Upgrade to enjoy this feature!
Vital MX fantasy is free to play, but paid users have great benefits. Paid member benefits:
- View and download rider stats
- Pick trends
- Create a private league
- And more!
Only $10 for all 2024 SX, MX, and SMX series (regularly $30).
Even back in 2004-2006 when I was on my second racing "career" I often only had 6-10 guys at most in the +25 and +35 classes. And vet expert, shit, lucky if 5 signed up. Sounds great to say I got 3rd in expert....but with 5 riders it wasn't much to brag about lol.
Everyone wants the cheap trophy so much so they try to shoehorn into a class they think they can place in. If I battled hard and got 5th in a class of 15-20 riders, that shit is FUN.
This is why the public land debate should matter far more to the overall moto industry. Virtually everyone I know starting riding in the “hill” by their house. I did! Is see the neighbor kids riding up the street to the hills on their bikes and I wanted one...my parents eventually bought me one (a cheap XR80) and I rode the wheels off that thing (in jeans and b-ball shoes and a helmet...with all my friends. I loved it and have been riding since then.
Access to public land is key in the growth of this sport. The greenies want to turned into a museum (look but don’t touch)...and they are winning!
The entire industry needs to get involved in the public land use debate and battle...fund a huge “get out and ride” campaign, start raising awareness at the races, start funding national groups (AMA, Blue Ribbon coalition, etc) to fight to keep riding areas open...and just get kids out on bikes. This sport is amazing! And if we can get more kids riding, we will end up with more kids riding as adults and then getting their kids into it.
but if your competitive you will spend alot more than, gaming, fishing whatever you stated.
The Shop
Just got my racing license and got my first race in 2 weeks.
I hope you were more than competitive...I hope that was racing the nationals and supercross...not just racing local series.
need simple out door style tracks to bring the fun back...supercross is not for bike sales..the fun factor...long motos..remember when the guy in shape gets a bad start and works to the front..while others tired out..it was an endurance sport..not a hole shot sport..more free areas to ride.. practice..this pay to practice is way over board..simple is better..I for sure know I don't want a lap top to work on my bike...stupid..
I could go on and on..i'm sure you get the idea.
The tracks I take him too are manicured and full time employees looking after them it’s as safe as practicable it can be They are all 1/12 hour drive plus which makes it difficult as I grew up being able to ride after school in my local tracks.
But racing moto is not our plan but just enjoying riding.
Next week another clubraces at a different track, again within 15 miles of my parents home, and i'd expect 100+ riders at that event.
The problem over here isn't participation, the problem is that slowly tracks have to be closed due to noise/environment/building projects with no replacement tracks popping up. I live 50 miles from my parents and unfortunately for me the closest trackes are roughly 65 miles away. There used to be tracks nearby but those have been closed in the past 30 years. Actually it is a perfect region for motocross: 300.000 people in 3 cities surrounded by 100 miles of sparsely populated agricultural land, but unfurtunately almost all tracks have been closed in the past.
For me, I still have my YZ250 sitting in the corner of my shop, but it rarely gets used. The closest riding area to me is almost an hour away. And then I have to pay about $40 to ride. It takes me every bit of thirty minutes to get all my shit together and loaded on my truck to go ride. That doesn't count all the time I spent during the week washing the bike, cleaning filters, etc. Then I agonize all the way to the track about how dangerous all of this is.
Conversely, I can decide to ride my mountain bike on a whim. I can throw my mtb over the tailgate of my truck and be at the trailhead in 15 minutes. No fuss, no muss. Oh, and I'm in total heaven the whole time I'm riding. No anxiety, no pressure. Sorry, in my stage of life, my mental condition is as important as anything. My down time should be enjoyable. Moto has become a fking circus. I love it, but I hate what it's become.
Then I see the kids that ride C class that have been riding since they were 6 years old, throwing it sideways, jumping the big jumps with ease, hauling ass, taking big risks. Why are these kids in the C class? If I get hurt, it’s game over. Bye bye house and everything I’ve worked for. The thought in my head is that it’s just not worth it. If I was 16-18 with NFG (no f*** given) then it’d be different, but once you start growing up you can’t take the risks you used to be able to.
Oh and the number of classes always sounds unappealing as well. I don’t care if I finish last, I just want to race on a almost full gate. It sounds so fucking dumb to race against 4 other people, I can do that at a friends house.
I really hope to be getting back into the sport here soon though. I was supposed to get a new bike and start riding again last summer. The truck I bought used turned out to be a big POS money pit, a bunch of financially hindering things came up throughout the year, and I just never ended up being able to afford the bike, or get another truck. Will try again this spring/summer.
Leased? Yes, a little driving school that had about 10 bikes to lease, and a nice track that was changed every year, for cheap (like 100 for the yearly card then 10 bucks for a full afternoon, actually cheaper than a baby sitter!).
I have changed of region and had no time since but I can't wait to go back, hopefully this year or next one, and thank them for taking care of me when I was a child.
Pit Row
Classes, at their core, are a method of handicapping. The system we have today evolved from before the technology made it practical to qualify riders for a handicap. It has progressed more as promoters have adjusted so that they can make more money (which is not a bad thing) by making it more possible to enter more classes. The unintended consequences are what you see on this thread, they have chased others away. The question then becomes, if you can convince riders to come back in masses large enough to overcome the loss of multiple class income per rider by a fair, condensed competitive electronic handicapping structure based on skill (lap times) alone with full gates and a short day with longer motos? No age classes, no CC classes, only full gates based on skill, and separate the small wheel bikes.
In Texas we have the Pro Challenge that draws a huge crowd and full gates and that’s what racing is all about. 30-40 people coming into the first corner and all out battle the whole time.
But ametuer racing isn’t completely dead. I went to the JS7 national to spectate this week (broken jaw and wired shut at the moment) and wow! It’s almost the same size as Loretta’s! Just about every oem was there with a rig and tons of vendors and support. With over 1500+ entries, you figure at least 750+ families. Walking the pits we maybe saw 15 people pitted out of just a pick up truck. Evvvveryone had high top Mercedes vans decked out or actual rigs and trailers with at least 2 bikes that weren’t stock sitting out front. Point I’m making is 90% of the people had 100k+ setups. So everyone can say the sport is dying and it’s expensive and everything else, but go to js7 or Loretta’s, there is still lots of people spending the money and keeping it alive. It’s just a double edged sword. No one wants to race local because the entries are so low and it cost $120 to race for the weekend, and to race at a national level it can easily be close to 6 figures. There doesn’t seem to be much of a middle ground anymore with ametuer racing
The alternative it seems, a 250-300 2 stroke and give off-road a shot. From what I am hearing it is a ton of fun, not just on track, but off, as the people are more casual and not the big ego motocross crowd. It feels like an easy choice for an older guy who may still want to fuel the competitive juices on occasion, but mostly have fun and get a lot of riding time in.
Post a reply to: Our sport is guna die if we don’t start racing