It’s time to slow bikes down

I'd like to see someone test this with a Stark Varg - a true comparison of power vs speed/laptimes. Not just capping the peak power, but reducing the torque output as well. Take it all the way down to 5% of the 80HP and the associated torque availability. It'd be interesting to see where the tipping point is for laptimes to start blowing out considerably. 

             Motocross rider are, for the most part, born risk takers. The only way to have less injuries, and help stop tragic deaths, is to restructure the classes. Smaller displacement classes would help. Nothing will stop all incidents, however, if we don’t start self policing ourselves, Big Brother will eventually do it for us. We are a very small sport, and we have no political clout, which means that Government may one day decide to make an example of us. I have been riding since 1971, and IMO, now is the time to help / govern ourselves .

It’s the tracks that are too fast. 

I feel like it was safer because the combination of limited traction, rough tracks, and hard to ride bikes made for a slower overall speed and smaller jumps.   When 4 strokes came out, they were so much easier to ride fast, unskilled riders were suddenly able to go fast and clear big jumps.  If the track is not a freeway it is a lot harder for most riders to go fast on a 2 stroke.  It takes a lot more skill to get traction and carry speed.  

I retired from racing about 10 years ago but still go out to watch at my local track. Years ago it was a rough, natural grassy course that cut up and you rode it accordingly, looking for lines. Nowadays it's groomed, smooth and flat out, with one fast line meaning any overtaking involves taking big risks.

Watching the racing, it's obvious the average speed is way higher now, and the bikes are more than capable of soaking up what bumps there are, and what's left is basically road-racing on dirt. Which is great till things go wrong then the rider is crashing way faster than in years gone by. Crashes that used to leave a bruise are now leaving broken bones or worse.

It's the perfect storm of bikes way faster than most guys need, on tracks that let them go way faster than they're realistically in control of.

I’m not sure what the answer is, but in my opinion, tracks/jumps have gotten too gnarly.  I also think more can be done to keep younger and/or less experienced riders from being on the track with fast riders on bigger bikes.  I have seen gnarly tracks and combining mixed level riders create dangerous situations many times at the practice tracks I ride. 

Blame the tracks not the bikes. It's not the bikes' fault that there are 90+ foot triples on all of these tracks, or insane gaps that the top guys make every lap. There's a huge event coming up in my area called Zoar Valley Motocross Reunion. It's a track from the 70's/80's. There's maybe 3 or 4 places on it where you can catch ANY air. I doubt we'll see any serious injuries that weekend. It might not be the most exciting thing for spectators, but the track is safe, even for beginners and novices. 

As someone stated before, they could limit the power with a restrictor plate type of device. 

I really think people underestimate how fast a 125cc 2-stroke can be made. RC or James on a full built 125 would clear everything on every lap. It wouldn't surprise me to hear of a 125cc modern bike making 45+hp.

I remember the days when you’d have to plan a corner or two ahead to clear a double. Sometimes you weren’t in the fastest line ( lap time wise ) but where you needed to be to get the speed to clear it. 
It made racing more of a chess match. You had to be smart. 

Now, any goofball can twist the throttle 10’ from the base of a jump and clear it fine… until he can’t. 

From what I’ve read ( it could be bad info ), none of this would have made much of a difference in Aiden Zingg’s case. 

But, it’s still a good discussion for future safety. 

The tracks have adapted to the bikes. Not the other way around. 

I went to Zoar the past 2 years, best track I ever rode, hands down.

Tough subject and it will probably take more the one specific thing to solve, assuming there really is a problem.

The bike is just a tool, its the operator who decides what the tool does or does not do. In our society we allow 16 yr olds to drive a vehicle of any horsepower/performence imaginable on the street risking their and other lifes in far more numbers than on a mx track. 

This sport has so many levels, pros, aspiring pros, young kids,  old guys and everything in between. All using the same track and bikes.

End of the day its up to the user to decide what and where to ride and the risks they take. Reality is injuries and death are part of the sport.  Howmany die in car accidents, they tired reducing speed limits years ago to 55, now were back up to 70mph.  Guess studies showed the reduced speeds did not effect accidents as much as was theorized.

If we want to fix something, guess we need to figure out whats broken, and this thread sort of proves no one really knows whats broken...

Another thing that could make things safer: Either live flaggers or electronic devices that warn riders about downed riders in blind landing areas. This would add cost. But preventing landing / running over a downed rider or bike would be a huge step forward. 

I remember discussions about a system that would flash a red light when a bike or rider was stopped on on the track, are these things commercially available?

I think getting older has a lot to do with my decision to quit. I was also sick of the operations, plates, screws, rehab and the general thinking that I simply wasn't getting the seat time I needed to ride safely. Getting hurt is a bitch when you live alone...and the risk simply outweighed the fun. My last injury in 2019 really opened my eyes as to what could have happened. I was lucky to eventually be able to walk. After that little stunt...I simply quit. Plus, I was getting scared of the bikes. They are capable of doing things that I simply couldn't do and the temptation to hit those jumps could end me. I still love the sport and admire someone who can rip a 450. But for the average rider, a 450 is a lot of bike...too much for me. It comes down to seat time and I simply didn't have it any more. Great sport, but I am very happy I walked away from riding. Now, it's EMTB's and I am very satisfied with that.

I didn't ride for about 20 years and then recently did a track day on a 450. I had an absolute blast and I could go "fast" with way less effort than when I last rode a 125. That meant less armpump and more laps. I also rolled every single jump because why the fuck are there multiple 60 to 100 ft jumps on a practice track? A well designed track with sweepers, rollers, tight bends, berms, some tables, and a fast straight or two is all you need! If you can't enjoy Moto without absolutely sending it on massive jumps you might just be a headcase with a bike rather than a fan of the sport. 

I think another point that is worth addressing is the mentality around injuries as well. I've seen kids going head over bar, KO'ed on the ground for a while but then will be out racing the next day when dude should have definitely been sitting at home resting.

I can respect and understand our desire to be tough and keep pushing on, the stigma about looking weak and not wanting to give. Man as a teen I played football and was willing to die on that field to win. At some point you gotta stop, heal, and rest physically, mentally, and emotionally. Or maybe a moto parent stepping in and telling their wounded kid they have done enough for the weekend. 

I've personally pushed on in a desert race on the verge of heat exhaustion that should have probably ended and sent me to the hospital.

We also had the same mentality and stigma around injuries in the military which leads to life long consequences.

Statistically youre MUCH more likely to die in a car crash on your way to the track than actually riding. According to google only 61 people die per year on dirt bikes, but 42,514 people die per year in car accidents. Youre 696 times more likely to die in your car than at the track. This is for sure a dangerous sport and we should always be pushing to make it safer, but for as dangerous as it is, its still pretty rare for people to die doing it. We should absolutely be constantly making it safer, but I just wanted to put some perspective into the discussion about how in the grand scheme of things theres other things we do day to day that are exponentially more dangerous/deadly.

Where should you practice big jumps so you can do it before you have to do it on a race track if not on the practice track?.

Different riders and ages have different needs on a track. If you build a real racetrack the VET riders complain, if you tame it down the riders that compete complain. 

And not all clubs have the land and resources to build multiple tracks. So you build a track to suit as much riders as possible but you always end up with unsatisfied riders no matter what you do.

I have built a couple of tracks and helped some clubs with new track design and both building and re-building old tracks and it’s always the same problem to find the perfect happy medium. 

That's not an apples to apples comparison though as most people drive their car multiple times per day every single day of the year.  So you are in a car MUCH more than you are riding your dirt bike.

I don't know how you do the math on that statistic I just want to point out it's a little ridiculous to say driving your car is more dangerous than riding moto.

I've had 10+ broken bones from dirt bikes and 0 from driving in a car but I've been in a car probably 1000x more time than I've ridden a dirt bike.

In aviation, accident stats are divided by flight hours. Usually a number showing accident rates per 100,000 flight hours. 

There would be a huge difference in rates per 100,000 hours of everyone in an auto compared to 100,000 hrs of everyone racing motocross. 

Has anyone seen a track built with alternate lines to go around big jumps? Merging the two lines back together could get interesting, but that would keep the jumpers and us older “grounded” riders happy..

Woah... this thread just lost a lot of posts.

Look like somebody didn't like being disagreed with and holes getting shot in their theory that 450s were perfectly safe so that folks could hit jumps they have no business doing.

I’m by no means a statistically qualified expert but you took car fatalities and moto fatalities and divided it to come up with X times more likely? I’m just a dumb contractor but the number of people riding dirt bikes pales in comparison to people riding in cars. There’s also the argument society absolutely relies on automobiles to sustain our livelihoods. Anyhow on the ride home after a race day yesterday my son and I got in a very long in depth conversation about Aiden and our thoughts. It was a good conversation about tracks, bikes, flaggers, etc. Admittedly we came up with a lot of problems and some answers that made sense to us but really until the sanctioning bodies and promoters choose to do something we’re just along for the ride. I will say the more we read or hear about these catastrophic injuries, the more we start to wonder how far our shared passion and love for the sport will take us. Thoughts and prayers are what is needed now, but to sit on our hands and go on like it can’t be made better will eventually lead to the death of the sport. At least for us anyway. 

I don't think dropping peak RPM will do anything. The average guys riding them aren't riding these bikes to max RPM. The RMZ makes its peak at 8800rpm and I would argue most wouldn't even ride the bike in that spot. 

I remember an MXA article about 250's back in 2016 and they talked about the KTM making peak at 14,000 and I believe it was Seab Lipanovich doing the testing. He came back saying the bike felt slow even at peak RPM. Data from the bike showed he wasn't even close to 14,000 RPM. 

This is VERY incorrect. You can't just divide one number by the other without factoring in the denominators. 

You are not calculating for the amount of people driving cars daily vs people riding dirt bikes yearly. In the US ALONE, there are 255 million registered drivers on the road yearly. Take your number of 42k fatal accidents per year, your chance of fatality is around 0.00016.  

Now how many people ride dirtbikes each year? How many people ride on a track (This is what we are talking about here, not people who buy bikes and ride in a field or on pavement somewhere)? We'll shoot high and say 40,000? Probably a gross over estimation. 61/40,000 = 0.0015. One whole decimal point higher, which again, is probably a serious over estimation of rider population. Percentage is probably double that if you could hammer down a more realistic number. 

Skyline MX has a Vet track that is exactly that - I think there's 1 or 2 tables, 50 feet tops. The rest is just a mix of straights and corners that are way safer than the main track. Of course, no one under 40 rides it. It's the "old man's trak" to the kids. The main track there is awesome too but has speeds and obstacles that will break you if/when you get it wrong.

There is no way to fix it, it’s just a super dangerous sport. Maybe improve the flaggers, that would help some. Or less blind obstacles etc 

Slowing bikes down won’t help. Theres been a lot of kids that have died on 85’s lately. Those are way slower than 250/450’s 

My kid is 12 and a Loretta’s kid. I’m looking foward to the day he wants to pull back from racing. 

Doubt it is any more dangerous that when I was a kid racing in the 90’s and early 2000’s

The thing is social media now. Second something happens, even if its a local rider 3,000 miles away, you hear about it.

When I racing in Northern California as a kid, we would never know if something bad happened to a kid in Florida 

Agree w you. However I see no one willing to concede.

Ill prove it. Every 125 video guys wet themselves. They love the sound, they love how much fun,they love easy and cost of both bike ans maintenance.  And then they ride a 450. 

In my opinion we (not me)(i have a 125) did it to ourselves wanting the next best thing. So now we have it