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4513
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4/4/2015
Location
GB
It’s going worse than I ever could have imagined. :-(
I really was wishing for a Mewse Holeshot and a 10th place finish.
Worst thing is, I’m not sure I can see things changing in the next decade.
Gimme your thoughts.,
Nothing's going to change anytime soon. It's dire.
How come? It's not that long ago team uk contended for podium. Hell there was even chance once of team scotland to form to compete for top steps when ACU was stubborn. How come that UK has almost as few riders in mx2 as czechia with 1/6 of population has? 🥲
You could pick any one of a million reasons.
Short version - Poor organisation, competing championship structures, not enough tracks, too many people bleeding the sport, not enough talent.
I didn’t expect anything from Team GB. Mewse proving get can’t ride outside of the UK (hence why he’ll never get another chance at GP level). Walsh, I knew he’d do nothing. And Gilbert is out of his depth, unfortunate to get tackled up with Roczen in moto 1 after a promising start.
They should’ve picked Askew or Heyman for the mx2 ride.
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On the bonus side, as a recovering Brit myself, I did get to chat with many “Englishes” this weekend , that seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves, including my old mate, David Bulmer
I haven't followed GPS for a few years but looking at the results from this year why wasn't Sterry and Watson racing? I'm sure even Searle could of put in a shift.
So poor.
Should’ve threw Searle and DeanO on the team.
Searle didn't want to go, he's enjoying his life away from this level and after all he's done for MX here I'd say he deserves it. Watson was picked but Beta wouldn't give him a bike, Sterry/Gilbert was a coin-flip and probably bike-related as well.
Does anyone know why Walsh had 2x DNFs?
Was it bike failures or crashes?
Beta in Europe and Beta USA couldn’t figure out a bike for Watson?
Apparently not which was why he had to withdraw. I’m not familiar with details on why that was exactly.
The sport is even more prohibitively expensive in the UK now than it was 10-15 years ago, plus places to ride are becoming harder and harder to find. I genuinely have no idea how I'll find the funds, land to practice on, or race meets with enough riders to give my kids anything close to the childhood I had. It's really sad.
All of this leads to the talent pipeline drying up compared to previous generations. Unfortunately, you either need to have the money to leave the UK/race in Europe from a young age or be SO standout talented at a young age that sponsors pick you up and make it possible that way. Anyone who grows up riding exclusively in the UK with even a decent middle class family income is very unlikely to get the seat time or exposure to good enough tracks and competition to become another Searle or even a consistent top 10 GP guy.
Keep in mind even our more successful MXoN riders in recent years like Anstie and Deano did most of their racing and development outside of Britain when they were coming through
Walsh hasn't pounded much motos on a KTM since getting the ride to race for the Australian team for SX
There’s a lot of young talent coming out if the UK n 65/85/125 right now. Harry Dale looks like the real deal but has lived in holland/belgium since 65s and that’s what it might take these days.
20 years ago there were multiple British mxgp teams that have British riders their shot in mxgp. RWJ, CAS, MJ Church, Cat Finning etc - they all gone and Dixon is a shadow of the team it was.
The top 10-15 in British championship were all mxgp regulars. Coppins, Atsuta, Vehviläinen, McKenzie, Sword, Nunn etc. Now mxgp guys don’t race in the uk, apart from Herlings making start money. There’s no conduit to mxgp without moving to Europe at race the Dutch masters, ADAC, French or Italian series to impress teams based in the region.
Times have changed and there’s a lost generation of riders right now. Hopefully the academy that Dave Willet and co have set up will help the talent get back into mxgp but it’ll probably take some time.
go follow the junior team gb here. Doing good stuff.
https://www.instagram.com/teamgbjwc_official?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
You only need to look at the British Champs to see how shallow the talent pool is. Guys who retired from top-flight MX years ago are still winning races, and the rider dominating at home winning races by 30+ seconds gets blown away when he goes overseas. It's dire...
There's some good riders coming through but unfortunately we've had a decade where the old guard retired/stayed at home etc and the ones coming through decided to stay at home being big fish in a small pond. While our riders were pot-hunting in half-empty championships here, the MX world moved on and left us behind. That might sound harsh, but that's the truth. People can blame money, opportunity etc but the reality is that we're technically years behind everyone else.
Things are so bad in Britain, most of the pubs and fish n chip shops are closing.
Pit Row
There needs to be a complete overhaul of the strategy at team GB. The fact is, even with a team of Mewse, Anstie and Watson you will hover around 6-10. And if you deem that it's not worth the money to pay Star Yamaha and Beta the outrageous amounts of money for the bikes (especially in the case of Star Yamaha) then you need to go out and pick the very best youngsters you have so that they can gain experience.
Who cares if a 28 years old Dylan Walsh has a higher celing at a one off race in the fall of 2025 compared to Billy Askew or Heyman? It would've been much more valuable to have those kids on the team so that they could learn and get better.
Agree. As cool as it is for Tommy winning the British this year, at 36 years old, it's embarrassing for everyone he beat. And he even missed a round through injury.
Seems Britain had serious contenders before the influx of 'trainers'. Now, all our 'best' riders train on perfectly smooth tracks in the week then surprise surprise, they can't go quick on a race weekend because the track gets rough.
I remember in Tommy's last few years of racing GPs he'd be at Fat Cat on a Monday with the track left rough from the day before. You don't see any current racers doing that nowadays...
I'm optimistic for Ben Mustoe and Heyman to break through, but they need to get out of the UK to take themselves to the next level. (I know Heyman has raced Pro Motocross the last two summers, but in Europe is where he needs to be.)
This answers a lot of questions...
Mark's a good guy and the best man for the job IMO.
Totally agree. We were never in with a chance of a good result so we should have sent at least one young rider to get experience and light the fire for wanting to do more big races. If he had done well, the other young riders would want to beat him to take his place next year. Competition brings speed.
We have a British champ who openly avoids racing the big names overseas and doesn't travel well anyway. If he's made a career choice not to do the big races, maybe leave him at home for this one too and send a hungry young guy who would up his game and learn a lot. Maybe he would struggle but the result is irrelevant right now; we need to look at the future.
Ah yes, the trainers... What's the saying that goes "if you can't do it, teach it"..? 🙄
That's a new one on me but it's 100% accurate...
I'm not sure I agree with this, not becuase I don't dispute the need for these kids to get chances to race at a higher level but because I don't think sending a youngster to the US to get absolutely pounded into the dirt at a race they are painfully ill-equipped for is actually going to do them any good. That exposure to competition needs to be far more sustained than a one-off to help sharpen instincts and get people used to the level required.
I'm also not on-board with going after Conrad, his results this weekend weren't that bad and were certainly in line with what Watson may have done. There's no other young guy you could put on a 450 who could have picked up top-20 overall in that field and he rode his heart out. Conrad though is a great example of what is wrong in the UK, look at the 'advice' he's had in his career (I'm not including Swordy who's a really good lad) and the help he's had from the UK when he's needed it. We picked up a kid with a huge talent, tried to milk him for everything he was worth, threw him in when he wasn't ready then threw him on the dumpster when it didn't work out with no soft landing...
The point on trainers and all that is valid, not that I question the effort of people trying to help in an industry where lets face it, you ain't getting a decent career out of anything around it at all. MX is a niche sport in the UK though, we need to grow the sport from grass-roots up which isn't going to happen when tracks are over-prepped flat crap with scalextric ruts.There needs to be a structure to identify talent, support them from a young age with kit and so on, ensure we push those with elite traits to the ADAC series or EMX and then keep hold of them and nurture it properly rather than handing those kids over to GP teams who right now are part of the problem alongside MXGP series itself. Throwing 16 year olds into GP races just burns them up and burns them out in the majority of cases, but you can't take your time when your career in the sport depends on being the manager of the 'next big thing' so we push too hard...
Schoolboy should be the centre of it all. Amateur adult can support and fund schoolboy so decrease prices for kids and go up a bit for adults, take a slice to fund and help talent. Run the pro series as it's own thing, generating it's own revenue and only have one series.
Sad.
That's a fair comment about throwing someone young in before they're ready but the euro GP riders are doing the EMX, then GP's while in their teens. The "sustained" approach to moving up the ladder has been starting way too late for our riders - if it happened at all. If we've got 17,18,19 year olds who are completely unable to handle a big event then they've already missed the boat. Hopefully that's changing with the 125 races etc and we're getting riders doing high level home events earlier to get them prepared.
My point was that we have a habit of playing it safe with riders who haven't done the job before, expecting them to do it "this time". How many young riders in the past have picked up rides by doing the MXDN as a bit of a wildcard and had a good result. Pretty sure Hunter Lawrence got his GP ride after a good ride at the MXDN unless I'm mistaken? For every rider who might sink at the pressure, we might get one who clicks, and moves up a level from the experience. Nobody is offering GP rides to someone getting top-5 in the British champs.
My comments about Conrad are mostly out of frustration tbh. He's got a mega talent but it's been frittered away wasting time at home. Coming through the pack and winning by a minute looks great but imagine if that speed had been nurtured and pulled along in the GP's? I know he had some bad advice early on but that's a while ago now. He's matured and could've tried again any time in the last 5 years or so.
He's the benchmark in the UK and I can't help feeling the overall pace at home has gone down meaning his outright actual speed has been flattered, so his confidence gets knocked every time he rides the big events, after being "the man" the rest of the year. He needs to commit to a season of top flight racing where it'll be hard to start with but the pace will come. But; his window for that must be getting small by now. Dipping in once or twice a year is pointless. Matterley last year showed he can do it, but he needs to be able to do it every week, abroad as well as at home.
I can see where you're coming from on putting some kids in MXON but the problem is we don't have anyone with talent levels akin to Hunter/Jett, so I'm not sure it's like for like and especially not going across the Atlantic to a track like Ironman. Next year with it being Ernee, you could definitely make the case a bit more for someone like Askew/Heyman and/or Mustoe but again, lets let these kids develop and make sure they are ready a bit first. Get them a couple wildcard GP rides or EMX first, I mean Mustoe is still 16 isn't he? Give him time!
Conrad I think is burned at GP level by the big teams, they aren't going to take the punt any more almost no matter what he does in the UK or MXON. MXGP right now is a bit of a closed club where your face has to fit or your talent has to be out of this world, and the costs of trying to compete there all year-round are insane. His plan this year to do a couple rounds in the US was the right one but he picked up an injury and had to miss out, I'm sure he will have another crack next year and as you said he has the talent to turn that around in time. Gilbert too I think is still improving, honestly I thought both of those guys rode as well as we could have asked this weekend given the step up in level, location and logistics of it all.
Why no Anstie?
Injured and prepping for WSX.
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