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Edited Date/Time
8/28/2017 9:55pm
After the Indiana wall jump fiasco with Deano, seeing some people agree and some people disagree with DC's choice got me thinking. Where do we draw the line as a sport between danger/risk and entertainment/racing? When is a section of the track too risky for the benefit achieved?
When I was growing up I always thought it was the coolest thing ever when someone figured out a huge line no one else had done. I feel as though it was common opinion to be in awe when JS7 would launch a quad or what have you, he was even basically begged upon at times to hang it out.
It seems like we're losing something about the sport that has to do with the "go big or go home" mentality. Do we want these riders to go balls out like Deano (finding faster, riskier lines to help their case in winning) or race safely and not have too much risk involved? I for one am on the side of letting these guys race. If a new line develops, leave it alone UNTIL problems arise. It's part of racing, the track changes and riders figure things out. If riders are complaining or crashing then take the jump out.
All it feels like now is Deano got punished for doing something good.
When I was growing up I always thought it was the coolest thing ever when someone figured out a huge line no one else had done. I feel as though it was common opinion to be in awe when JS7 would launch a quad or what have you, he was even basically begged upon at times to hang it out.
It seems like we're losing something about the sport that has to do with the "go big or go home" mentality. Do we want these riders to go balls out like Deano (finding faster, riskier lines to help their case in winning) or race safely and not have too much risk involved? I for one am on the side of letting these guys race. If a new line develops, leave it alone UNTIL problems arise. It's part of racing, the track changes and riders figure things out. If riders are complaining or crashing then take the jump out.
All it feels like now is Deano got punished for doing something good.
Couple examples in SX this year where this was not the popular opinion. Plus deano was doing the line on a perfect track for press day. They didnt bulldoze it between motos.
The Shop
Let's just take out every jump, every breaking bump, every whoop, we'll do a staggered start at 5 mph and we'll just have 5 minute motos so they don't get tired and risk crashing.
I mean really, if there's a whoop section in SX and the fastest line is to wheelie through every lap, is DC gonna call them and plead to them to take the whoops out so no one hurts their ass?
Moto needs not to be bubble wrapped.
For this particular jump, I feel a better solution would be to remove the third roller which would lessen the consequences of an endo, or build the first lip up just a tad more which would at least let them get over clean if they do everything right. That way if they miss a tad because of a mistake or track conditions, they land like Deano did and then they can decide if it's time to stop doing it. A majority of the riders wouldn't be doing it so it'd still have the cool factor.
When a problem arises it's probably too late. I agree with your sentiment, but its 2018, the organisers main priority is rider safety as they could be held accountable in some cases, or just cause a shit ton a problems if 6 or so riders got injured because of a certain section. Saying that I don't believe in dumbing the tracks down, so riders can't be creative. If you look at the gp tracks they are a lot more technical, with slower speeds, which I believe is the way forward. Still allows riders to be creative and shine through but it doesn't always mean hitting a 200 ft triple to do so.
Seriously though, had they kept it in there and someone got paralyzed on it then you all would be bitching about track safety. The decision to remove that jump could have easily saved someone's life and had zero effect on the quality of racing we all got to see. You guys want to see good racing or guys getting hurt?
You guys seem to forget these are mostly young kids out there with their whole lives ahead of them and good thing there are guys like DC that can recognize unnecessary risks such as the jump being talked about and eliminate them.
I normally am on the side of WTF are they thinking tho, so totally ok with taking it out.
But taking that out, there are a lot of obstacles that are a bit silly. I mean, Glen Helen almost every year has something where you're waiting for a chain break to witness a rider's last moment.
Keeping our guys safe is a big priority and I appreciate the effort
Decision making (risk vs. reward) has always been a part of the sport and will always be. Carmichael said he always tried to gain time for the least amount of risk (going faster through a slow rutted corner for example) to try and save time rather than trying to quad something crazy that saved the same amount of time but would result in a race/season ending injury if he got it wrong. That's good race management.
In golf they say Drive for Show, Putt for Dough. The drive is the equivalent of hucking a massive quad, the putt is the equivalent of railing that awkward rut perfectly lap after lap. Leave it up to the riders to decide where to gain time, as long as it's safe for others on the track.
Pit Row
I agree tho, safety first.
I wish they'd start at slowing down the bikes... the racing was better then too.
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