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Not sure what Today was like but if possible they should have held off for the 2nd moto format until today. If you are invested this far and have a chance you would have stayed.
At least Matthes will cover this, oh wait. Well I know Weege will, ah shit nvm. JT, nope.
Cooksey might be out there on a lot of shit but he’s right about Coombs. Maybe one day people will wake up and realize he has a monopoly.
it cracks me up that people think Davey IS mx sports. He is involved, but he is not the person really running things
I think with one moto done they did the fair route. Screw drawing spoons if a real moto was done. Definitely sucks only one moto was done, not discounting that. I think scoring they made the right call and I don’t see how drawing spoons makes sense at all.
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Long time Vital lurker here who was present at the Unadilla regional. Man, this subject has certainly been making it's rounds on social media. I understand why many are venting their frustration, but the recent Cooksey ragebait video made me feel compelled to indirectly address some of his blatant misinformation. While I talked to many different people in the pits, including event staff, everything below is only my opinion and I was just another participant trying to make it to the big show. Before I go further, yes, I directly qualified in my classes through my AQ.
During riders meeting, the promoters were transparent about their dire situation with insuring the facility; they stated they were fighting since January to acquire an insurance plan for the year and didn't finalize it until the end of May. They offered anyone who deemed riding the track too dangerous to race, full refunds after practice. The track prep wasn't great on Friday but it turned around for Saturday. While perception of track prep is subjective, I find it ironic how this hypocrite will cherry pick Matthes supporting EKS Brand, yet grill the oldest moto track in the country for hosting an event on behalf of MX Sports.
The storm that rolled through was completely unexpected by nearly everyone in the area. People were downplaying the amber alerts but collapsed hillsides and fallen trees had closed some roads. Unfortunately a family of 3 were killed as a result of the storm in the neighbouring county. Continuing the event while the county was in a state of emergency would've shut down the track once and for all. They couldn't push the event to the next day because the track was only insured for select weekends, specific days for the year, not including the following Monday. There were also many participants who would've had to make impromtu cancellations with their businesses or employers (myself included) or be forced to abandon the event. Rescheduling the race and invalidating the first motos would leave partipants out thousands of dollars in travel costs and arbitrarily force them to do it all over again. I don't speak for everyone but even with help from my parents, this was a financially strenious weekend to attend and I personally couldn't afford to do it again, especially on extremely short notice. As far as drawing spoons, I'm strongly against pure chance deciding an overall finish which directly determines whether or not I qualify for the biggest race in the country.
Alternates automatically getting into regionals has always been a poorly kept secret. I don't agree with auto accepting alternates, running consilation races, etc. However, MX Sports has likely been doing it this way long before I even started riding and will likely continue to do so long after I leave the sport. Alternate or not, anyone who finishes up front in a divisional race at a LL Regional is pretty god damn fast and had to have done something right to end up there. For what it's worth, the event cancellation took away my opportunity to recover from a 9th in +25, while I was able to qualify in +30 with a 3rd. This is the first regional I've ever seen, or anyone has ever seen for that matter, where the event had to be called after 1 set of motos. I'm not particularly a fan of MX Sports but it took an act of god and freak circumstances to expose the flaws with their system. The event staff were arguably inefficient with running the event, but I think most would agree the 1 set of motos that were ran, were of adequate length and on an awesome track.
At the end of the day, the promoters were faced with an extremely difficult decision, with implications which potentially could've compromised the future of the track. I'd like to think they considered every variable, exhausted every option and were left with no other logical choice. I think the right call was made. In time, this controversy will be water under the bridge and Unadilla will hopefully be around for many years to come.
/rant
Well put. I’ve seen so much garbage posted from people that weren’t even there (and some that were) or truly understood the no win situation the promoters were in Sunday morning. Part of the sport that makes it so gnarly is the fact we generally don’t cancel events due to weather but these circumstances were totally different. The best way to make somewhat of a peace offering would be to issue partial refunds of regional and race class fees, especially to those that didn’t qualify, but I would drop dead from suprise if that actually happened.
As well as Tim Cotter. There are multiple people in the partnership. But yet Davey is the only one that gets shit on. I don't agree with everything that they (MX Sports) does but without them, the pro nationals would look a whole lot like MXGP if they didn't buy that series. If you have a big enough problem with the way MX Sports does things, buy them out. I'm sure there is a price!
I don't think many people have much problem with the decision to cancel once the storm hit. An act of God is uncontrollable. Everyone has seen the pic of the track under feet of water. It's some of the things that lead up to that and likely compounded the situation. The decision to allow alternates in would certainly increase class sizes and the need for Divisions. There should be no divisions at a Regional. # of AQ's times #of qualifiers from each should equal 42. Period. Everyone knows there's only so much time in 2 days and it's piss poor planning to go into it already behind the curve because you are allowing extra bodies in to pad the bottom line. If LL's is supposed to be the ultimate PREMIUM MX experience, then make it so and limit the entries at each step to what actually works. As I said earlier, the extra bodies at the AQ's is about the dumbest thing ever. You could literally drive a thousand miles, spend thousands of dollars only to have your kid taken out by some goon in practice or a pileup that is not even trying to qualify for LL. But they'll keep doing it because it adds money.
Regionals have had qualifiers to get into the motos for a good 15 years. They always accept more than 40 riders. Happens at most of the large regions in the east. It's bull shit but kind of a moot point by now. It's a money grab that will continue on.
So we can't point out obvious issues if we can't afford to buy them out?
Matthes and Weege cover PROFESSIONAL racing. They don't give a fuck about some Regional in New York.
But hey..... hopefully you feel better getting your shot in there to get that Vital street cred up.
Is your day fulfilled now?
Do you have any other completely fucking irrelevant shit that you want to throw Matthes under the bus for to try to make yourself look cool?
Are you also mad that Matthes didn't do a story on the P.R.O. race in Idaho last weekend?
I also didn't see a race report from bum fuck Missouri either, do you want to fucking cry about that?
Steve ain’t gonna let you on the show, bro..
Nice summary of your thoughts and well written. Seems the promoter of the national championship would have been able to come up with a similar PR about what happened and how they will go forward by now?
I think Tim cotter gets off on being miserable. I don’t think he has one positive interaction throughout the day. You could simply just say hi to the guy in passing and he would spin it into a negative conversation.
I don't agree with that. I've spoken with Tim Cotter numerous times over the years, and I think that most times when people try to talk to him he's juggling too many things. It's different having a chat with him before, during and after an event.
Maybe you’re right I could be wrong. I did also see a ton of people shitting on him in the last post I commented on. He’s also the reason I’m not doing anymore of the remaining east coast nationals sponsoring privateers after high point. Maybe I just caught him on a bad day? I know a lot of people on here hate on DC but he’s the one who helped me out and made me want to help privateers the last 3-4 years for the first 3 nationals and had a blast doing it.
Pit Row
Great comeback...
I'm assuming this is your way of saying that I'm right?
Either way, I hope you feel better now that you've got your irrelevant whining out the way. If not, I truly hope you have a safe space to go cry in until you recover.
Crappy deal....but hopefully an opportunity to fix this for the future.
Why are so many allowed to race the regional? I know it's been like that for a long time....but it should be a full gate period.
Why not use the same formula for the Regionals as used for the National? Certain number of spots transfer to a regional gate and then have regional Alternates based on their power ranking.
Seem like they are really cramming extra Area Qualifiers into the regions these days.
While I rant...I also never liked the idea of the families driving all over the country attempting to qualify in multiple Regions. You get one address to use.....
Yep, same with east/west supercross. What’s the point of having separate series and separate area qualifiers/regionals if anyone can race them??
It's a crappy deal and I'm sure it wasn't easy, but I think they made the right decision.
Now with that said, I'm with those saying there shouldn't be divisions at a Regional.... Divisions at a Regional is stupid. At that point, why even bother with Area qualifiers(outside of taking as much money as they can)?
It was a huge bummer to have to go home and not race on Sunday, but with that being said our drive out had to be re-routed 4 different times due to road closures from flooding when heading East. The county's declared state of emergency gave Unadilla no choice but to cancel and go off of moto 1 scores. Really hope all of those people recover after seeing houses and cars close to being submerged in some places.
Such an insane track and I hope to get to race it again someday! For what it's worth I understand now why amateurs don't race the famous Screw U section after standing at the top and looking down - wow!
Agreed.
I think most, given the situation understood the eventual decision and the way tickets were distributed. There really was not much other viable choice.
But keeping all the race fee's........just not right given the expense of the entire process, travel costs, Area costs, gate fees, pit vehicle fees, Qualifying fees, etc. "That's just the way its done" doesn't make it right nor does it convey any sense of "thanks for coming here for your regional, we want you back". Show some customer appreciation for the racers that traveled there from hundreds of miles away and got virtually no racing in. Its the right thing to do.
Pretty much everywhere you go, it's "wheel on the track, no money back". Seen it on signs at tracks. As for a refund, how would you do it? Refund 2/3 of the fees? The fact they cancelled the rest of the racing does not mitigate the sunk costs the promoter has in the event. Do a refund like so many have mentioned, and maybe there is no event next year because the promoter went bankrupt, and no one else wants to take the risk.....
You don’t think 1/3 of the entry fees cover the costs involved? With that many riders, I bet it does. They still have a gate/camping fee stuck in their pocket to boot.
Yup, refund 2/3rd of the race fee. They still keep the gate fee. Their not going broke $50K on gate fees alone, plus 1/3 race fees, and other associated fees like concessions/vendor fees, etc. If someone thinks their going broke they dont understand the money involved in these event.
If they have no event next year it won't be cause they went broke from this event, it will be because MX Sports awards to someone else or racers decide to go elsewhere and perhaps racers were succesful in showing their dissapointment. Won't be the first time, Budds shit the bed for a few years and was off the calender as well as ECMX. Now they are both back (ECMX is coming in 26), but it's because they did a better job and got a race again.
"Wheels on the track, money back" applies to most races and is in place in case participants decide to leave for whatever reason after practicing or racing the first moto BUT THE EVENT IS STILL ONGOING AND RUNNING NORMALLY. It is in place so that promoters dont loose out just because racers change their mind (for whatever reason). Its absolutely not applicable in this case and it should not apply to a National Qualifier where racers come from hundreds, if not thousands of miles for one moto, which in many cases was simply a heat race. Again, stressing that most understand the decision to cancel the event and the way tickets were awarded, but to keep all the race fees for only a partial event is not acceptable and certainely not customer (racer) friendly. People Remember.
Just how much do you think it costs to put on an event like that? Just the insurance is probably close to $50k EDIT: Actually, it's probably more than that to insure the event. I base this on a statement by the owner of our largest local woods racing organization, AWRCS. The owner has stated that this year, insurance for 2 two day AMA chartered event (harescramble racing) is $80k. So no, the gate money (which typically goes to the landowner, or a high percentage of it does). Would not likely even cover the insurance cost for the event. The facility prep, the track prep, the insurance, all of it except for a few thousand in wages is spent prior to the event being held. And the insurance company isn't refunding premium for a shortened event. You can be sure of that
I think this is wild people think they are going to get there money back. That’s like if you go to a race and it rains enough they don’t have to water you want to all split the diesel the water truck didn’t use. It’s out of there hands. LL is a huge money grab and everyone knows that. If you don’t well you do now. If you don’t like it don’t go next year they won’t miss you and there are 100’s who will take your place.
Sucks for everyone involved even the track. Sucks for the people who put so much into getting to the event to have something like that happen. But it did happen and this is motocross. Maybe they could have dealt with it differently but in no way is anyone entitled to any money back.
Sorry, had to share this here with those who fb.. lol
https://www.facebook.com/share/r/16VEMvMX4v/
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