TMX Says: Brits look good for Nations MX
By TMX Archives on 10th Aug 16
IM pleased to announce that the big news from the ACU this week is the announcement that there will be an announcement announcing who the British team for this years MXoN will be.
This announcement will be announced by Team GB's MX of Nations Team Manager Neil Prince at the forthcoming round of the Maxxis British Motocross Championship supported by Pro Clean at Preston Docks.
Now unless Neil chucks out a huge curveball I reckon it's pretty safe to say that the British team will consist of Tommy Searle, Max Anstie and Shaun Simpson, which is as solid a squad as the UK could send.
It's also pretty comforting to know that with Jake Nicholls ready in the wings as first reserve – and Tommy capable of stepping on a 250 and running as fast as Max anyway – that we're well covered in the case of an accident between now and then, too.
The way these four have been performing on the world scene this year has been nothing short of phenomenal and with a little bit of luck are more than capable of stepping onto the podium at Maggiora in September. Fingers are crossed for a kind pick in the qualifying race gate ballot and then for safe starts and clean first laps all weekend.
The thing is, no matter how good your team, or how well they prepare, this is the MXoN and strange stuff always seems to happen. I mean, at what other event would a wayward deer wipe out the race leader? Exactly...
In other news, I read that the Mayor of Cleveland (that's the city in Ohio and not the British county) is facing the problem of illegal riding head on with Mayor Frank Jackson looking at spending almost two million dollars turning a public park into a ‘motocross sports centre' in an effort to cull illegal riding – particularly on the city's streets...
It's not just the US that has this issue of illegal riding, and there are a growing number of off-road bikes being used on British roads, too. The problem is particularly prevalent in Liverpool where the local newspaper – the Echo – has teamed up with Merseyside Police to tackle the illegal use of ‘scrambler bikes' in their #SCRAM campaign.
While it's certainly not as proactive in encouraging legitimate off-road riding as Mayor Frank is trying to achieve, the campaign has been successful in recovering almost 100 off-road bikes from disposable Chinese pit bikes to full-on 450cc race machines.
With that in mind, if you've been a victim of bike theft in recent times, it's probably worth giving the Merseyside Police a call – or trawling through the #SCRAM stories on www.liverpoolecho.co.uk – to see if your pride and joy has made it to Liverpool one way or another.
Of course, it's not only Merseyside where this kind of riding is a problem and a quick search on YouTube delivers a stack of content featuring dirt bikes being used in an antisocial manner all over the UK.
These ‘joy riders' – some of whom it has to be said are highly skilled when it comes to pulling wheelies – are of course a very different breed to the hardened criminals who are using ‘their' dirt bikes as highly efficient getaway vehicles but the majority of the public would probably fail to spot the difference.
And at the end of the day any illegal riding is detrimental to our sport so it needs to be quashed ASAP...
