Tomac, Lawrence and Sexton asked about the long season

It's not the number of races, but the number of racing weeks out of the year. These guys would much rather race 22 race weekends a year than 31, even if all of those race weekends were 2 day racing events. 

You referencing the two guys who had additional time off from injury this year doesn't help your case. 

You have to remember that a month off between series isn't a month off. They are still riding, eating and training the whole time as if they were in season. You have to have the season in one chunk and then release them to actually be off entirely. If they choose to go to some off season races then thats on them but those races also dont require the same time/focus/intensity as a regular season race. If they lose its fine its really about putting a show on. 

 

They only asked 3 guys the question, I referenced 2 of them. Hunter is also doing the same schedule as Jett in the off-season.

The schedule dictates that he has to be riding in November/December anyway, so he may as well go and race and earn a bit of money. It’s not like the alternative to racing Paris is being sat on a beach somewhere. 

Chase hit the nail on the head when he said that only 4 riders made it to every race this year. Last year, zero riders made it to every race. The riders are not robots, this isn’t NASCAR or F1 where you can have 25-35 races a year and you can pretty much guarantee that all your stars are going to be at every race barring a freak accident. 

17 SX races is too many, especially in such a short space of time. I think 13 rounds, 6 each coast with a Shootout finale, would be much better, build more off time in the schedule and raise the quality of the product and make it less likely that you are going to pay full price to see a SX race with 2 factory riders on the gate like at the end of ‘23.

Unfortunately I think the horse has bolted on this topic though and we’ve sold out the ability to govern our own sport to TV executives who don’t care about the fans or the wellbeing of the athletes 

As a factory salary employee (at least mostly) - I understand wanting more time off. 

As an houly employee (JT example) - race everwhere all the time for $. Careers are short. 

You almost feel sorry for them they earn millions.. to ride a dirt bike.......yes ...then  I'm better off ...working 40+ hours a week for a boss.........and I don't make a million either...

I think I'd also like a shorter season as a fan but with as many races... I really liked the Wednesday races during covid. I understand why Wednesdays wouldn't really work for sponsors and also riders/team members of you also have all Saturdays at the races... But what about Sundays? Have them do a regular SX on Saturday and then a triple Crown late in the afternoon on Sunday...Do it like 3-4 times during the season.  They already have 2 bikes ready for Triple Crowns... Dirt is there, everyone's there...

Maybe they'd lose a bit on ticket sales but they'd save more by renting less venues and not traveling as much.

Trying to feel bad, but….. Most people get 2 weeks, and make a lot less.  

 

Clearly you don't understand the difference between a "mandatory" series races vs fun off-season races.

Its such a long season, I'm glad its finally over.

What are you going to do with your time off ?

Going to Europe to do some racing...

Agreed. How many of us work our asses off everyday/week/month/year with 2 weeks off at best? Hell, I haven't had a day off in 3 months and those have all been 12+ hour days. But yeah, let's throw some sympathy towards multi-millionaire athletes who put in maybe 4-5 hours of actual work in everyday. Anyone seen how much time they have to go play golf or hit the lake?

If it's too much for them they can grab a shovel and dig some ditches for 10 hours a day to pay the bills.

I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand I agree with them that it is a big workload. On the other hand as a fan, I don't want to give anything up. I'm not sure that any of these guys have the cache to influence a change.

i say they take a yr off and go work a real job see how fast they come running back to there hellish 31 week schedule 

I don't think it's easy to be an pro athlete and they for sure worked their asses off to be in this position, but when I was actually watching Craig or Sexton Vlogs for example, their days seemed really cool to me. It's usually a mix between either riding in the morning 2-3 times a week, then mix up cardio or gym work out/sretching. I doubt they train more than actual 3 hours per day, obviously recovery is also a big part of an pro athlete.
But you are completely right, let them work full time for one year and I doubt any rider would still complain about what they have going on. 

Both Ryans talked about that on the Whiskey Throttle show back then. They said they were rather mentally burned out than physically.

Not true. They are getting paid the least amount the people with the money could get them to work for.

It’s way too long. If I were dictator, I’d make SX 12 rounds and MX 12 rounds. SX a two moto format as well. Two 12 minute races for the 450s and two 10 minute races for the 250s. That way the points come SMX time are evenly distributed among SX and MX. Give them a week off after every 4 rounds of SX and two weeks off between SX and MX.

Webb, Roczen, Jett, Tomac....all were out for majority of outdoors....they've had their time off.

It’s the same thing.

"there's no jobs in this town!" "ya, not unless you want to work 40 hours or something" 

I've worked 14 on/7 off, 14 hour days schedules offshore away from family. On the road, out of state for months at a time, away from family, 7 days a week. Commuting 72 miles one way to work.I don't feel bad for those guys,especially when they are that young. I worked that hard in my 20's and 30's to get into a salary job in my 40's. Those select few will work that hard to likely retire in there mid 30's. 

I get the burnout thing but it's not like they will be doing this until they're 62 and drawing social security. Suck it up and do what you gotta do for the short term.

So they were asked a question and answered it honestly. Isn't that what everyone wants? 

They'd prefer less races but they're doing it because of the money, what's the problem?

Going on about the hours you work for nowhere near the same money. That's the same thing, you made a choice to do that job and those hours and now you're whinging about you're job to make a point about these guys whinging about their job. Now I've had my whinge as well!