(3) Come on friends outside of Australia tell me, no tell us ,all the "truth". Do you get all the quality helpers and trained officials at your meetings without having to use blackmail? Like no flagging no ride ?
**Do you have always have totally fast and fun meetings with no nasty incidents ,and everybody respects all the directions made by officials?
I am talking about VMX meetings below.
Tim, I will stand up and tell you the secret but you may not like it.
Yes 95% of our meetings are fast and fun, yes we have incidents, but this is a motorsport.
Over here in NZ, yes we have plenty of flag marshals(and if ask to be a flag marshal, all would be willing). I think one of the problems is that you guys have to have your meetings on purpose built MX tracks, where as we use natural terrian. Maybe this is why you need more officials, or why you feel the need to protect everyone who comes through the gates. Basically 2 guys run the meetings on the day (althought Kiwi VMX has 5 people in it)and they always seem to run on time without problems, lets face it, how many officials do you need to run a meeting?? The more officials you have the more confusing issues become with stupid petty arguments over nothing (half the time it is the officials who slow down meetings). The best rule you can have is commonsense.
Trained officials?? who trains them? A question for you... how blue is blue??
We are not members to/of any organisations, so we are responsible for our own safety(if you dont think something is safe, dont ride) its that simple.
The sooner you guys control your own sport, the richer you will be for it.
Yes, I know I will take a hit or two for what I say, but you asked for it and you wanted me to speak the truth.
Yes we have accidents. Our own webmaster felt the bite of a high side that ended in a fractured pelvis and broken collar bone, but ask him if he feels it was because something was unsafe or that an untrained official wasnt doing his job??
One of the worse accidents was a broken thigh bone, the guy is back racing and has won most of the classes he has entered in.