It is amazing, truly amazing
By John Dickinson on 14th Dec 06
I APOLOGISE in advance for even bringing the subject up, but I mean, Zara Phillips is BBC Sports Personality of the Year?
I APOLOGISE in advance for even bringing the subject up, but I mean, Zara Phillips is BBC Sports Personality of the Year?
They are asking me to believe that the usual selection of demented texters and phone voters that promoted the likes of Jade Goody and Matt Thingy and that bloke who swore a lot, into instant celebrity-ville, suddenly switched sides, went all posh and voted mob-handed for Royalty? Pull the other one guys! You will never, ever, in a million months of Sundays convince me that THAT result came out of a phone vote, text vote, down the pub vote or any other kind of vote - with the possible exception of the pony club vote – and would mummy really allow that kind of thing?
I will break my own code of conduct now and hold-forth about something that I never even watched but here is my guess that the Sports Personality of the Year (a mis-nomer if ever there was one) was as mind-numbingly predictable as the last time I watched it, some time last century. No matter though, the audience would be the same old suspects that are duly rounded up, dusted down and filled with canapes and champers – and have been for as long as there has been television. I can see them now, Sally Gunnell, Henry Cooper, Frank Bruno, Roy of the Rovers, WG Grace, and this year's special mention to Desert Orchid. At least the gallant gray horse actually HAD a personality...
Was there a token motorcyclist present? I doubt it, the best we can usually hope for is a two-second clip of someone crashing before moving swiftly on to 40 minutes banging on about good old cricket, what! And another 40 minutes for jolly old Rugby and it's time to wrap it up chaps. Wouldn't want to show anything too exciting, might take the limelight out of the Beeb's set-in-stone favourites.
Ah, how we all thrilled to the cracking Eventing this year. Didn't we? Come on, you know you did, didn't miss a second myself. As Zara, said herself in her acceptance speech after being crowned Sports Personailty of the Year, "It's amazing...yes amazing...absolutely amazing, just amazing...”
But that's personality for you these days...
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ON a different front, it is amazing (sorry) but most welcome to note that the FIM has acknowledged that there is a huge difference between the noise of a four-stroke racing engine and that of a two-stroke and that this will be acknowledged in future with different ratings for the two types - see story
It is a fact that most Noise Abatement notices on motocross and practise tracks come about because of problems with four-strokes.
The only bit I don't understand is why not implement them immediately! In Britain we have major problems with noise NOW, not in 2008 or even 2007, but NOW. The number of tracks currently fighting Noise Abatement orders is increasing virtually weekly. And in virtually every case it is the four-strokes that have sounded the death knell.
It isn't as if this isn't possible. Four-stroke Enduro machines currently conform quite readily to 94 decibels. There are numerous effective ‘Quiet' after-market silencers available right NOW and common sense would tell you that 94 should be an across-the-board limit for all authorities to styrictly adhere to in Britain.
Personally, I don't care what they do in France or Sweden or Equador, the only thing that matters is that the sport thrives in Britain, so while the FIM initiative is to be applauded it doesn't mean that we have to wait two years to impliment it. If quiet bikes means the sport has a future then we need quiet bikes. The alternative is NO bikes.
In the great scheme of things it really doesn't matter if running Quiet pipes robs a horse-power or two (although even that is debatable). If everyone loses, say, two horse-power they are still all equal! And what the Grand Prix teams do at Grand Prix is a total red-herring. Just like in Formula 1 or MotoGP, MXGP can run as loud as it likes. The tracks we wish to keep are the Little Muckworths and Top o't Moors and all those in Middle England. Every day tracks that are the lifeblood of British MX which just need a simple, achieveable noise limit.
The ACU has, to its credit, gone out on a limb with its Bio-ethanol fuel experiment, it could do more for the future of MX by going for 94 decibels from Jan 1, 2007. A huge move, but not as huge as having no sport at all.