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Edited Date/Time
2/23/2018 1:43pm
Changes to the format have been the hot topic as of late and we've seen them trying things. The results are subjective and have been discussed.
The goal is to make the racing more exciting, thus drawing in more viewers. Move viewers equates to more money.
Now there are numerous other professional sports with proven models that have long term success. Maybe they should take a look at some of those models.
The first rule that jumps out to me that could make a difference is setting a time limit on testing and training. MotoGP, F1, NASCAR, NFL, NBA, MLB, and I'm sure there are several others, all have rules that limit the amount of time teams can spend testing and practicing. Some of those organizations are more strict than others with how they control this, but it plays a bigger role in the end result than we likely realize.
Less time testing with the team means several things.
1. reduced cost
2. healthier athletes
3. it can aid in closing the gap in competition
4. racers not getting burnt out as quickly
From what I can see, this would benefit the smaller teams and privateers the most mainly because of the reduction of costs. Less overhead means more money in the racers pockets.
It could also prevent some riders from developing into machines and dominating like RV, RD, JS7, RC, and the others we have seen. Most of those guys also retired at what many consider to be an early age due to burnout. Maybe this could help keep the big names in the sport longer, which would obviously be a good thing.
Next set of rules to address falls in the amateur ranks. They must change how things currently are. The home school thing is out of control and absolutely ridiculous. Half of these poor kids sound like they are dumb as a brick and have 0 education to fall back on when they can't make it in the pro ranks.
Yes, I know a lot of football players can't form a sentence either. However, the rules make an attempt. NFL requires the players be 3 years removed from high school before they can enter the draft, which means they need to play in college to have a shot at going pro. While in college, the NCAA also has GPA requirements even though a lot of schools really test the rules on this. That's on the school though, not the league.
Should there be GPA requirements at big amateur nationals? The AMA may not enforce it, but I do on my kid. If his grades fall below honor roll, he doesn't race.
Should the AMA address kids living at training facilities? Or maybe just like other pro sports, the AMA should require kids to graduate high school before they can go pro.
Yes home schooling is legal, but we all know these kids are cheating the system. I may be wrong, but I believe home schooling falls under the same requirements as public school. There's a specified amount of time kids are required to spend in class sessions. This could also be different from state to state, I haven't researched it as it's not something I'm overly interested in.
So what effect does this have on the racing? A few things that I can see.
1. The kids are going pro a couple of years later so they are a little more mature
2. there's a big difference between 16 and 18 strength wise, this could help a lot with injuries. We've all seen a scrawny 16 year old step on to a factory 250f only to get bucked off and hurt. Most kids that age simply aren't developed and strong enough to race a bike that powerful at that level
3. hopefully these young kids are a little smarter. SX wants to be viewed as a professional sport, it needs athletes that can speak at a professional level.
4. racing doesn't pan out, they at least have a diploma and can go to college without having to take 2 years of remedial courses
5. It could potentially tighten up the racing since they have less time overall on the bike and honing their skills. Then we get to watch them develop as professionals and extend their careers
Just some food for thought. There's several other points I can bring up, but there are the 2 that constantly jump out at me.
The goal is to make the racing more exciting, thus drawing in more viewers. Move viewers equates to more money.
Now there are numerous other professional sports with proven models that have long term success. Maybe they should take a look at some of those models.
The first rule that jumps out to me that could make a difference is setting a time limit on testing and training. MotoGP, F1, NASCAR, NFL, NBA, MLB, and I'm sure there are several others, all have rules that limit the amount of time teams can spend testing and practicing. Some of those organizations are more strict than others with how they control this, but it plays a bigger role in the end result than we likely realize.
Less time testing with the team means several things.
1. reduced cost
2. healthier athletes
3. it can aid in closing the gap in competition
4. racers not getting burnt out as quickly
From what I can see, this would benefit the smaller teams and privateers the most mainly because of the reduction of costs. Less overhead means more money in the racers pockets.
It could also prevent some riders from developing into machines and dominating like RV, RD, JS7, RC, and the others we have seen. Most of those guys also retired at what many consider to be an early age due to burnout. Maybe this could help keep the big names in the sport longer, which would obviously be a good thing.
Next set of rules to address falls in the amateur ranks. They must change how things currently are. The home school thing is out of control and absolutely ridiculous. Half of these poor kids sound like they are dumb as a brick and have 0 education to fall back on when they can't make it in the pro ranks.
Yes, I know a lot of football players can't form a sentence either. However, the rules make an attempt. NFL requires the players be 3 years removed from high school before they can enter the draft, which means they need to play in college to have a shot at going pro. While in college, the NCAA also has GPA requirements even though a lot of schools really test the rules on this. That's on the school though, not the league.
Should there be GPA requirements at big amateur nationals? The AMA may not enforce it, but I do on my kid. If his grades fall below honor roll, he doesn't race.
Should the AMA address kids living at training facilities? Or maybe just like other pro sports, the AMA should require kids to graduate high school before they can go pro.
Yes home schooling is legal, but we all know these kids are cheating the system. I may be wrong, but I believe home schooling falls under the same requirements as public school. There's a specified amount of time kids are required to spend in class sessions. This could also be different from state to state, I haven't researched it as it's not something I'm overly interested in.
So what effect does this have on the racing? A few things that I can see.
1. The kids are going pro a couple of years later so they are a little more mature
2. there's a big difference between 16 and 18 strength wise, this could help a lot with injuries. We've all seen a scrawny 16 year old step on to a factory 250f only to get bucked off and hurt. Most kids that age simply aren't developed and strong enough to race a bike that powerful at that level
3. hopefully these young kids are a little smarter. SX wants to be viewed as a professional sport, it needs athletes that can speak at a professional level.
4. racing doesn't pan out, they at least have a diploma and can go to college without having to take 2 years of remedial courses
5. It could potentially tighten up the racing since they have less time overall on the bike and honing their skills. Then we get to watch them develop as professionals and extend their careers
Just some food for thought. There's several other points I can bring up, but there are the 2 that constantly jump out at me.
Daytona 500 was sold out for the first time in years a couple weeks ago!
In moto/SX it would be hard to enforce a testing/riding limit because guys can ride in their back yards. There’s only so many Road Courses that are F1/MotoGP capable.
However your point on reducing injuries could be something that would be beneficial to help the sport. This season most of the injuries have happened on race day, but guys crash on the test track too.
Part of the reason why stick and ball sports have the high school or college requirement is the NCAA has such a money maker in collegiate sports. And High schools have stick and ball teams and a matriculation program (prep-collegiate-pro). Baseball and Basketball draft high school seniors, but only the phenoms go straight to the NBA (Kobe/Lebron/etc). Most baseball players play in the minors for years before they are brought up. In football, players are not physically comparable to NFL veterans. The NFL wants them in college to toughen them up and get them ready for larger/faster NFL players.
Home schooling a 12 year old so they can moto all week is ridiculous. There are basically 3-4 kids per season that graduate from Loretta’s that will make a living racing at this sport for 8-10 years. That’s not worth lacking an education.
The Shop
Going up a couple years in age sounds okay in theory, but how do you handle a couple year gap until the next batch are ready?
As far as the education element, not all of them are as articulate as, say, an Adam Cianciarulo. Also, I bet if you went back and looked at early interviews from many of the top 450 guys, you’d notice quite a difference.
Not sure about the "kids sounding dumb" thing. Are they sounding like kids when you expect them to sound like young adults?
OP doesn't seem to be very well explained, do you have any examples of practice crashes that wouldn't have happened if they were only limited to what, and hour a day? What's to say that won't cause urgency in testing sessions leading to more crashes?
Thinking of changes for issues that don't exist...
Same limited mileage stuff also exists in WRC.
You can run a factory MX team for what F1 teams spend on sandwiches.
Enforcing that rule amongst privateers is near impossible and race teams won't be effected on power.
Pit Row
I don't know how they would control limiting testing and training. I'm not taking about cutting them down to 1 hour per week or something drastic. Pro athletes in all forms of sports don't stop training in the off season, they may cut back some, but they don't stop. Same would apply here. This sport is too demanding to expect them to make drastic cuts in training and testing.
My thought process is along the line of limiting the testing time done as a team. They have scheduled days and times they are allowed to bring the team out and test. This isn't going to get anyone killed come race time. These guys are the best in the world at what they do. It's going to make them be more efficient during their time, the bikes and riders will still be ready come A1.
As stated, it very well could have the opposite effect and hurt the racing. We truly don't know and there's no real way to quantify it.
Homeschooling does catch a bad rap around here, and it's for good reason. The kids that are doing it in the moto world aren't getting a solid education in a lot of circumstances. I've met some of these kids parents that are teaching them and I don't believe the parents could read either. They have it in their head though that their kid is going to be the next RC and it's simply not true. They are doing the bare minimum so that they can spend more time on the track.
To whomever it was that asked for examples of riders getting hurt while testing/training, Alex Ray was injured this week and will be out. Davi Millsaps, career ending injury during testing. Do I need to keep going? Obviously there would still be injuries, it's the nature of the sport.
I guess my main point with all of this is that they are making format changes, which I'm not opposed to, while ignoring some glaringly obvious issues. If they want racing to be exciting and draw people in, they need to minimize attrition and extend the career span of the top racers.
We all know how exciting it was when RC, Bubba, and CR battled it out every weekend. Right now, the biggest battle we have is between Tomac and himself.
It's the superstars of the sport that fill the seats, especially for the fans that show up who don't ride/race themselves.
Regulating practice time, if possible, could make it more dangerous for these guys on the weekend if they haven't been able to ride Supercross...
Any thoughts on a claiming rule?
As for the sealed engine rule, I dislike it because it's a safety hazard for Supercross. While the engines are designed to go longer, something can still happen and die say after four races. In Supercross, it's likely this will happen in the whoops or a rhythm lane and injure the rider...in car racing sports, the car just glides to a halt. It's adding an unnecessary risk to riders.
1. Production tire rules: Right now, the top 250 teams have access to proto tires. I'd like to see the 250 teams only be allowed off-the-shelf tire patterns and compounds. To eliminate a "race replica" tire with a high price tag, put a cap on the front and rear tire price.
2. Fuel rules: I feel like a spec fuel could control its own costs and motor building costs in one shot. I'd purpose a spec fuel that is just slightly higher octane than pump (maybe 95-ish) with no oxygen or power additives and no additives to eliminate detention/knock factor. Keep the price between $5-6 a gallon. This would lower the price of a 5 gallon pale of race fuel from something like $150 to around $30.
That alone would a big savings, but there's an added aspect as well. If you eliminate the additives that aid in scathing away detention and the octane level isn't too high, it could help lower the compression levels of these race engines and keep them closer to stock levels. Beyond that, a key place that the factory level 250 teams find power is the endless time they can spend mapping a bike to best utilize the high-end fuels and make the bikes run perfectly crisp. Taking away a lot of those additives I feel like would lessen their advantage with so much time to invest in mapping. Don't get me wrong, they'd still spend a lot of time mapping the bikes and making them crisp as can be, but I don't think the advantage would be as wide against a privateer who would try to utilize the same fuel but doesn't have the resources to adjust the mapping so precisely to maximize those additives.
Lastly, a privateer could take a practice bike with good fuel (that's not race legal) to run during the week to make closer power to their "fuel restricted" race engines without all the needed mods. It could make their practice bikes cheaper and more reliable, while still making power levels comparable to their race bikes.
3. Tighter suspension rules: There's a price cap on suspension in the 250 class right now but it's poorly enforced and worded. I'd like to see a rule that require the fork legs, cartridges, and damping rods to be homologated from a production level bike...along with the shock bodies, compression adjusters, and shock shafts. Then, place a lower price cap on all these parts so someone like KTM doesn't release a special edition bike with Cone Valves and a Traxx shock to get around this rule.
The goal would be for everyone to be on components that are near stock levels with maybe some coatings, valving changes, pistons, and spring rates. Additional parts like fork spring seats or spring tubes could be added. Ultimately I'd like to see this rule work to the point a spare set of race-level suspension (without coatings) was closer to $2500-3000 for a complete set of forks and shock.
It’s easy to see why many people hate the industry part of moto.
16-18 is a big growth time. mentally and physically.
but then these same folks thought a 125 or cost didn't matter in this sport either.
limiting practice, demanding specific education, all under the guise of wanting a better and safer product allowing lessor experienced riders to compete won't work specifically because how can it be enforced. You think with today's tracks and layouts that this is a better scenario?
Great ideas don't logistically make good rules.
triple 5 has a point, maybe it's a little rough for the people handle.
Spec fuel sounds like a good path, assuming real testing and consistent enforcement takes place.
As for claiming a bike, it’d be awesome to see a guy like Chad Reed grab one.. I get what you’re saying about factory level collusion, and that’s what it is, with the candy coating stripped away, but I think SOMEONE would have the right position to get a factory bike once in a while. Late career pros, Reed and the 800 come to mind..
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