Last thing I want is to see any vintage events demise, apologies if I offended anyone... and I certainly wasn't trying to offend you Mark.
No hard feelings at all Darren. I get extremely defensive when people throw stones at the event that I initiated back in 1992. Myself, Geoff Eldridge and Brian Clarke had to move mountains to convince MA that our sport was worthy of its own national championship. We were proved right and the event grew to the point that during the mid 90s it was the biggest motocross event period whether modern or vintage, in Australia. The Nats means a lot to me.
I can understand why you felt so strongly when there is so much negative discussion on the forum regarding this rule or that rule. Although I've often dived head first into the online " discussions" regarding the rules, sometimes I felt like shaking somebody when bullshit like the recent footpeg discussion keep going on and on for page after page. It does no good when outsiders see the pedantic crap that goes on, allowing the overtly misinformed to confuse everybody over what had never previously been a problem, the end result being that the rule remains the same as it has since our rulebook has been written. Because everyone was going of over what was a silly little thing, people like you that are new to the Nats format interpet from the discussion that the scrutineers are out to try and find a way to stop us from racing when in fact the opposite is the case.
Most of the pedancy and frivolous protesting I've seen over 20 years has been from racers protesting fellow racers, forcing the eligibility scrutineers to act on a situation they'd rather not have to. Some of those protests have been well supported because a rider had been caught blatatantly cheating but most are frivolous and petty pieces of rulebook waving that cause nothing but angst for all concerned. Thankfully however, these pedants can be counted on half of your hand leaving the other 99.9% of competitors to enjoy themselves without a hint of "rule nazi'' activity. I've scrutineered 4 Nationals and from memory have only excluded three bikes from competing in their entered class because of ilegalities. Ask Drakie, Tanner or any of the others National level scrutineers and I'm sure they'll they'll give you a similar figure.
Even though my VMX enjoyment is based around Classic Dirt these days, I'm adament that the Nationals remain the icon event it deserves to be. I reckon the Conondale Nats has the potential to be one of the best ever and would hope that we can get a few more starters. What about you for a start Darren?
