It's time for a reality check
By TMX Archives on 15th Jul 10
With the governing bodies looking at the 2011 World Championship calendars isn't it time for all parties to take a more realistic view?...
IF there's one thing that I naively thought might come as a positive out of the current economic climate, which not even Gordon Brown (no more boom and bust) would claim is buoyant, (actually he would, which is why he is no longer in charge) is that a touch of reality might strike home to those in authority who run our sport, or even those who pay money to those in authority in order to run our sport.
Although actually, I might as well come clean straight away and admit that I thought no such thing. What I really thought was that I hoped that they'd be smitten by a dose of reality but somehow knew that they would just steam-roller on without thought or care to what's happening out here to the great unwashed (us) in the real world.
Why would they, they sashay around the world in their vacuum bubbles, bang in their expenses and wonder what the fuss is about.
Even our politicians are having to rein in their excesses, however reluctantly, being slowly dragged kicking and screaming away from the public trough, which really is as close as you'll get to turkeys voting for Christmas.
So what did I see two-weeks ago in our own Motocross Diary? Why, the provisional dates for next year's World MX series – which you will have noted incuded kicking-off in Australia, and then there are two dates in America and one in Brazil.
Now, before anyone rushes in to tell me that the word World prefixing the word Championship is a clue that I would do well to take note of, I'd like to assure you I have taken this into consideration. Of course, any sport that aspires to a World Championship should ideally incorporate countries all over the globe. Although the Americans who promote the baseball World Series exclusively in America have their own views on that one.
My problem with this sudden expansion of what has basically been a Euro series ever since its inception is simply that the timing is all wrong. Most people in the ‘real' world are too desperately busy trying to hang-on to their jobs or their businesses, their houses and their hard-won cash – I know that I am – to sit worrying whether Brazil should be on the FIM World MX Championship list next year instead of a Euro country.
Just a reminder, Britain is on the provisional list with ACU Events having been awarded the promotional rights.
The big problem with having flyaway rounds to Australia, Brazil and the USA is pretty obvious. Who's going to pay for it? Pure and simple. The fact is that all the current teams that contest the World series are in fact European based whether the riders are from Australia, America, South Africa or New Zealand.
Most teams were already working on their 2011 budgets based on the 2010 itinerary and are now having to see if they can magic a few more tens of thousands of Euro from somewhere.
If the crowds or sponsors in Australia or America or Brazil pay for it then none of us have a beef. Judging by the crowds I saw on TV at the recent Glen Helen round in America I would have to doubt that somewhat.
I have heard plenty on this subject from some of those close to all the above, the problem is that virtually to a man they are frightened to speak out publicly in case those in power wield the big stick – as happened to former British MX des Nations team manager, Mark Eastwood, when he dared to voice his opinions last year. The key word here is ‘former'.
Meanwhile on the trials front the hard fact is that the World Championship series would do well to break out of Spain if it wasn't for the hard but indisputable fact that the Junior and Youth classes are the only things that make it viable.
To tell the real truth, the parents of those Youth and Junior riders keep the series viable. The Championship class can barely muster enough riders to fill all 15 points-scoring places.
A far cry from the glory days of the early to mid-80s when World Championship events regularly drew over 100 riders competing, all over the same course and sections and not various contrived classes and routes in order to make the books balance.
For the past decade we have heard various rumours that this was going to change or that was being looked-at but the bottom line, as anyone can see, is that nothing at all has changed.
The hard fact is that dads can pay for their talented sons' Youth and Junior title – and that is that. With no spare factory rides available – because all are desperately cash-strapped, even mighty Honda has slashed its budgets brutally worldwide – after an expensive season battering their heads against the brick wall that is the World Championship class these Youth and Junior champions invariably drop-out and either disappear from the sport, ride in their homeland (lots of Spanish lads end-up this way, not just the Brits) or take up enduro, depending on exactly how disillusioned they have become.