As far as nationals for VMX in australia goes does MA have such a santioned event?
The very first Nationals were held by Penrith Club at Dargle in 1991. As much as we tried we couldn't get MA to sanction it as a legitimate Australian Title for numerous superficial reasons. Because MA wouldn't give their blessing for the event to be a genuine Australian Title event, Geoff Eldridge and I came up with the idea to call the meeting the Vintage Motocross Nationals (Nats for short) and run it anyway. The event was an outstanding success with 150+ entries including three overseas riders, two from NZ and one from the USA (Rick Doughty).
In 1992 'the Nats' moved to Ravenswood in Victoria where organiser Brian Clarke had no problem getting MA to ratify the event as the first official Australian
Classic Motocross Championships. MA had noted the immense popularity of the new sport so seeing the quids to be made, jumped in for their share. They didn't approve of the word 'vintage' to describe our sport and insisted on Bendigo club naming the event
Classic Championship as opposed to Penriths 'Vintage Nats' but thankfully the media and racers had taken the name vintage as being representative ofr what they were doing and since that very first event, no matter what the official name for the event is, it's always referred to as the Vintage Nats by everyone involved.
I personally don't think that MA ratification for the Nats is needed at all. I think the spiralling costs of hosting the event would be greatly lessened by reverting to the 'big club day' format pioneered by Penrith club. That first Nats in '91 proved it can work and the giant success of the Annual Queens Birthday Weekend Condoblin Greybeards event between 1989 and 2000 where entry levels outnumbered the Nats almost every year added to the belief that big events can be run by small clubs. I suppose it's too late now but looking in retrospect, I think we'd have survived just fine without MA holding our hands.