Upgrade to enjoy this feature!
Vital MX fantasy is free to play, but Premium users receive great benefits. Premium benefits include:
- View and download rider stats
- Pick trends
- Create a private league
- And more!
Only $10 for all 2026 SX, MX, and SMX series.
It's easy to act tough and spout on about personal responsibility until you actually watch someone die in front of you.
Let's say you mortgaged your house for your kid's career (yes an extreme, but death is extreme too) and you feel an obstacle is too advanced for your kids group. You and 1 other parent complain, the rest stand around and call you a pussy, "everyone's doing it"
What do you do? Do you let your kid ride? The kid, your kid, who's standing next to you assuring you he can do it?
I don't know the answer to this, my son's 36 and I still shit my pants watching some of the stuff he does. I KNOW it's dangerous, I KNOW it's my fault for starting him riding at 5, I also KNOW he'll never listen to me tell him NOT to do something he believes he can. But his life revolves around riding his bike. At his level of riding, every time he rides, I ask myself did I do the right or wrong thing starting him riding.
The only thing I know for sure is that kids parents are massively hurting. We can't imagine what's going on in their minds and I feel soo bad for them. I pray the rest of us never have to go through that.
TM
Not a single track, or race, can guarantee our safety. Period. After the fact, there is always ‘more that can be done.’ Tragedy does not (should not) equate to financial windfall under the guise of ‘not doing enough.’
I feel terrible for the family. I really hope they make some statement that clarifies all this. If there is money involved perhaps it can go to making the sport safer through better gear or track design standards or policies.
Weird way to honor their son's legacy.
Maybe they were so upside down from funding the dream that they need this settlement or they'll be living in a cardboard box?
The Shop
Luxon 4-Post Bar Mounts
$189.95 - $239.95
Free shipping: VITALMX
Without making an assumption who initiated the suit…
What a crazy thing our legal system, insurance, lawyers and subrogation is. The insurance company writes policies and charges money. Then when they incur a loss they try and recoup the losses that they wrote the policy for by filling a cross complainant that just settles rather than spend the cost to litigate. Accountability generally just gets put on the business in the form of policy increases or cancelled policy. That’s when the track fees, race fees, safety gear cost and everything else just goes up. In the end the blame pie gets sliced up and handed to everyone.
Won’t exist in the united states*
Yeah I don't know what the answer is, but if there had been a system in place for the parents/riders accepting the obstacles and safety plan (flaggers) at LACR and Mammoth, then where would be two less lawsuits talked about here and less track closures. I'm sure both parents would have still let their kids ride, and there would be two less lawsuits that are going to affect everyone else. We need to figure out how a waiver is actually enforced as a waiver, so when you sign off on it you give up your right to sue in case of an accident.
The only entity paying in this is the rest who continue to participate in the sport.
I don't know... I'm tired of all this. Just copy/paste my responses from the LACR thread.
I watched a video someone posted earlier in the thread. I'm curious what people think of the # of flaggers they see as the guy's doing laps. I'm 100% sure we'll never agree on the right # of flaggers. In many cases, you'd expect a level of the rider's competence just to qualify for Mammoth. So what is the proper # of flaggers? I'm sure the only answer is more. It's a fricken dangerous sport and you can't anticipate every possible bobble that goes catastrophic. If nobody gets hurt, you had too many flaggers, if someone gets hurt you didn't have enough. What's the right answer? Too many? Unaffordable. To few? Unsafe.
TM
Unpopular opinion incoming -
The turn/drop-off that was the point of contention in the Taylor family lawsuit against LACR is more legitimate than argument about “Turn 9” in the Zingg lawsuit.
The turn/Drop-off at LACR was dangerous, point blank. A 3rd gear down hill bowlturn with a 50ish foot sheer drop off behind it was very sketchy.
Personally, I got passed ALOT in that section because I couldn’t bring myself to risk whiskey throttling over that berm. That was MY responsibility to make that decision.
I bring up the above because 99% of people on vital have made it their mission to say “FUCK RT/EXS Brand” every chance they get, but in this case are reserving judgment or giving benefit of the doubt.
In both cases, I do NOT agree with suing as they knew the risks but geared up anyway.
Shy of a tractor/water truck pulling onto the track, there aren’t many arguments in my mind how a facility should be held liable when we willingly pull onto the track.
No different than the Taylor suit, parents need to take responsibility for THEIR decisions! The choice of a minimal Fox chest protector was the parents for possibly allowing their son to make the choice of a less protective piece of safety equipment. The parents choice for allowing their child to race a track which they now deem unsafe. If it's not enough flaggers or the layout of the track, it was the same in practice as the race. ALL tracks have what can be considered unsafe after the fact. Parental acountability needs to be recognized before the bikes are purchased and entries are paid.
It seems like the major point of contention is going to be the response time to him from when the crash happened. If it was 4 minutes that’s quite a long time. Did any of the riders that hit him come forward? I can’t imagine how they would feel.
A good reminder to look out for your fellow riders out there. It’s just a silly race. If you see someone down that might be in trouble it’s ok to ruin your race to check on them. (Not saying any of the participants or flaggers screwed up here).
Greed is an ugly thing. Motocross will not survive it at this rate.
. Always a finger pointing at someone else. Everyone involved in ripping around technical motocross tracks at a high rate of speed in close proximity toa couple dozen other riders knows it is risky and there are 1001 situations that could go very wrong. This is not T-ball.
I guess the family could not care less at this point. May as well get paid, it is the letigious American way.
Reading that he was hit and had a heart compression, makes me think if the parents had their son ride in more protective type chest protector, the injury could have been minimized at the time. Personal protective gear can be the difference in severity of injury.
Ringo, just my opinion but what's up with these really bad apples to oranges comparisons here? And what's up with saying you'd sue any other tracks if it had involved you? You don't even know the details and here you are wanting to sue everyone involved . Seems you'll go along posting "normal" kind of reactions to things but then you'll come along with these oddball takes on things that just leaves me shaking my head.
The lawsuit disgusts me; we all know the risks. I even think motocross can't exist with perfectly staffed flagging and safety situations; it would be too expensive, so you have to factor that in with where you ride in terms of if you are willing to ride and race where it's not perfect.
One thing to consider is that trauma, especially the loss of a kid, can break apart families and it would just take one parent that wants to sue vs. both parents. Not saying this is the case, but this may be a good conversation to have with your spouse as to where they stand on track liability.
Just a terrible situation all around.
Arkansas recently passed the same law to protect the promoters too.
Pit Row
My stance as well. If flaggers were lacking, etc, they should have pulled from the event.
I’ll just add that ambulance chasing scumbags are absolutely the experts in timing their pitches to grieving families at the exact moment they shift from sadness and compassion to anger and the “someone must pay” phase of grief.
You’re not wrong !
And for the record, there has never been a shortage of flaggers at Mammoth. They are well staffed and run a solid program, year after year…
His injury is a very odd injury and not one I'd expect to see often in moto regardless of chest protector.
Going to be interesting to see how it plays out in terms of the litigation as well. Do not think he survives that injury even with immediate attention. Also going to be difficult to determine the amount of chest trauma that came from the initial crash, any subsequent hits, or what was surely prolonged CPR after that.
Personal risk assessment varies wildly.
There's this jump at a track i won't hit i know i can do it. But the landing area is suss because if you case it. You have about 25 feet to land. To make this built up wall 180 berm.
Felt like if you mess up your either gonna slam face plant into the berm. Or whiskey throttle off berm and go flying. And I've seen that just about happen multiple times.
Or constant over water ripped deep rut fests that's become a problem. It's not safe and I don't care that's what the pro's practice on. When you say something it usually results in getting called a pussy. Because everyone Or most everyone else is doing it.
But these same friends will hit skecky triples and think I'm an idiot. Because I ride street bikes and its so dangerous risky.
Maybe I missed it, but there’s record of more than one family saying the track was dangerous the day of the accident?
After reading most of this thread and the back and forth. First off it’s tragic that we lost a fine young man and what the family is going thru. Personally I’m fine with the filing of the lawsuit,. Let the all the facts come out in a courtroom and judged accordingly. If the Zingg family prevails then the lawsuit is justified, if the Track prevails then so be it. Jm2c
Doesn’t the zingg dad make most of his money from the dirtbike industry?
This isn't how this will go at all. It's not a fact finding mission, it's lawyers playing a game of chicken until they agree on a number and sign the NDA. Even if the track is 100% in the right their insurer still has to spend money defending the claim and will ultimately settle before taking the risk of going to trial over a dead kid. Once the claim is filed it's another strike against insuring tracks regardless of who's right and what the facts are.
https://swapmotolive.com/amsoil-swapmoto-race-series-rider-profile-bob-…
Let’s be real here, would their son approve of this? I doubt it…. We all know the risks involved when we ride. Shutting down tracks and suing people isn’t the answer…. If this behavior continues we won’t have any tracks available and the sport will die. No excuse for this behavior period
Post a reply to: Zingg Lawsuit