2013 Classic MX Championships Cancelled

[Simo63]

Johhny O has put in alot of effort to get something viable happening and at the 11th hour he gets shot down in flames because some here think it necessary to have MA involved just to have a "sanctioned" title. Who gives a toss if your name appears in a book of MA's or not? As has been stated, all the brethren will know who is champion. And with the miracle of the internet, the results will be on line for the rest of time. It will be part of VMX's history forever more.

The way I see it, MA has done very little, if anything, to work on a way to get the show happening. ACTMCC has done nothing to offer an alternative either, well, without prodding from Simo. Without trying to lay blame on anyone, they dropped the ball the first time.

We don't have much time left to get this organised and as far as I see it, Winton MCC was good to go. There were no "if's or maybe's, Johnny O just needed some help to dot the I's and cross the T's.

Now we are back to square one and left uncertain as to whether or not ATCMCC and MA can get their collective act together in time.

I'm with Johnny O......

Sorry to selectively quote you TBM but I just wanted to focus on a couple of your very valid points. 

I agree entierly that Johnny O has done a great job on our behalf and give him full credit for that.  I am not trying to undermine anything he is doing in any way and have PM's him personally to discuss that in the interests of being completely open and up front. 

I must admit that I too share your concerns and am worried that MA and ACT MCC won't be able to come to a resolution and we're left with nothing.  Subsequently it was not my intention for Johnny O to cease all work on an alternative solution, maybe slow down a bit for a few days, but not cease work altogether and yes I'm aware that time is limited.  I'm only one voice and as mentioned before an absolute nobody in this sport.

I'm not concerned by titles or championship names or trophies or even who wins or not, my only concern is that I can see a rift developing in our sport and I firmly believe that can be detrimental to our sport in the long term.  We might not see it today, this week, this month or this year but in years to come, I think history has proven that break-away series do not do anything to help the sport and just split people and their passion.

I don't think any of us know the full story behind MA or ACT MCC in this instance and I'm not going to guess why or what happened.  I'm also not interested in blaming anyone, I just want to do what I can to see if we can remain as a united sport, run under one set of rules across this country for as long as that is possible.  Who knows what the future holds but I will follow up with the person I spoke to at ATC MCC and provide as much feedback as I can to keep as many people aware of the situation and more importantly keep Johnny O's option B alive as long as we can.

Thanks

[firko]

Johhny O has put in alot of effort to get something viable happening and at the 11th hour he gets shot down in flames because some here think it necessary to have MA involved just to have a "sanctioned" title. Who gives a toss if your name appears in a book of MA's or not? As has been stated, all the brethren will know who is champion. And with the miracle of the internet, the results will be on line for the rest of time. It will be part of VMX's history forever more.

Nobody's shooting Johnny down in flames, what he's done is great and it shows he's a 'get it done' kind of bloke. However my opposition to the Winton proposal rests purely on its ability to attract the biggest field possible. While I'm hardly MA's biggest fan, I simply feel that to attract the most potential entries official championship status needs to be in place. I know that goes against things I've written earlier but what John's advocating is a far different scenario than the 'big club day' I spoke of. There's a lot of activity going on behind the scenes right now so lets relax for a couple of days and see what eventuates. If the Nats does go ahead in its original MA Championship form, it's not all doom and gloom on the work that John's done. The idea put forward on here to reignite the Mr VMX meeting to Winton with AASA sanction might just turn out to be a great idea.......Let's calm down a little and see what comes out of negotiations elsewhere.

[Nathan S]

Considering we have a forum member called "Johnny O", can we avoid confusion and not refer to "John Orchard" as Johnny O? Please?

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I really like what John Orchard has done. If we were sure that there was not going to be any form of MA-sanctioned CMXNs this year, I would be mega enthusiastic about it.
The big worry is that an MA event will get up and we will end up with a conflict, the the detriment of both events - while there's still the possibility of an MA CMXN event getting up this year, the Winton event can't/shouldn't be locked in.

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MA will NOT act against riders who ride in non-MA-sanctioned events. That crap died in the 80s, and they're not stupid enough to try to pick at that scab at any time... The fact that its at Winton makes a sure thing even surer.
Similarly, there's no issue with the event being called the "2013 Australian Classic MX Championship" (or any of the dozens of variations you could come up will, including using the word "vintage" like was all do anyhow).
While I'd be deadset against two competing title meetings, even if there ended up being an AASA title and an MA title, neither will have the right to declare their event to be THE title. You'd end up with the "MA CMX Championship" and the "AASA CMX Championship".

[Simo63]

Considering we have a forum member called "Johnny O", can we avoid confusion and not refer to "John Orchard" as Johnny O? Please?

You are correct, my bad. Sorry 

[35elsinore]

I believe that the nominations are reopened to the end of the week for the Nats so lets see what comes of that first as if other clubs are looking at taking it on they would need this time for commitee meetings etc to take place for a club to decide and put forward there interest. I know time is running out but hopefully this has stirred up a few clubs enthusiasm to host an MA sanctioned event.

[VMX247]

AASA.. 10 pages to look through.
Who are they,for those us who dont know ?
cheers

[Nathan S]

Alternative insurance broker, basically.
The actual insurance comes from the same source as CAMS, AMSAG (and almost certainly MA).
They are generally much happier for event organisers to make their own decisions, rather than get so caught up in their own sense of self importance.

They also tend to be cheaper, because their staff go on far fewer junkets, and are much less interested in swanning around in nifty blazers at the GP (that's a dig at CAMS - I don't know if MA is blighted with the same nonsense).

[GMC]

Johhny O has put in alot of effort to get something viable happening and at the 11th hour he gets shot down in flames because some here think it necessary to have MA involved just to have a "sanctioned" title. Who gives a toss if your name appears in a book of MA's or not?

I wasn’t trying to shoot John down in flames, just stating what people need to know. Some response’s here gave the impression they thought the AASA would be running the event for MA.

As for who gives a toss about going into the record books, well that is something everyone has to answer for themselves.
There are a lot of guys that will travel for a National title event but not that many that will travel for a glorified club day and if the glorified club day fails to attract the best from all states then the winners won’t be viewed upon as true champions.

[Lakes MBC]

Hey Guys,
won`t make you guys feel any better, but just wanted to share
from our website
Lakes seriously tried to make something of the poorly supported Australian Womens MX Championships for 2013
The announcement that we were to run this event, as a club, was made by MA on the 26th March this Year
On the 17th of August, IEG announced that they would be hosting the Australian Womens SX Championships the week prior to our date.
Lakes MBC fully support the promotion of Womens SX as well as MX, however cannot envisage this happening on consecutive weekends.
As MA have not yet replied to our emails, we assume this is another case of the Private Promoter taking priority over Affiliated Clubs.
Looks like Lakes Members may be treated to an additional ride day, run as a Club Day under Competition permit (gate starts)
Rob
0438 512183

[FourstrokeForever]

QUOTE
Considering we have a forum member called "Johnny O", can we avoid confusion and not refer to "John Orchard" as Johnny O? Please?
UNQUOTE

My apologies to both Johns and anybody else I may have confused.

 I realised the era as soon as I posted my blurb but by then it was too late.

Cheers,
Mark

[John Orchard]

Easy mistake to make, my roadrace nickname is Johnny O, I use to test bikes for Trail & Track in the mid 80's as Johnny O and used Johnny O as my mx nickname back then and my Facebook name is Johnny Oh (coz they wouldn't let me have a single letter surname).

[Simo63]

Okay so I have an update.  After (foolishly) stepping into this issue by making a few telephone calls earlier this week to a ACTMCC club representative and to Matt Kearnsley from MA, I did commit to following those up and make any updates public to the forum.

I spoke with a representative from ACT MCC yesterday and then followed that up with a call to MA rep Matt Keansley to confirm the story.  Both of these gentlement advised that the 2013 Classic Nats originally scheduled for the ACT track are definately not going to go ahead in Canberra.

I can't say much more except that the window for other clubs to put their hand up has not closed and I don't believe it will do so until this Friday.  I suspect we will hear more of this by the end of the week.

So I guess that leaves us waiting until the end of the week or early next week to hear of a possible alternative club and venue.  I just hope it's closer to QLD and not further away   

So at the end of the day, I will publicy apologise to John for getting involved where I probably wasn't welcome.  My intentions were not to look a gift horse in the mouth and stop him from organising what could be the only saviour for the cancelled ACT meeting.  Rather they were well intentioned in that I was keen to not see our sport split and was equally keen to continue having our premier events run under MA Auspices.  So to John and they people he was working with (on our behalf) I say Sorry.

At the end of the day I just hope that the 2013 Classic National event does go ahead.

Regards
Craig

[John Orchard]

Thanks Craig, I welcome your input and efforts to find out all the facts.  I will keep communicating with Winton MX Club and will meet with them to start laying-down some plans for running a VMX event. If MA and another affiliated club get their act (pardon the pun ...  ACT? lol) together then I will help Winton run another event in the future.

[VMX247]

I will keep communicating with Winton MX Club and will meet with them to start laying-down some plans for running a VMX event. If MA and another affiliated club get their act (pardon the pun ...  ACT? lol) together then I will help Winton run another event in the future.

100% John, if this is the outcome of your search on venues ..What a cracker !!    you've found another VMX friendly venue for future events...well done to you !!

[JohnnyO]

Considering we have a forum member called "Johnny O", can we avoid confusion and not refer to "John Orchard" as Johnny O? Please?

Yes there are 2 of us, a few years back when I picked my user name the only other JohnnyO I knew of was 80's US motocross star Johnny O'mara and he didn't use this forum so no worries I thought... Anyway I think everyone on here now knows who' who...