Sun Praries got it in a nutshell. Because there's a less strict attitude towards period compliance at club day level, racers have got away with rule infringements to the point that they more often than not believe their bikes to be correct. In recent times I've seen reed valves in pre 70, wrong era hubs and suspension components in pre 75 and even complete bikes in the wrong class. While the onus initially falls on the competitor to present a legal bike for the class, who's there to advise him on any discrepancies with his bike (whether deliberate of accidental)? I haven't seen any serious attempts at eligibility scrutineering at a club day in years. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, it's just that I haven't seen it at HEAVEN or Penrith club meetings in NSW. I'm guessing that VIPER and QVMX and WAVMX also have the same relaxed attitude to compliance scrutineering on their club days.
For our sport to move forward and to adopt new classes and age cutoffs we need to address the eligibility problems at ground level, the humble club day. Unfortunately for that to happen another problem raises its ugly head. Who's going to do it? Because of the complexity of the eligibility criteria and the huge variety of machinery involved, it's cruel to expect anybody to possess enough knowledge to be able to make accurate eligibility decisions on every bike he inspects.
I'm reasonably knowledgable on old bikes and I believe David Tanner to be one of the more astute officials in our movement and as I observed Dave doing his inspections at the Nats it dawned on me that even though it's assumed by some that the pair of us supposedly 'know our stuff', I was looking at bikes that I didn't have a clue were correct or not and I'm certain Dave was in the same boat.
So,how are we to solve the eligibility problem before it gets totally out of hand? The system as it is at the moment obviously has its flaws so perhaps its time for MA to form an eligibility comittee that would meet say four times per year to resolve sticky eligibility situations. For it to work we need to take the unknown away from those who make decisions. To achieve that I propose that various marque experts sub comittees also be appointed to oversee their particular brand of bike. For example (and I'm just using these guys as examples of my idea and aren't seriously proposing these folks.)
Maico: Stuart Muntz, Firko.
Yamaha: Nathan Senior (pre 75) Steve Gall (post 75)
Honda: Magoo,
Husqvarna: Husky Pete, Brian Watson.
Montesa:Ross Nimmo, Gary O'Brien.
.......And so it goes from Alron to Zundapp. Of course some of these comittees members could multi task and be on various different marque comittees. The marque comittees would assemble as much printed matter, service manuals, engine and frame numbers, identification photographs and other hard copy information to be used as reference to create defining cutoff and eligibility standards. Eventually a dosier could be created on many of the most popular machines eligible for VMX that would become 'the bible' for eligibility scrutineering. The dosier could be placed on disc or hard drive, the eligibility scrutineer at any event would have a lap top at his disposal with all the criteria needed at a key stroke and the pressure and guesswork would be gone. Anybody with access to the lap top could be the eligibility scrutineer at any meeting, the need to find someone who" knows his shit" gone with the stroke of a keyboard.
Of course this is a huge undertaking that would require the dedication of many knowledgable and dedicated people, and therein lies problem #3. Just like any other sport or organisation, ours has a majority of participants who just want to have fun (to paraphrase Cyndi Lauper!) and don't want to get into the nuts and bolts of it all. They just want to race and that's cool and fully understandable. However, I also know that there are some truly amazing fountains of knowledge out there. Anyone who's ever talked Huskys with Husky Pete or pre 65 scramblers with Alan Jones will know what I mean. This knowledge needs to be harnessed for the benefit of our sport.
If something isn't done in the near future VMX will become stagnant, tied up in endless eligibility squabbles. This posting is merely an idea to promote discussion. There may be a simpler method than what I've proposed so if you've got an idea to streamline the growing eligibility dilemna please share it with us...................
