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1) This is a lame decision, and direction.
2) The whole East/West deal is lame anyways and should be trashed.
It's been and proven to be a Factory Class for years, and still is.
That's the stupid part really.
Why sell yourselves as only a "1Premiere Show", when you can have 2 to sell.
Sure, Vegas is cool and all, but in the bigger picture, it's just plain backwards.
The whole deal...................................
The East/West has far out lived it's usefulness.
The powers that be have been calling this wrong for years now.
The original premise for the series of splitting up the coasts has fallen by the way side.
Teams like PC, FC love it as it's more bang for their buck, but again it's a Factory Class over-n-over.
If they ever want the sport to truly grow expand and thrive outside of all else they're trying they're missing the boat on this.
The 250F guys need to run a full series, just like the Outdoors.
The Class deserves a full tilt Championship Series.
The riders deserve a full tilt Championship Series.
The fans deserve a full tilt Championship Series.
Dave O.
What I can't believe is why they haven't increased the laps from 15 to 20 in the 250s and from 20 to 25 in the 450s... Please give us MORE racing! While they're at it they can make the 250 heats 8 laps and the 450 heats 10 laps.
The East / West lites series is old school, as mentioned above it is full of factory teams now, it could actually make racing cheaper for most teams by just having one 250F national Supercross series. PC and FC could both run just 2 riders and have them at every round, saving them the cost of two more riders, two mor race bikes plus a shit load of practice bikes for another 2 riders, plus two less mechanics to pay! They could even go with 3 riders and it still would be cheaper.
Plus would it not be better to watch the top 20-40 riders battle it out each week compared to the top 80 lites riders split between 2 regions.
If the AMA kept the age rule in, or bought one in so you could not go Pro untill 17, they could have a third class as a 15 - 17 year amature age class, or even a no age limit amature class for riders to gain experiance before they have to ride the Pro Class on full SX race tracks.
Make it Regional again, only allow riders from each region to compete in that region, must be amature riders, two years max in that class so it does not get clogged up by guys spending year after year in the development class, any overseas riders that come over anyway normally are good enough to run the Pro Class anyway, so it really would give the American future Pro riders a good stepping stone to Supercross.
Just a thought.
Pit Row
From a rider perspective, the regional series is no question a win. More exposure for more riders and teams. Just look at the nationals last year - positions 1-8 were slotted for the PC and FC teams, Star would grab 9-10, and the best the non-factory guys could hope for is 1th place and back. The regional series breaks that up and give a guy like Jimmy Decotis a chance to get up into the top 5 and gain exposure for himself, his team and his sponsors.
I agree that the make up of the regional series has changed, but I believe the spirit remains the same: give the smaller teams a chance to get some exposure, and give guys like Jimmy Decotis a chance to be recognized. How is that bad for the sport?
I think the rules need to be tweaked to create more of an even playing field between the haves and have-nots (if PC doesn't like it, man up and race the premier class), but I like the idea and the structure of the regional series.
Everyone makes valid points as to how to mix it up or improve it, but I see nothing wrong with leaving it the way it is.
It is true by combining the East & West that teams like PC & FC would likely only have two riders instead of four. While this makes it great economically for these teams and others like them, it also vacates support that would go towards other riders. We already are seeing how tough it is for many to continue on in this sport, so how is eliminating several opportunities for rides going to grow the sport?
I agree that the original concept of the East/West thing was lost a long time ago with no coast boundries, the involvement of full-on factory efforts, foreign riders/GP champs, etc., but what has evolved is okay with me. I get to see more racing, more riders, and in the end I think it still achieves some degree of its original intention of developing the talent pool that will eventually populate (and dominate) the 450 class.
Only citing recent examples- who isn't looking forward to seeing Canard, Pourcel and Weimer at A1 now that they have dominated the "Lites" series the last couple years?
And though I am not behind the scenes enough to verify this, I still think that you have a contingent of privateer riders or teams with limited support that benefit from it still being a divided series. The experience or exposure that they do manage to get is enough to help fill the gates & keep them coming back.
Where I would agree that some refinement could help is that the final East/West shootout at the end of the series often seems anti-climatic. The match up of East & West Champions at the final shoot-out doesn't ever seem to validate that one was better than the other. As others have pointed out, frequently that doesn't even materialize.
To me, the more chances that you have to develop the talent pool to feed the premier (450) class, then all the better. Even after all these years and the many champions that have been crowned as East or West SX Lites Champion, we still place more emphasis on the 450 class. I'm not sure what eliminating one of the stepping stones into this class would help to achieve.
But then again-- I have also been wrong many times before!
Post a reply to: The AMA is officially on drugs.