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Our 250 pick was a tough one but Mustoe is a kid who always gives 100% and either him or his bike would have to wrecked to not finish. There are faster kids, but they haven’t got that dog in them. The only one I would have maybe gone with is Joe Brookes instead, but I think Mustoe did a good job considering the track and the atmosphere. There’s not much like a Nations at Ernee!
All three did great and can't be faulted. The experience gained over the weekend by Mustoe and Hammal will pay off in the future if they're selected again. Seventh overall, pretty decent considering we don't have any full-time GP riders at the moment.
The lads did better than I expected, 7th is not bad considering but when you look at the points, we scored a hell of a lot. If we had our best possible squad, I think we would be looking at a top 5.
Really proud of the team
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Great effort by all 3 riders and as much as I love tommy, it was nice to see some of the younger generations get a chance to ride at such an event.
Only way to prepare for this level of riding is experience and so many of our riders don't do GP's anymore that it's hard to get that experience.
It raises the bigger issue of the racing at home and I think the UK scene needs a shot in the arm and complete reworking in regards to producing world class talent.
The team did a good job and I think it's the right decision to go with young riders who really want it. They would've had a mega weekend and will be hungry to do it again. Other young riders will have been watching thinking "I want that too!". There's been way too much insularity in British MX for the last decade, and this could be the kickstart we needed.
Some are mentioning Mewse saying he should've gone and why wasn't he asked? Tbh he's spent most of his career turning his back on world standard MX and didn't even turn up at the British GP. He's been upfront about not wanting to race overseas and made a decision to concentrate on national racing. That's fine, but that also means we need to work with riders who want it. Not go cap-in-hand to a rider who'll either go under duress or not give 100%.
The structure just isn't there domestically to focus youth talent and prepare it for the step upwards and the money isn't there to really put much of what's needed there into it either. I think putting the national series onto live streams this year has been a really positive move, the next thing would be getting some of the younger kids to start doing some self-promotion on twitch/youtube et al (Billy A does bits with Tommy Searle). A lot of the sponsors that could move the needle now tend to come from tech brands, not traditional backers.
It's not an easy fix, the sport doesn't have the profile it once did here but there are some green shoots to build on and the youngsters this weekend did an excellent job.
It’s not structure, Tommy Searle started racing at East Kent and became one of our best ever riders. It’s the belief that we always need to do something else, hire another trainer, tune another engine, pay more, buy more.
Fundamentally our riders are lacking in balls and racecraft. They all have the fire coached out of them by people who’ve never really achieved much but charge £250-£600 a month to produce riders who can’t think for themselves. Everyone needs new kit, new bikes, insta pages and jersey printing with 10% off sponsors all over them. What we really need is motorhomes banned, coaches banned and a refocus on finding kids who have the desire to actually win. MX can’t be shortcut, but here we are paying more to shortcut with fast bikes and coaching, and it producing riders that aren’t world level. There is money there, it’s just not worth spending domestically at the moment.
And just like MX there is no quick fix, we have no riders at the moment that could go to a GP and get anywhere near the top 5, not because our talent or infrastructure is poor, we’ve just become too bothered about what we look like and our setups.
I do have some experience in this, I’ve sponsored teams for a decade, including the Dirt Store one
We need Todd Kellett for Assen
Totally agree. Kids today think success is being in a team (that they’ve paid for) and becoming Instagram famous rather than actually winning. Their focus is wrong.
I don't disagree with you on most of those points but I still think it's partly down to structure. When Tommy rode east Kent there was maybe 2 schoolboy series, AMCA and ACU. Now there's possibly double that, diluting the championship value. When I was a kid (many, many moons ago) the BSMA best of british was exactly what it claimed to be because it actually meant something to qualify for. Now the various series' are desperate for gates to be filled so you can be a champion without having to actually struggle and fight for it.
I rode for East Kent throughout the 90’s, Tommy came after me. My era was Carl Nunn, Jamie Breedon, Swordie etc. Back then you had the Best of British, ACU & BSMA finals and Nationals that were dotted all over the country not as a series as far as I’m aware. East Kent used to run an International event in May, good times.
Bang on.
We need people that have talent on the bike, not followers. Busting out laps for the Gram, is no substitute for graft and results.
We have some good prospects, that need to make the next steps, we dont have a generational talent, so hard work and good directional support is needed.
And as with a lot of things, talent sometimes isnt enough.
The thing is with Tommy that sets him apart as a very strong example of what kid of rider succeeds is his bikes were awful, bags of crap that had never seen a spanner and the suspension had never had a clicker adjusted. No Insta, didn’t care if he didn’t stand up or his style wasn’t nice just wanted to go fast. Not stylish, just wanted to go as fast as he could every lap, every straight, every corner.
I feel like we don’t have that any more, we have British Champs riders doing corner drills with 11 year old kids on a Wednesday instead of 30 minute motos flat out chasing wins. Maybe the it’s the dream that’s changed? Winning isn’t important, it’s the gram?
Man, I feel old saying this haha
These kids just need to go fast, that’s the direction they need. Don’t pace yourself, don’t do all the fluff just get on your bike, ride it as fast as you can until it runs out of fuel, come back, fill it up and do it again.
Riding techniques, fitness it’s all come on leaps and bounds but if you don’t have the will to win then you just won’t, and if you spend more time trying to be perfect than trying to go fast you also won’t win.
Forgive me being argumentative but that’s a weird post, in that you say structure isn’t the problem and then highlight all the things wrong with the current state of youth/schoolboy mx (none of which I disagree with fundamentally) a lot of which are structural problems.
Tommy Searle came through East Kent (as more than a few others did as back in my youth) when they were always one of the strongest clubs. They fed a lot of young riders from a schoolboy system that was almost entirely BSMA, up to the nationals series where every meeting was a slog against riders all of whom came from strong clubs with a lot of competition. It’s not by accident that Swordy, Hucklebridge, Mark Jones, Carl Nunn all had decent careers all from the same age group and the competition between them all almost every week was ferocious. I know, I was trying (and failing mostly) to keep up with the buggers.
But right now schoolboy mx has fragmented. Clubs all have more adult groups than kids, there’s a few nationals series and what, four bodies running events currently? All of that is structural, it doesn’t focus talent, so the age old ‘iron sharpens iron’ isn’t there. The bits about best bike and best kit etc, I mean that’s always been there. I remember Jamie Breedon rocking up with two CR100’s at meetings looking the dogs bollocks and wishing I had that as a kid!
On the social thing, I’m not talking about trying to have every possible good rider spending all their time doing stupid shit, but if you’ve been around the first store team you can see how well Tommy has built his channel into a positive. You can see with Deegan in the US how to build a successful brand even before he’d achieved anything. Success in any motorsport needs money to pay for it (not just coaching, I agree with you there entirely) but physical prep, nurturing and focussing all that will to win and hunger you talk about. It’s pretty hard to be a pro level rider as it is, without needing to work a day job as a plasterer or a delivery driver at the same time. Money talks.
All of which is a long way of saying that I don’t think we have had a way for a while of taking kids who ‘may’ make it and making sure they do. That doesn’t mean someone like a Tommy Searle who’s been a generational talent won’t go through, it just means. less chance for those on the level below. I bet we lose more potentially good riders to cost and lack of tracks than we do to burnout or lack of will to win.
They weren’t a series, but largely they didn’t clash with each other so it wasn’t too hard to run both ACU and BSMA. The East Kent ‘international’ at Canada Heights was my favourite track of the year every year and it wasn’t even close. Although Maisemore was awesome too.
Pit Row
Don’t disagree with any of that Phil, and I wasn’t saying a ‘brand’ had to be an either/or thing. If done correctly building that and working on it to fund and fuel your riding can be used to build discipline and a work ethic.
I’d say the need to do more online comes down to series than it does individuals though, which is why I think the move to stream the UK series has been a really good one.
I think we’re at different perspectives when it comes to structure. The U.K. has race series that kids can compete in, it has tracks and it has all the tools there for a rider to develop their skills.
Outside of that structure, I’m not sure what else is needed? The things I quoted aren’t structural issues with Schoolboy MX, they’re cultural unfortunately. Nobody took the kids you are mentioning through anything, they grafted and made it happen and had in most cases long and successful careers.
Tommy developed his social media after his racing career had started to slow down, after he retired from GP’s, after he did all of the stuff that riders need to do before becoming insta famous. The hours at Lommel in the winter and all that stuff, he reaps the rewards because he travelled the world trying to win.
Our current riders want the last bit, they don’t want the hard bit.
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