’t seem to clear. The small double right out a corner or right into a corner, or any timing sections. I love it when guys can’t get them down and ask me why i can do the hard sections but won’t do the big jumps… i just respond anyone can huck those things, including me in third gear, but it takes technique and skill to do the small sections well and I like to focus on that! Any track that is well thought out, has good flow, technical (slower) sections… that isn’t over prepped with “national prep” (cough cough mesquite cough) that turns a track into a quagmire with long ruts you have to paddle through is a good track in my opinion!
That was the differentiator between vet and main tracks. Now main tracks are just long vet tracks. Perris MX used to feel like riding a supercross track in the 2000s. It was gnarly, but it slowly evolved into a vet track.
Everyone laughs at that guy at the track 😂
Just to be clear, I am not advocating that massive booters make a track good. The technical sections you're describing are exactly what is missing. The tracks above used to have that kind of stuff, but have tossed it aside in favor of national prep, flat corners, and high speed table tops. One of the tracks I talked about above used to have an awesome section coming out of a big corner. They split the lane down the middle where the left side was whoops that led into three small doubles before the next corner, and the right side was a six pack that led into whoops before the same corner. Basically left and right were reverse of what the other was and you had to choose what you wanted to encounter first. Also used to see step on step off type jumps to slow down long sections. Really miss the big step down out of corner going downhill that was fun. It was all of 5ft long, but made the elevation change even cooler. I know I shouldn't complain, but seeing my favorite tracks lose what made them fun in the first place is sad.
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You talk to an owner of an MX track they will tell you it’s hard to have a track configuration and prep that pleases everybody. Last year when owner of Ultimate MX in Alvin, Tx changed the layout at request of some local Supercross riders. They wanted more technical and that’s what he did. At first I didn’t like it but once I got used to it. I realized it slowed things down some and made it safer, I like it.
I don't disagree with that at all, the problem is any time a track owner around here puts any kind of technical section that requires timing or a tactical approach it's always gone by the next weekend because the vet guys have bitched up a storm about it. Nobody is getting better riding these ski jump tracks, our local track owners work damn hard at keeping their tracks in good shape and I wish they weren't handicapped by guys who can't handle a hit to their ego when they can't do a section.
Jump for show, corner for dough. How can you say riders won't get better by riding? You sure can't make improvements while wearing plaster.
Because in order to improve you have to be challenged by something. Would you improve riding on fire roads? No, because there's nothing there to challenge your skillset or put you in a situation you haven't been in before. It gets a little old trying to hit a high speed corner just a little bit faster lap after lap or scrub a ski jump just a little bit harder lap after lap, because eventually you'll find the limit and when you do it's not going to pretty.
You write this post like a track is responsible for someone crashing (barring unsafe conditions like giant kickers in the lips, equipment on the track, etc), it is not. The person responsible is the one twisting the throttle, we all choose how fast to hit a section and we all choose whether or not to jump a jump. There's a fundamental disconnect of personal responsibility there, if I screw up a rhythm section and send myself cartwheeling off the track the last thing I'm going to blame is the track for merely existing, that's absurd.
Tracks evolved from gnarly, relatively unprepped courses using terrain and a lack of prep (bumps grew for years in places), to borderline outdoor supercross tracks. Toss in digging up the tracks and nearly guaranteeing a rut fest, and the fun meter went way down. Having to work, already broke a number of bones, and just getting older changes the desire to clear big jumps or fight ruts. I too noticed they seem to be trending away from SX style courses and maybe not tilling them quite as much. I am happy for that. I’ve broken enough bones and don’t feel like testing my luck any more than necessary now. But really, it’s about enjoying riding. I do like technical elements, variety, some jumps, and the ability to use different lines such as outside in or inside then out (read-few ruts).
Local track near me finally slowed the track down and made a lot of the jumps booters. Now to go fast you gotta learn to scrub.
Used to it was like ski jump city and I hated it because I was always thinking damn if I go down it’s going to hurt because I’m going FAST to clear these jumps lol
"Jump for show, corner for dough." The classic cry of the person who can't accept that they are afraid to do the technical jumps and, therefore, wants them removed.
If you don't want jumps, race in the woods. This is motocross. Jumping is part of it. Corners are for dough, yes, unless there's a jump or two you're doing that the competition won't. Then jumps are also for dough.
WHAT?! To go fast you have to have some technique on the jumps, too! Say it ain't so!
Where do all these bad ass vet riders live? All the ones around here roll every jump and load their bike up when the braking bumps make their cone valves go past the mid stroke.
That was a quote from Ricky Carmichael, not me there tough guy. You have heard of Ricky Carmichael I assume?
I know who it was from but that was before he had to deal with JS7 and he was racing people who were ALL doing the jumps. Ricky still had to do all they same jumps as Chad and James to compete
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