BSB gets luck of the draw
By TMX Archives on 15th Oct 10
This week editor JD peruses the worlds of British MX and British Super Bike and decides that there's just no justice...
WHAT a difference a week makes – and what a huge difference the great British weather made to the final round of two very recently staged National motorcycle championship series.
The first was of course the final round of the 2010 ACU British MX champs at Hawstone Park just two-weeks ago. Virtually the entire country was washed away under an absolute deluge of water and, after giving the day every chance to improve, eventually the decision had to be made to call-off the event on safety grounds. The weekend was in all senses a total washout, no racing for the riders, no racing for the fans, two championships decided with riders sitting in their trucks, a huge financial loss for the organisers and pretty big disappointment all round.
Fast forward to last weekend. FInal round of the British Super Bike series at Oulton Park (not a million miles away from Hawkstone as the crow flies) and guess what. The gods smiled on BSB. Oulton was bathed in incredible sunshine, a record crowd packed the venue, they were treated to an afternoon of awesome racing, the championships were decided by riders giving their all on the track and I'm guessing that everyone with a financial stake in the event came away feeling like they had won the Lottery. Which in a sense they had – Life's Lottery.
There was nothing clever involved in any of this, it was all down to pure luck. Incredible luck in the case of BSB, incredibly bad luck for Hawkstone.
But, luck or no luck, are there any lessons to be learned from this? Well, the first question would obviously be: "Why are we running British Championship MX well into October?”
The chance of inclement weather, you would think, is pretty high in October although being fair, Hawkstone can cope easily with ‘normal' amounts of rain. Several people have offered the opinion that the final MX Champs should have been scheduled at a recognised ‘all-weather' track. Not a daft suggestion, although I doubt if any track in the country could have coped.
FatCat at Doncaster is pretty much all-weather, being a sand track, but it was forced to close its flooded gates the same weekend.
So why is the British Championship running in October? Well, this pretty much comes down to not clashing with the World Champs so that the handful of Brits (mainly, to tell the truth, adopted Brits these days) who ride the GPs can also scoop the domestic title. With GPs comprehensively packing the summer months this pretty much sets the agenda with British champs squeezed to the margins of early spring and into autumn. I don't see this changing.
I've just looked at the provisional GP list for next year and there's a request from Youthstream that National series do not clash with their World Championship. So that's that.
I don't actually know why BSB run so late into the year-end except that it certainly isn't because they avoid the dates of their direct competitor, World Superbike. As a rider or team you make your choice – World or British. After which the series gets on with it exactly as it sees fit with no interference from outside. And as a bystander I would say it works pretty damn well.
Given that it is one of the most successful National series in the world and attracts huge crowds (there were a claimed 40,000 fans packing the bankings at Oulton) and if you can tell me what's wrong with that, I would genuinely like to know.
Of course they had outrageous luck with the weather but the fact is that BSB plays to impressive houses throughout the year at its various venues. I'm not saying that it does everything right but at least it sets its own agenda and is not afraid to experiment. This year, all BSB events have been run over three days, not just two, with practise on Friday and timed qualifying and several races on Saturday. I'm certainly not advocating this for MX, but they are reacting to what their customers want. It appears that a large number wished to camp at each round for three or even four days – so three-days it was then. MX's needs may well be considerably different. Also, what the would-be crowd very likely wants is not necessarily what the riders or teams want. It depends on your priorities and who pays the bills. If you don't want or need the crowds then it doesn't matter either way.
And, I may well be wrong, but for once I believe that live television of the racing on Saturday helped to considerably boost the actual attendance on Sunday. The Saturday racing (as seen on TV) was exciting, the championship was on a knife-edge, the weather forecast was for a sunny day – and bingo, a record turnout.
This does not mean that I think that all live television is good for our sport, in fact in general I'd say the opposite was true. Why shell-out hard-earned money when you can watch it for free at home? But given the circumstances, a weekend event with TV one-day promising a superb day of sporting action the following day...?
Whatever, the hard fact is that MX got its end of season nightmare while BSB landed its dream...