The ugly side of professionalism
By John Dickinson on 30th Aug 07
With the increasing number of cancellations throughout the off-road calendar, we have to ask who gains from it all?
TWO articles stood out, to my mind anyway, in lastweek's T+MX - and both concerned the final round cancellations ofchampionship events, one trials and one motocross, to be exact theWorld Trials Championship and the British MMX motocross series - so atleast it was all-square. Both actually concerned the final round of thetwo series, and both upset an awful lot of competitors, mainly the oneswho were psyched-up for a big effort to gain that vital place in theend-of-season tables.
The other riders who were obviously far from happy- and this doesn't happen too often - were the winners of the series!Toni Bou suddenly found himself World Trials Champion, whilst sittingat home, not actually riding a trial. Great! He has just earned whatshould have been one of the biggest single moments of his life and hadhis moment of glory yanked away from him.
Sure, they can make a fuss in Andorra and acclaimhim as king, but in reality it will all be as flat as a pancake andjust can't compare to the raw emotion and celebrations that take placein real-time with a Championship won after a hard day's competition.
We still don't know why the Belgians cancelled although at the moment it doesn't really matter. It has gone - end of.
In general, trials (Indoors is an exception)doesn't suffer from surprise cancellations. Other branches of the sporthave increasingly, over the last few years, been subject to wholesalechanges in the calendar. The World Supermoto series that has takenplace this year, for instance, doesn't bear much in common with thecalendar as originally released.
And the World Championship motocross calendar has seen many changes over the last few years.
Back to the 2007 MMX series, which we coveredpretty comprehensively last week. It is a prestigious ACU series yet ithas had two rounds cancelled in 2007 - which took the sidecars downfrom a proposed six-round to a four-round series. Put another way, thechair boys lost one third of their Championship. Little wonder theyaren't happy then. The Quads and solos have been short-changed as well.
Plus, they have been done out of a feel-goodend-of-season final round where some of the teams had celebrations andparties planned.
These cancellations are an increasingly worryingtrend. The competition calendar used to be pretty much sacrosanct, whatwas on the calendar in January happened, short of a naturalcatastrophe. Bad weather, Foot and Mouth, fuel shortage, all are beyondan organiser's control and we all accept cancellations in thesecircumstances.
So what's behind the trend to cancel? In a word,money, disguised as professionalism. We've been here so many timesbefore but the problems remain and won't go away. Bernie Ecclestone andhis billion pound F1 circus, taken by so many as the role model to endall role models) has a lot to answer for.
Take the World Trials Championship as af'rinstance. Back in its amateur days there was never a shortage ofcountries or clubs keen to stage a round. Events were basically simple,dressed-up National trials and entries frequently topped 100. I havebeen to World Rounds in Belgium where the entry was over 140 riders andthere were over 20 British lads riding.
Then came the professional era. The factoriesstarted demanding this, that and the other, mainly based on aninsistance on hard-standing paddock for a monster truck, mainselectricity hook-ups, di, da, di, da, di da (the actual trial is thelast thing to consider) with the end result being that no Britishpromoter (never mind club) wants to even consider staging a round forthe next two years at least. The number of World Championshipcompetitors is down to 15-16 and if it wasn't for the familiessupporting the Junior and Youth series it is obvious that there wouldbe NO World Championship. These two classes are effectively propping-upthe series.
Where's the progress here? Who gains by what hashappened? The riders? The factories? The importers? None of the aboveis the answer.
Motocross of course operates on a far higher levelof ‘professionalism' than trials. More riders, more teams, more events,more series - and more cancellations.
Anyone got the answer?
nFinal note, very sorry that the Ken HallInternational MX had to be cancelled due to the Foot and Mouthoutbreak. They were very unlucky. It is always a cracking event stagedby a hard-working team who didn't deserve that bad break.
