1 History shows as newer eras come in, earlier classes drop out. Fortunately the "split"at national level, together with some forward thinking clubs, is reversing this trend.
You have the efrontary to use this years 2013 Classic Nats, compared with the 2012 record as an example of the "dire straits" of CMX. Sorry to prick your bubble but with a week to go for late entries the numbers arent far short of Crystal Brook ( which all who went judged to be a great success) which included Evo and Pre85. Which means of course that Classic numbers have increased.Also half the classes show an increase over 2012. We won't achieve 2012 level, but this has been achieved in 6 weeks, at the wrong end of a busy season.
2 Full potential is of course a movable target. Why put a defined limit to growth?
3 Because the under subscribed classes need to be nurtured back to health, not swpt away.
Last year we had a championship class of Pre60, the first in a long time. This year that class has increased.
4 "We" are getting out there and promoting our sport and organising events.
Somehow I get the feeling that this is a wasted excercise, but being an optimist one can but hope.
1. Nobody wants to "sweep away" any classes.
You also contradicted yourself in saying that newer classes hurt the older classes, but that they don't...
What I can say without equivocation, is that LOTS of people get involved for a particular era, and then discover/build an interest in other (usually older) eras.
For me, Pre-70 and Pre-78 weren't even on my radar until I got involved. A good mate was the same - he took some persuasion to get on a Pre-90 bike, but now owns Pre-75, Pre-78, Evo and Pre-85 bikes...
2. Nobody has ever suggested limiting growth. My point was that Firko repeatedly sets "Pre-85 needs to reach its potential" as a goal, without even the vaguest hint of what he thinks its potential is.
3. Your answer deliberately ignores the point I was making. It's GREAT that the older classes are growing again, but Firko (and others) never seem to mention them unless its to object to Pre-85, Pre-90 or now Pre-95.
Regardless: The existence of Pre-95 is unrelated to the health of Pre-65.
4. "We" are doing a shithouse job of promotion. Most clubs do a pretty good job given the resources available to them, but the sport of
VMX as a whole seems intent on being invisible.
It's no co-incidence that VMX's boom time was when the only major magazine featured a regular VMX column and regular VMX features. Dirt Action picked up the ball that post-GE ADB dropped, but it was clear that Ashenhurst's enthusiasm was short of GE's passion - and we're still talking about something that waned and died nearly 15 years ago...
I can't recall the last time I saw a VMX article in a mainstream dirtbike magazine - probably SideTrack in the early 00s, for crying out loud.
Vinduro, on the other hand, has a far greater mainstream presence with semi-regular articles in TrailZone and Old Bike. Is the growth of Vinduro and its relatively high levels of publicity a complete co-incidence?
Similarly, see if you can find a public reference to the 2013 PCMXNs outside of this forum, the MA website, or in AJ's column in the back of VMX magazine.
I know of/can find a grand total of ONE reference to that event - a thread that
I started on a modern dirt bike forum.
Unless you were already actively involved in VMX, that event was
completely invisible.
I've seen the ads in VMX Mag for the Connondale Classic and the Qld hosted Nats - such publicity is not the only thing that makes these events a success, but it certainly is one of the things.
"We" do a pretty good job of preaching to the converted, but we do a shithouse job of letting the rest of the world know we exist.
None of this is an argument against Pre-95 either, BTW.
