Trials and MX simple isn't it!
By TMX Archives on 23rd Jun 10
Trials and motocross sounds so simple but there's 1001 ways to enjoy off-road sport, if you dig a little deeper...
ONE thing that never ceases to amaze me about off-road sport is the sheer number of ways and means that are available for you and me to enjoy it! Trials and Motocross, simple isn't it?
Well no its not actually, they just happen to be the two main categories of off-road sport which in turn you can keep splitting into sub categories virtually ad infinitum.
Take modern motocross. There's MX1 and MX2, then there's two-strokes and four-strokes, then there's Beginners, Juniors, Seniors, Experts, Veterans, etc, etc. There are club events, centre events, national, international and team events. There are traditional one-day meetings, two-day weekend meetings and increasingly popular mid-week evening meetings. I well understand the popularity of these – it is almost like stealing time off, enjoy two or three hours at a race meeting in the evening and you don't have to beg for Sunday off to ride your bike! Family men (and women) will understand this.
Then you can further define MX into Classic and Twin-shock. Again, for each of these there are as many sub categories as you can dream-up. Age related, bike related, two-stroke, four-stroke, British bikes, Japanese bikes – CCMs and Maicos!
Each class and capacity has its own devotees who wouldn't dream of riding any other bike or any other class. Many of the bikes and sometimes even individual models boast their own cottage industry keeping the bikes on the track. And woe betide anyone caught trying to sneak a 1966 kickstart rubber onto their Pre-65 bike
Then there's Youth MX which is a unique form of the sport all on its own and in general goes its own way albeit through several differing organisational bodies. As does adult MX of course! ACU, AMCA, MCF, BSMA, YMSA, ORPA, just for starters.
Repeat the process for trials, with modern, twin-shock, air-cooled monos, classic, club trials, youth trials, centre trials, group trials, national trials, international trials, World Championship trials. Ditto all age related alternatives.
Repeat all of the above for sidecars – and then there's quads – and supermoto...
What got me thinking about all this? Just a few conversations last week which, once started, led all the way round the houses and touched all aspects of the sport. They all started with a similar theme: what's wrong with world championship trials/motocross? Given that there is a World Championship Trial in Britain this weekend, I think we can leave that one for a week. Given that there isn't a World Championship MX in Britain in 2010 we can say what we like!
It all depends what you want. I'm a pretty simple person. All I want is a bloody good motocross track and some equally good racing for a reasonable price. I personally have little interest in artics, hospitality suites, pilots' shirts, mechanics' pit boxes et al. The other side of the coin is of course the corporate one where we are told the sport needs TV and big money sponsors, whistles and bells and a Bernie Ecclestone wannabe controlling the show – all of which costs a fortune, which has to come from somewhere, or someone. I'll leave you to fill in that blank.
All I would say is, OK I'll buy the show but does it actually help the sport? And does it really matter anyway?
I say ‘does it matter' simply because of all the words written above. If there was no world championship trials series or no world championship MX would it matter a monkeys regarding the sport in Britain? There would still be a thriving off-road sporting industry. There would still be 80 riders in jeans and wellies at the Lower Clogthorpe (fictitious venue) Wednesday evening trial. There would still be 170 entries in the Ripon (factual) Beginners and Novice series. There would still be maximum entries in virtually every motocross in the country from classic, through twin-shock, youth and adult modern, be-it Wednesday night, Sunday morning or all weekend long.
On top of that there are now thousands of weekend warriors getting their kicks from Hare and Hounds events. These may well be thriving at no small threat to traditional enduros but if it is what the riders want then no-one is going to deny them. Putting it bluntly, the H&H boys and girls don't give a cuss about World Champ events and why should they? If they do hanker after International competition there is actually plenty for them to go at in the form of extreme events like Erzberg and Romaniacs and numerous desert rallies and whatever else takes your fancy.
Yes, having followed MX GPs since they were effectively club scrambles run on a large scale (Hawkstone in the late 1950s and through the '60s and even '70s) with all the greats from Brits Dave Bickers and Jeff Smith (should leave a large blank space here for you to fill in your own favourites) I would actually love for there to be a meaningful GP in Great Britain. But if there isn't I really do wonder why we waste so much breath talking about it like it in some way affects the rest of OUR sport.
The fact is, it doesn't. So get out there and get stuck in...