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.
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