I've been thinking about this for a few days and now reckon it'd fall on its arse as a stand alone series, pre 90 or not. When the Thumpernats was developed the two stroke reigned supreme on the motocross front but all of the manufacturers also made decent four stroke enduro bikes. The organisers saw it as an opportunity to push a product that was being undersold to the race public...the humble four stroke dirt bike. It's no accident that two of the originators of the series, Hans Apelgren and Geoff Ballard had businesses right in the thick of the Thumpernats concept, Hans with flogging off more TE and TC610 Huskies and Ballard with his XR's Only Business being front row centre to flog off all sorts of XR Honda go fast goodies. The success of the series had major impact on both (and many other) businesses. It was a racing and financial boomer.
However, as the Husky, Husabergs and KTM four strokes got better and then the YZ400 Yamaha came along, the original concept of the sport being for hot rodded XR's, TT's and amateur riders had morphed into a series that rivaled the mainstream motocross championship and attracted full factory support and the best riders the factories could afford. C grade mid packer Billy Bloggs on his home modified two year old XR600 was sort of forgotten in the rush. Within a couple of years the new wave of 4T motocrossers were king and the need for the series was done and dusted, replaced in essesnce by the Am-Cross series.
Cut to today and we find that the four stroke hasn't made much of a dent in the Evo/pre 85 vintage race program. Sure, there's a few HL's and the occasional tricked up XT/TT, XL/XR or Can-Am Sonic but overall four strokes haven't made the impact on the post '78 vintage scene that the class had done during the hey day of pre '75 vintage racing. Back then the four strokes had their own well supported stand alone class featuring a huge selection of XL Honda based specials, BSA singles and all sorts of weird and wacky thumpers. It's that lack of interest on the Evo+ scene that makes me sceptical that a four stroke only Vintage Thumpernats would work in todays mindset.
To propose a series one would need a potential entry pool of 60-80 4 stroke racers that are keen enough to want to commit to the event. I'm guessing here but I reckon you could scour the whole east coast of this great land and only scrape up half of the needed entries. To tempt racers not already four stroke mounted to build a bike purely to fit into the series the organisers would have to have a pretty damn good media spin in action. The original Thumpernats had Geoff Eldridge and ADB pushing the concept in every issue which worked a treat but quite frankly that kind of blanket spin just plain won't happen in today's moto media environment. Remember also that back when the Thumpernats was in full song, the factories were selling four stroke trailbikes like eccies at a dance party wheras today the bread and butter bulletproof four stroke trailie has been replaced by the YZM/CRM/DRZ hand grenade pure racers which would be ineligible for the show. If you add the dodgy state of the economy to the mix, to me it's not such an appealing concept.
I hate playing bad cop to John's good cop, I think that in theory it's a good idea that unfortunately has too many pins sitting ready to burst the baloon.
