Tony .....Who me ?
NAr after you didnt return my calls for a place to stay, or the offer from bert to lend me a bike. im going to sit it out.
would only have been a goer if i could have flown up there, ridden and then flown back. Actually now you have all you Aussie championship medals maybe you should be cutting a class and lending me one of your sneeza's ?
But in referance to the posts, i get a little frustrated when simple things get accelerated into another ruling, not that i care what happens up there, but the last thing i want is this stuff to get legs, complicating things and before you know it its wormed its way into the MA rules somhow, like they always seem to POP up.
Personally you know my take on MA and the fact where pricing ourselves out of the sport. Scene here is dead this year, most guys would rather save the $1,000 in MA fees, track fees, transponders, entry fees etc etc and just go for a ride, you can ride all day on nice farm and country with your mates, but when you add what it costs to race from a little metal gate and you get all of 36 laps a day i can see where there are coming from.
I pulled out of road when it cost $10 a lap and thats from when you just divided into the entry fee not the other costs, the Dirt track series here is now $70 for 16 laps in 1 class at $4 a lap ( for 30 seconds) its not quite there but when you tip in all the other costs there is a break point. And its not too far away.
This will be the last year of the classic DT series here as most guys pulled out this year after some peanut decided that All bikes not just the rider had to have a hired transponder on it, essentially adding another $20 to your second bike, so many just brought out a 250cc ( killing the allpowers class), just riding one class the $ numbers just didnt stack up and they have pulled the pin. Previous rounds we had 10 ridders a class, this weekend im the only one entered. The same happend with the classic mx, however it is hanging on by one thread, a once a year event title - but unless you already have a senior license why would you pay out MA just to ride the one event.
MY gut feel is unless we can set up a demo or rally class to half the costs to ride/race around you wont see any pre 85 bikes ridden in SA in the next year, 2 years tops, the moderns are running with stuff all as well, and the Pee wee kids who we have heaps off are ending as, many dont want to go up to 85's they just want to ride, but the rules say at 10 yrs old regardless of skill level you cant ride ya pee wee on the track anymore.
I think we will see a big shift to "just riding events" and go head to head with MA as to why we need to pay there fees for social events, im guessing the same issues are seen in NSW going by the whats going wrong thread. This year our committe voted and we change 2 rounds to come and try days and closed to club fun days, we had 100 riders, compare that with 90 on a good race day, less volunteers required, no permits, transponders, comp head F#@KS, i think its the way to go and if im on the committe next year again ill be pushing for more rides and less racing, if the numbers come back then we can fire it up again.
How does this all relate to some simple springs ? well its just one more reason for the numbers needed to not come out and play, you can have a handfull of hard core racers spruking the vertues of rule interpretations, but you need more than a handful to put a race on, trust me we are at that paradigm shift here right now. YOU just need to Keep it as simple as possible so after you have sorted out all the other shit in your life, you can just put your bike in the car, fill up with juice and go for a ride, not troll pages of forums to see if you even going to get on the track, thats not cricket.
ID hate to see this all end up as a 2 state, aussie title held between Vic and Qld, maybe even turning into a state of origin. Ok WA im not forgetting you but you run a core group.
# note this is just my opinion
