Plant a tree - save the world

By John Dickinson on 18th Jan 07

Motocross

Let's get in on the carbon trading scam and score some Brownie points for off-road sport.

WE are only just three issues into 2007 and already the year is exploding into action.

On the motocross front there's the high-profile AMA Supercross series making its presence felt, with European ace Christophe Pourcel giving the Yanks something to think about. We'll drink to that! And this week you can read about a resurgent Gordon Crockard, looking good on the Indoor scene in Dortmund. It would be brilliant to see the Crockstar enjoy a really good 2007 season. He's a real nice down-to-earth guy and its impossible not to like him. Gordie has had way more than his share of bad luck over the last few years and surely he's due a good, solid, successful, injury-free season.

On the International trials front it has been an extraordinarily frantic ‘off-season'.

We have seen Toni Bou desert his mentors at Beta to further his career at Repsol-Montesa - and his win on the four-stroke Montesa 4RT - the first ever in a World Indoor round - stopped the trials world in its tracks last Sunday in Granada. Make no mistake, Bou has always looked pretty special on a bike and while many - including myself - had misgivings about him making the switch to four-stroke power, he might just have made a start on writing a whole new chapter in the trials history book.

Also on the trials front we have seen former Gas Gas protege Jeroni Fajardo take up the vacant Beta team-leader's slot and James Dabill vacate the TTT Team for a ‘private' TRW Montesa ride - you can read James comments on this inside this week!

The musical chairs continued with Tadeusz Blazusiak moving over the border from Scorpa in France to keep the seat warm on Dibs's TTT Beta in Italy. And then the strangest move of all - the return to Scorpa of Spaniard Marc Freixa, after he sensationally quit the same factory after just a few weeks in 2006. Bookies are currently working on the odds of exactly how long he will stay this time.
It has certainly been a busy winter on the trials front - Oh, nearly forgot, Britain's young hopeful Sam Haslam has also switched to Scorpa and will reap the benefit of Blazusiak's departure - Sam gets the super-special factory machinery! See Trials Torque for the full story this week.

And over on the Dakar Rallye, 65-year-old Scot Robbie Allan confounded all and sundry with an awesome attempt at the toughest event in the world, making it through several monumental stages before finally being forced to quit after the seventh stage.
As I said, it has been an extraordinary start to 2007. What next? We wait with bated breath!

*  INTERESTING to note that in all the Global warming hubbub, Tony Blair has now come out to say that he is NOT against long distance flights after all.
Hardly a surprise there, as I have said before, what he is against is CHEAP long distance flights which fits in perfectly with the Government's ''Do as we say, not as we do'' philosophy. He says that he will of course jet wherever he pleases and then made a vague pledge to justify it by undertaking some kind of carbon trading.
Somehow I don't think it means that he will personally nip out and plant 20 trees alongside the runway at the completion of each flight as a thank you for screwing up the stratosphere...

Between you and I, I don't think he intends to do anything apart from tax us proles for daring to want to fly alongside him - but it did give me an idea.

How if we - we being off-road sport - join in with this carbon trading scam, sorry, scheme? How about each organising club promises to plant X number of trees for every off-road event run. The number of trees planted would of course vary for the size of the event, the number of riders present etc, etc. It would clearly have to be worked out on some kind of formula of plant one tree for every X number of gallons of fuel burnt. I'm no physicist so don't look at me for the answer to that one.

But think of the kudos and number of Brownie points to be earned if we ‘proved' that we are a truly caring and Green sport. That our Sunday riding does NOT put a single polar bear at risk - in fact we could be doubly clever and plant more trees than we need.
The ACU has got the ball rolling with its experiment in bio-fuels. So how about we plant some trees - AND SHOUT VERY LOUDLY ABOUT WHAT WE'RE DOING!

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