I Really Think Tracks Are Smoother Than They Used To Be

I know this may be somewhat controversial, even coming from a curmudgeon like me, but I really do think that motocross tracks, and supercross tracks for that matter, are smoother than they were in the heyday of our sport. I don’t know exactly why this has come about, but it seems to me that it has. Perhaps some of the trends in track preparation that were originally aimed at dust control have grown more and more extreme to the point where today the spirit of the sport has changed. We hear rumors that it may have something to do with making our sport more television friendly. That could explain some of what we saw in the last few years at the AMA Nationals. A neophyte television audience “gets” high speed and big jumps, but doesn’t understand grueling terrain and riders struggling just to make it up a hill or being jarred around by nasty bumps. This explanation does not completely cover what we see at your local track. Or, maybe it does. Perhaps indirectly, amateur riders want to ride similar tracks and perform similar feats (i.e. jumps) as their professional idols.

All of these things add up to arguably smoother tracks. The fact that tracks are smoother is well discussed and, I think, agreed upon and even admitted to by the movers and shakers of motocross. If you don’t have first hand experience of how things were 30 or more years ago, or if you are not willing to listen to old guys like me, there are some ways to find out for yourself. Check out some of the old pictures or videos on youtube of the old days. Look up the footage of the famed Hannah vs. O’Mara duel at the Unadilla U.S.G.P. The uphill before the “Screw-U” was gnarly in that race. I’ve walked up that hill at 2 different races in the early 80s. I never rode it because at the time Unadilla was open for just a couple of professional races each year. That uphill was an amazing section of chunked out, square edged, thigh deep holes and bumps with absolutely no pattern to the spacing. I’ve walked up it before practice when it was covered with waist high grasses and fantasized at how much I wanted to ride it. There was no way to get a rhythm on a section like that and the youtube video will make that obvious. A bulldozer created section, on the other hand, usually has a nice rhythm to it. At the bottom of that section, where there used to be a naturally rutted stretch because it was a low spot on the property, today there is a nicely sculpted tabletop. And, instead of the gnarly 2nd gear mess of a climb, you’ve got a 4th gear sweeping climb with nary a bump. I mean it. Compare any old videos or pictures you can find of Unadilla with the more recent stuff. Look at the video from the 2010 national. Riders climbed that hill wide open and the front or rear tire never left terra firma. What was once an unglamorous, often awkward climb for the world’s most talented riders on bikes with 13 inches of suspension travel is now a section just about anyone in a professional field of riders completes wide open in the highest gear they can find. Similarly, the addition of tons of jumps all over a track calls for much more smoothness. A 100 foot tabletop is 100 feet of perfectly groomed, smooth, and pristine track that could otherwise be bumpy, rocky, muddy and challenging. Don’t tell me that these tabletops are challenging anymore. Everyone in the “A” and even “B” classes jumps these things without even challenging their skills. I stand at the takeoff to these crowd thrilling jumps at local and national tracks and watch every rider shut off the throttle and coast the last 15 feet up the impeccably smooth clay jump face, scrubbing off speed and reaching for a tearoff (or pretending to). I call that a degradation in the roots of our sport. Maybe you don’t. There are no bumps or rocks in that 100 feet of air either. At some tracks the promoters just can’t leave a track alone. There are tabletops in almost any stretch of track that will tolerate one. Coming out of or entering nearly every turn there are jumps. Tabletop landings before turns take out the once important skill of late braking into corners which created huge braking bumps. Everyone takes the fixed speed tabletop the same and lands smoothly and brakes a little for the corner. Riders today call this “flow”. I’m amazed by that term when associated motocross. Flow was something that tracks tried to take away from riders. Tracks used to be largely natural terrain over ridges, through natural ditches, twisting hill climbs, low spots that were always muddy and never drained properly. High spots that were inaccessible to the friendly smoothing tool dragged behind a tractor. In the early 80s I once raced a qualifier in Southern Illinois where I walked around with the promoters the day before the race as they laid out some new sections. They marked off some terrain that had never been touched by knobbies. They ran it through a dry creek bed with softball sized rocks. Exposed tree roots and leaves from last fall lined the steep climbs and descents. There was one hill that was so steep that I asked the guy laying it out if any of the smaller displacement bikes like 100s or 125s could even make the climb. He said he wasn’t sure. Oh, it rained all that night before the race the next day. The next morning the whole track was no picnic, and the new sections were challenging enough to separate those that deserved to qualify from those that didn’t. These obstacles intentionally disrupted your flow. At the same time they provided opportunity for real creativity in line choice. Riders didn’t complain. That’s how we used to like our motocross and those challenges were embraced or even expected. Today’s tracks often don’t allow for much creativity other than seeking out the smoothest portion as the lines change throughout the day. Today’s obstacles--jumps—don’t encourage much creativity other than the choice to double, triple or whatever. I think tracks of old offered more opportunity for a rider to demonstrate real skills that clearly demonstrated the highly skilled from the lesser skilled. The other important thing about those kinds of challenges in early motocross is that they were SAFE. It wasn’t very likely that you would break your back even if it took you a couple of tries to get up a hill on your big bore Maico.

I place most of the blame for the changes in our tracks on the growing popularity of motocross among non-motocrossers, mainly via television and product advertising. Maybe some people today get into motocross for different reasons than us old-schoolers did. Originally, motocrossers were by definition, out of the mainstream of sports and indeed society. We were drawn to the sport because the sports others were drawn to didn’t do it for us. With the image of motocross today largely controlled by the mainstream media and mainstream product marketing, the appeal is just different. Back-flips, tattoos, partying and high fashion are the calling cards for what is called today’s “motocrosser”. To me, freestyle, the unfortunate face of our sport today, is not motocross at all. Sadly, it is not only what passes for motocross today, but what often defines it. It is likely that if you are drawn to buying a dirt bike because of the energy drink add with the flat-biller flipping his blacked-out bike in front of his bikini clad girlfriend, you are drawn to buying a dirt bike for different reasons that what drew Roger DeCoster. The actual experience you get once you through your leg over the seat and head out to a motocross track with your friends will not link up very well with the image of what you saw on TV. Yes, freestyle is difficult. Yes, it requires tremendous talent. Yes, it requires unflinching courage. Motocross requires those things as well, and much more. On another note, I have written elsewhere on the Olympic Games and things that are misclassified as sports. Look, anything that must be judged is not a sport to me. It is entertainment. It is often very difficult, very dangerous and requires tremendous physical talent. Those things don’t make it a sport. A sport, to me, is something where there is a definitive winner or loser-- first across the finish line, the one that went the farthest, fastest highest or scored the most points---stuff like that. Freestyle to me is no more a sport than figure skating.

For many decades you discovered motocross through your father or your big brother, by having a mini-bike, or riding a friend’s motorcycle. Maybe that hasn’t changed. The difference was that you often didn’t even know what motocross was until AFTER you rode some. It was a sport largely fueled by self-discovery. The sheer joy of riding hooked many of us. Anyone that spent any amount of time in the saddle at all quickly experienced the unique physical challenges motocross presented. A real rider rides in all weather—rain, snow, heat, you name it, we need to ride. I laugh at people that say things like “you shouldn’t go running today Frank, it is too hot outside, too dangerous”. See, most people avoid exercise in inclement weather of any kind. Those of you that are real racers know that hot days, or rainy days, or cold days, are the days that you MUST ride. You can’t choose the weather on race day. A real rider falls. As a result you have constant bumps and bruises at best and serious injury at worst. These are just realities of the sport. The toughness required quickly weeds out the weak of mind, body and heart. This toughness factor makes accomplishment all the more gratifying. The harder you work for something, the more you’ll value it.

I’m not so sure that many of today’s riders are drawn to the sport because of the physical challenge and dedication it takes to even be a good “C” rider. If you are drawn to a sport because of the “show” factor glamorized on television today, you’re likely looking for something different than those that discovered the sport through experience and sweat. I’ve seen it---you’ve seen it. On practice days at beautiful and demanding motocross tracks, riders spending all of their track time riding the same jump section over and over again for the thrill of jumping or showing someone in the pits how good they are at jumping. Sure, I like jumping and so do you. It is one of the things that we all enjoy about riding. But, when jumping is the only thing you like about motocross, you are not a motocrosser. Admittedly, I am not a freestyler and I don’t want to be confused with one.

One Step Up, Two Steps Back?

There have been some changes in the world of motocross that I think have had some positive effects but also have negative in other aspects. Track preparation is one of those changes? You are asking yourself, “is this guy crazy--of course, tracks are prepared better now than ever.” Well, not so fast. Again, I had the chance to ride motocross in 2 different eras, the 70s and the late 2000s. Back in the early days of motocross promoters tried to keep the dust down and usually turned up the soil a bit to smooth out the bumps from the last race. They even sometimes brought in some wood chips or soil to work into the track to make a section or 2 deeper and loamy. What makes my perspective crystal clear is that I rode in both eras almost “overnight”. See, I didn’t ride much in the latter part of the 80s, the 90s or the early 2000s. I think I saw a stark contrast that may be lost on riders that rode the same tracks week after week, month after month, year after year.


There is surely some good that has come about with the increased promoter interest in track preparation. I’m amazed at how quickly and simply they can put water down on a track these days. Red Bud, for example, like many other tracks, has water truck access roads running alongside the track where the water truck can easily cruise along and spray a nice coating of H2O to the entire track in a pretty short period of time without ever having to drive on the track itself. These access roads allow the water trucks to quickly hit the trouble spots no matter where they are on the track without having to navigate the entire track to get there. Other tracks have tremendously powerful pumping systems that get the water to hoses positioned around the track. It isn’t the garden hoses and sprinkler heads that we felt lucky to have in the 1970s. The obvious result is that at good tracks today there is much less dust than we saw in years past. Dust was always a reality in motocross and made the all important start, that much more important. It isn’t a thing of the past, but nearly so.

A related but, I think, less positive aspect of modern track preparation is the trend to “rip” the tracks really deep. Good tracks have always disked up the soil, but lately the trend is to rip them calf-deep and pour on the water. This method helps the track maintain the water and cuts down on dust---as I said, a good thing. What’s more is that motocrossers have always loved to tear into deep loam. A nice roost shoots up in the sky, the engines sound better as they reach for every last bit of horsepower and riders love the feel of blasting through fresh soil. What could possibly be bad about that? Well, in my opinion, a track that is ripped too deeply results in a track with fewer racing lines. These tracks develop a couple of lines in each turn and even down each straight. The problem is that if you get out of the line, you are harshly penalized by deep, wet soil that slows you down tremendously in comparison to the worn in lines. Picture the typical turn on today’s ripped national (or local) track. In a 20 foot wide corner there may be a good inside line and a good outside line, each of them with about 2 feet of racing surface. Fully 16 feet of track go unused. On a track that is not ripped so deep, many more options are presented to the rider. Often you can use ALL 20 feet of the corner. Start inside-stay inside, start inside-drift outside, start outside-cut across the middle to the inside. A track with more options allows for better racing. This is why first turns are usually prepped a little differently or prepped more often on race day. A proper first turn cannot have 1 inside line and one outside line. You’ve got to have room for 40 riders to fly around there elbow to elbow. Almost without fail, when I watch national coverage on television and hear the commentators talk about the track being “1 lined”, it is because most of the track is so over-prepped as to be almost unraceable or at least too penalizing to those that stray. When I’ve seen races where everyone feels the track offers multiple lines and good racing it is inevitably a track where the corners are open to many choices by riders. Ripping a track too deep and overwatering it while ripped may cut down on dust in the 2nd motos but it in essence makes the track ride as though it was a mud race for a part of the day. Riding in rutted corners and grooved straights is nice every once in a while, and great skills for riders to attain, but race after race of 2 lined corners and 15 ruts grooved down the straights is not really a great way for riders to let it all hang out. Oh, I almost forgot—the tracks are prepped like this everywhere except for the freeway like jump takeoffs and landings. Heaven for bid a track gets so rough that you can’t jump 100 feet every lap and show the drain plug on a tabletop between nearly every corner.

In the end, I think that modern promoters have used their heads to make their tracks very accessible to watering and they’ve done a great job of making them loamy and appealing to the part of each of us that loves to tear up virgin terrain. However, as is usually the case, too much of a good thing is usually not that good. Rip the tracks, keep the watered and give riders something to dig their new tires into, but don’t overdo it. Let the tracks develop racing lines from fence to fence and let the riders hang it out instead of slot car racing their way from jump to jump.

Some Real Progress

Just so you don’t get the impression that I don’t think any progress has been made in the sport of motocross over the last 40 years or so, I thought I’d talk about a few things that seem like improvements to me.

Every track I can think of today has a backward falling gate. That’s a pretty simple change that many racers of the last couple of decades would take for granted, but it really has made the all important start a fair contest. I was a really good starter back when I was younger. I was able to time the forward falling gates because even if you bumped them a little they were falling away from you and didn’t impede your progress much. I totally killed the starts when the old bungee cords were used. If you got a spot in the center where the bungee cords were tethered, you could leave much earlier than the competitors on the far inside and outside spots because the rubber band took comparatively longer to get out of their way. Today’s backward falling gate is designed to give everyone an equal chance at getting a good jump and at the same time offers a pretty steep penalty for those that pull the trigger too early. I can’t think of much improvement needed for starting gates. Still, too many tracks have first turns that don’t offer much of a chance for riders to holeshot unless they are in the handful of prime spots. That’s always been a problem that I think many tracks with ample real estate could perhaps do a better job at.

Transponders are pretty cool. Exact lap times and splits are a great way to gauge a rider’s performance on race day and are a great training tool. I’m not so crazy about using this exact timing capability to justify qualifying for AMA motocross nationals based on lap times in qualifying practice. I’d still rather see riders race their way into the lineup at a national. I guess there is good and bad about either method. Racing your way into a position in a qualifier can leave good riders out of the show if they get a bad start or have a small crash. Of course, that is part of racing and racing is what we value as racers. Track conditions on a motocross track change so much from the first practice of the day to the second, third and whatever, that it is really doesn’t seem quite fair to qualify riders based on lap times on a track where conditions can change so much in 45 minutes that a 5-6 second gap is possible. Let’s go back to racing our way into the big show at nationals. Still, transponders are cool.

I think there are many more women racers now. That’s got to be a positive thing when we can make our sport more accessible to any demographic with the desire to compete. I can remember many women racers back in the 70s when I first started. They had to compete against the men, which, for the most part, wasn’t fair. Of course, there were some women like Lisa Akin that were plenty fast and competed at the front of the pack in the “A” class at big amateur races.

I also like the fact that promoters make special tracks for pee wee riders. What a great way to get the very youngest riders on the smallest bikes out on a real motocross track and in a real race. This gives the little ones a track of their own, more suited to their machines and skills, to learn how to ride and compete. I do see some kids stay on the pee wee track too long after their skills have progressed to the point where they should be riding the big tracks. Get those kids on the real tracks when they show the ability to ride it. I’m not sure there’s much utility in keeping them on a beginner track for very long. I think my 3rd race ever was on the same track Roger Decoster rode at Red Bud.

I suppose protective gear has progressed too. I don’t know if the changes are revolutionary, but I would say that a rider is generally safer today than when I first started. Helmets are definitely better. From a seat of the pants perspective, the padding and fit are much better than the high end helmets of the 70s and 80s. I also think the nationals safety standards have gotten higher too, which is the kind of progress we need. Knee braces are a great improvement for today’s racer. I have 2 reconstructed knees from my early years of racing. My second career was really only possible because of the high quality knee braces available today and the stability they provided me. I’m pretty sure that I would have horrifically blown out my already blown out knee a few years ago when I went down in a fast sweeper. My upper leg turned purple (which I was quite proud of), which I think was because of the way the brace redistributed the load of the crash away from my vulnerable knee to my strong thigh and femur. I wouldn’t ride without knee braces and I wouldn’t recommend that anybody does. This brings me to neck braces. Without fully knowing the science behind them, I’m fairly confident that they would likely prevent some serious neck injuries. I know that this is a controversial subject, and that many well respected racers opt not to use them. Some of the comments I’ve heard are that they “are not convinced” that neck braces are beneficial. To me, that would be a bad idea to avoid wearing one. On the other hand, I’ve heard others say that they think the current generation of neck braces actually causes some types of neck or back injuries. Again, I’ve not seen the science either way. I don’t know if I trust many of the naysayers because I see many racers avoid wearing obviously beneficial protective gear for various reasons. I remember when people avoided full face helmets because they were said to cause collarbone breaks. Now full face helmets are required and I don’t think anyone would seriously consider racing motocross without one. I also see many riders and role models avoid wearing obviously effective gear like shoulder pads because they find them hot or uncomfortable in some way. To me a little discomfort is not a good reason to avoid solid protection. In any event, I think the movement toward trying to find effective neck and spine protection has come none too soon. We’ve started down the path of developing this important technology and it will only get better.

Change is inevitable. Let’s keep trying, keep considering and keep moving when the movement makes sense for motocrossers; average, every day motocrossers.