Bring back the glory days

BS12
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Edited Date/Time 10/3/2017 12:29pm
Flogging a dead horse here but...

Watching Bar to Bar SX 05, and someone correct me if I'm wrong but the racing was just better and more intense back then.

RC & CR in their peak, JS259 coming back in exciting fashion from a broken arm, K-Dub on one of those weird sounding bikes with more strokes than normal feeding up the guys every week, super aggressive racing every week with lots of passing and at a high pace but yet on seemingly more technical tracks than today, and riders with personality! RC celebrating wins a lap early with big whips and even no foot cans saluting the crowd, James break dancing after races and doing nac nacs during the intros, K-Dub & CR even having words on the track mid season. Not to mention Part Time Showtime reminding everyone he still had it.

You can't expect talent that deep every year (though the promoters will preach otherwise), but I feel modern day SX lacks the excitement seen during seasons like this regardless of the talent pool. It seems tech, (Litpro etc), bike power and displacement combined with track design where it quickly becomes 1 lined everywhere are all contributing. Even interviews were more exciting. Jamie Little (sp) knew what questions to ask and how to ask them in order to get riders to engage with her instead of reeling off sponsor lists.

It's been talked about multiple times but I couldn't help myself. What needs to happen (within reason) to bring back that excitement? We've already got a nice plot for 2018 with Roczen coming back, Tomac wanting revenge, Musquin showing promise etc but all that doesnt mean much if its going to be 17 rounds of whoever gets the start followed by a 20 minute session of follow the leader.

Don't get me wrong I'm a super fan and love watching every single week, but watching this 05 series opened my eyes to (in my opinion) a much more exciting era of racing. I'm not suggesting reinventing the wheel or the whole bring back 2 strokes (!) argument, but surely there's some tweaks that can be made to inject more excitement into some of these main events.

Feel free to flame me with pics of bears in trees, dead horses, comments about how 450s are too powerful and rebuttals about how wrong I am.



From the 27 min mark:

https://youtu.be/VMoPUwTdlaA
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Crush
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10/3/2017 2:53am Edited Date/Time 10/3/2017 3:32am
Slower bikes.

Can't be an accident that the racing in almost every type of motorsport is better in the less powerful classes.

After that, build the tracks to suit.

Crack a beer, enjoy. (And something about two strokes, cause fuck you, that's what I do.)
RACERX69
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10/3/2017 3:29am
Ironically, 05' was the last year the fast guys were on 2-strokes! Hmmm??
JMX82
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10/3/2017 4:15am
I couldn't agree more with OP. Today's Supercross tracks offer very little variation and riders lack personality compared to early 2000's.

In my opinion 450's are too fast and heavy for Supercross and makes racing less aggressive. Nothing is more boring than riders listing all the sponsors in their podium interviews talking nothing about the race. I know sponsorship deals requires them to do that but I think that won't do any good to their sponsors either when people only get annoyed by that.
mmcmx
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10/3/2017 4:19am
Crush wrote:
Slower bikes. Can't be an accident that the racing in almost every type of motorsport is better in the less powerful classes. After that, build the...
Slower bikes.

Can't be an accident that the racing in almost every type of motorsport is better in the less powerful classes.

After that, build the tracks to suit.

Crack a beer, enjoy. (And something about two strokes, cause fuck you, that's what I do.)
X2

The Shop

ga_pike
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10/3/2017 5:13am
Thing is, the term "glory days" means something different to everyone. You apparently loved the RC, CR, JS era. I'm a fan of the Rick Johnson, Jeff Ward, David Bailey days. Others will argue McGrath and Stanton or maybe the days of Bob Hannah... Magoo, Chandler, Glover, etc.

BS12
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AU
10/3/2017 6:19am
ga_pike wrote:
Thing is, the term "glory days" means something different to everyone. You apparently loved the RC, CR, JS era. I'm a fan of the Rick Johnson...
Thing is, the term "glory days" means something different to everyone. You apparently loved the RC, CR, JS era. I'm a fan of the Rick Johnson, Jeff Ward, David Bailey days. Others will argue McGrath and Stanton or maybe the days of Bob Hannah... Magoo, Chandler, Glover, etc.

Touche mate, good point.

To put it more simply then and in the interests of good conversation, do you find the racing any less exciting now or are you still stoked on it? Personally I believe that the factors I mentioned earlier have made it all a bit less intense and exciting compared to yesteryear, though of course I still enjoy it.
rhargrave431
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Kalispell, MT US
10/3/2017 6:50am
BS12 wrote:
Flogging a dead horse here but... Watching Bar to Bar SX 05, and someone correct me if I'm wrong but the racing was just better and...
Flogging a dead horse here but...

Watching Bar to Bar SX 05, and someone correct me if I'm wrong but the racing was just better and more intense back then.

RC & CR in their peak, JS259 coming back in exciting fashion from a broken arm, K-Dub on one of those weird sounding bikes with more strokes than normal feeding up the guys every week, super aggressive racing every week with lots of passing and at a high pace but yet on seemingly more technical tracks than today, and riders with personality! RC celebrating wins a lap early with big whips and even no foot cans saluting the crowd, James break dancing after races and doing nac nacs during the intros, K-Dub & CR even having words on the track mid season. Not to mention Part Time Showtime reminding everyone he still had it.

You can't expect talent that deep every year (though the promoters will preach otherwise), but I feel modern day SX lacks the excitement seen during seasons like this regardless of the talent pool. It seems tech, (Litpro etc), bike power and displacement combined with track design where it quickly becomes 1 lined everywhere are all contributing. Even interviews were more exciting. Jamie Little (sp) knew what questions to ask and how to ask them in order to get riders to engage with her instead of reeling off sponsor lists.

It's been talked about multiple times but I couldn't help myself. What needs to happen (within reason) to bring back that excitement? We've already got a nice plot for 2018 with Roczen coming back, Tomac wanting revenge, Musquin showing promise etc but all that doesnt mean much if its going to be 17 rounds of whoever gets the start followed by a 20 minute session of follow the leader.

Don't get me wrong I'm a super fan and love watching every single week, but watching this 05 series opened my eyes to (in my opinion) a much more exciting era of racing. I'm not suggesting reinventing the wheel or the whole bring back 2 strokes (!) argument, but surely there's some tweaks that can be made to inject more excitement into some of these main events.

Feel free to flame me with pics of bears in trees, dead horses, comments about how 450s are too powerful and rebuttals about how wrong I am.



From the 27 min mark:

https://youtu.be/VMoPUwTdlaA
I agree that tracks and bikes have made a difference, but I also think why that era of racing was so close was because the field wasn't deep. RC, Speedy, and Stew were all very close in speed and no one would back down and settle an inch. Even if someone started back a bit, they were in 3rd within a lap or two..
Wilson116
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10/3/2017 6:52am
I honestly think last years SuperCross would have been much more exciting had Kenny been able to return after a week off. Would have given RD and E3 a chance to catch back up and get some momentum and you would have had a 3 way race to the finish.
jsleeds
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10/3/2017 7:22am
We've had better races than that 05 race this year. The bikes are more powerful and that's the only difference.
Firefly47
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Fayetteville, GA US
10/3/2017 10:12am
Man, who else misses Cameron Steele uttering phrases like, "Bro", "Gnarly", and "Stoked"?
Yeah. Me either.
10/3/2017 10:18am
You could even go back a few more years to the days when riders had cool nicknames. Showtime, Factory Phil...
mattyhamz2
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10/3/2017 11:46am
Crush wrote:
Slower bikes. Can't be an accident that the racing in almost every type of motorsport is better in the less powerful classes. After that, build the...
Slower bikes.

Can't be an accident that the racing in almost every type of motorsport is better in the less powerful classes.

After that, build the tracks to suit.

Crack a beer, enjoy. (And something about two strokes, cause fuck you, that's what I do.)
Agreed 100%.

Look at Moto3 in the world road racing. It's a spec class but the racing is so tight that a guy could sling shot from 10th to the lead on the last straightaway for the win. That racing is so exciting to watch!
JM485
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10/3/2017 12:29pm
Firefly47 wrote:
Man, who else misses Cameron Steele uttering phrases like, "Bro", "Gnarly", and "Stoked"?
Yeah. Me either.
Funny thing is I've watch that video probably 100 times as a kid and I still think Cameron is the best announcer by far. I have nothing personal against Ralf and Jeff, but man do they lack in the excitement department, it's like listening to paint dry to me. We seriously need some personality back into racing, and I think Kenny's just the guy to light a fire under people and get them to open up a little bit. And can we please get some victory laps back? I swear some of these guys win a race and still look like they're in line at the DMV, throw some whips, do a no footer, do something that leads me to believe you don't absolutely hate riding motorcycles for a living. I give props to Marv for his heel clickers, thanks for throwing something out there and making winning look fun, plus Metzger would obviously approve.Cool
10/4/2017 1:32am
I watched bar to bar 2005 last week too and i have to say i'm with you here. I was amazed how good racing was back then.
kaptkaos
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Miami, FL US
10/4/2017 8:31am
THe last amazing SX season we had was what 2011? Then 2009?
2017

Slower bikes will make the racing better for sure.

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