Is racing still alive

[mx8]

Been out of racing motocross for some time. Just wondering how the turn out has been at the nationals. And how the local races have been in your area.

[Tommy Warren]

in ontrio canada we are having a race next weekend with a $10,000 purse for the men and women....its good here;)

[Pappy]

Numbers werent record setting this year, but not bad considering the piss poor economy. I know tons of folks that did the entire season that are on the verge of bankruptcy.....hopefully things turn around or our numbers will keep dwindling away.

XC nats are stable but not a ton of growth, which is good IMO again being a bad economy.

TT (EDT) is declining still, hopefully more folks will look at this form of racing, it is a BLAST!

[rollie]

Up here in the northeast the pro scene is dead, just creamer,wimmer and miller at all the rounds, with plante and deroy coming to most of them.

It's tough for me because this is my 7th full season, and almost nobody i started racing with still races, so i have lost a ton of interest in it.

3-4 years ago in NEATV we would have 3 qualifiers for C and B class, and now just one gate and no LCQ at most rounds.

Racing i would say is far from dead, but its more like it was before the factories got involved again

[TheLane]

in phoenix the quad scene is dead. ITP Quad x has 120 total turn out last time, and local races are lucky if we get 20 quads for ALL classes put together.

Its tough out here.

[ktmmack]

in Nor-Cal it's bad, only 1 local XC series that is trying to start out but numbers are low. WORCS still gets a decent turnout for quads, but they are pretty spread out so it's alot of traveling. other than that, we are a very small population.

[Kovatch]

@ Tommy Warren. I tried to Pm you but your box was full. What race is paying $10k in Canada? PM me or email ASAP PLEASE!!

chris_kovatch @ hotmail.com

[chronicsmoke]

Thurs/Fri at Madoc, Ontario

http://www.mmrs.ca/index.php

[Tommy Warren]

supposed to be 800+ bikes comming:eek:

[HondaRacing83]

when theres a large prize, theres gonna be a lot more people there yeah! id love to see the quad pro series payout like bikes do. the sport might blow up then

[chronicsmoke]

Are you going out Tommy?

[blacknblue#2]

Racing in southern ohio/northern kentucky is dead. 5 or 6 years ago when i raced there were local races all year around. now the outdoor tracks cant get a good enough turn out to actually have a race. Its not a race when you have 2 guys at the gate per class and your havin to put pro class with C class to speed up time so you dont have to pay your help an extra hour worth of pay. Our winter series almost canceled quads last year also but said they had 100+ bikes every bike race. I switched to bikes due to the economy. face it the economy killed what quads had going for them. a true raced ready quad out of the box should have been produced about 02/03 and maybe we would have had some growth. when the recession hit it was too late. ppl couldnt afford to build a quad and couldnt afford to give 12k for a race ready quad.

[Tommy Warren]

Originally posted by chronicsmoke
Are you going out Tommy?

trying to talk the girlfriend into going....I just have to book a camp site. shes a school teacher and she starts back to work on tuesday so she probably won't wanna go:(

[TheLane]

Originally posted by Tommy Warren
trying to talk the girlfriend into going....I just have to book a camp site. shes a school teacher and she starts back to work on tuesday so she probably won't wanna go:(

Dont worry tommy, its not like your going to win on a raptor.

[Tommy Warren]

lol it would be tough to win with a bare frame sitting on a cement floor. I'm not racing I'm just watching I'll try to gets some pictures of polaris bikes racing if I don't fall asleep before they make it around the track:blah:

[8686]

Originally posted by HondaRacing83
when theres a large prize, theres gonna be a lot more people there yeah! id love to see the quad pro series payout like bikes do. the sport might blow up then

You'd be surprised how little the national pro dirt bike payouts are.

[HondaRacing83]

Originally posted by 8686
You'd be surprised how little the national pro dirt bike payouts are. really? hows carmichael, stewert, reed, mcgrath make all that? have you seens james stewerts place?!

[turdboy]

Minnesota quad racing is falling apart as well. Back in 05' I think we broke away from the bikes and developed our own series which was great and we had good numbers. Well rumor has it that we may not have a series next year and going back with the bikes is not an option either. So racing in MN may soon be over. Another thing I don't like is 450's have zero value. Lately I have been seeing Honda and Yamaha 450's selling on Craigslist in the low 2's. I think 06 was the best year, racing here was booming, all the new 450's were coming out, nationals were buzzing, and just a lot of activity online. Hopefully that day comes back...

[atvfrk10]

sponsorships and endorsements

[Brad77]

Originally posted by atvfrk10
sponsorships and endorsements

Right its all those magazine ads and comercials that put cash in those guys wallets. The racing don't pay much at all.
On the main topic.
I have been out of racing for several years.
Here in the southeast things were starting to pick up back a few years ago and then dropped back out. We have a couple of series here in the south. SE Quads is mostly in Georgia and Alabama. There is also a series in Northern Florida.

[trailrider894]

Missouri didn't do to bad this year, we had decent sized classes and the viewer turnout wasn't bad either.

[SRH]

supercross win pays 10k for first i think, plus bonuses, salary, other endorsements

in 09 chad reed made 27 million i believe

[blaster99]

Racing is hurting everywhere. an NEATV race had less than 200 entries once this year... kinda sad seeing as we used to get 300+ all day long. I saw the entries for the Unadillia national, 427. That's not too many, but better than none at all! With the top pros leaving the sport, their fans will follow. Get a pro purse paying back 20 spots and I guarantee there will be qualifiers in the pro class again. That won't fix the problem, but it would be a help to at least have more than 14 pros!

[trailrider894]

You guys keep saying that the pro's are leaving, well thats a good thing... It opens up the field for guys like me and my buddies to advance up in the classes and allows the younger guys to step up and take there places... Wimmer, Byrd, Wienen, etc... they are all gettin older and how can you keep on keepin on in ATV MX... Let the new kids on the block have there moment of fame and lets get the dirt slingin!!

[blaster99]

The problem is being able to afford racing nationals! I went to the first 4 this year and was flat out broke after! The only thing that got me to Kentucky and Maryland was the contingency money I won in previous rounds from can-am. If you could get a 15th place finish in pro, and make enough money to at least take the edge off the extreme amount of money it takes to race, you would have way more guys battling it out for that 15th place finish. Not just one riding around in the back.

[Kovatch]

If we could get fuel down to $2.50 a gallon it would be a little nicer to drive the 2200 mile round trip to the southern races. However, we know that is a dream.

Comparing payouts in Supercross to ATV MX is apples to oranges. Supercross has prime time TV contracts and EVERY company is paying out their @$$ to sponsor those teams with bikes. We have the 5:30 slot on Sundays instead of prime time... Not a lot of money in our 1 hour show as compared to the 3 hr+ supercross. Heck we can barely get scantily clad women to hold up the time cards. (although the blonde gal wasn't bad this year: ATVA Nationals).

Even though it may not be the best TV show in the world, we all have to encourage our friends to watch/DVR the RacerTV show & email the company how we like it. That more visible the sport can get it will increase viewership, fans, and more potentials to come. If no one is watching the show, the chances to increase the sports exposure decreases. The better the viewership, the better the chance other companies will continue to sponsor our events as companies want the greatest exposure for the least amount of effort. It goes a long way to send an email to some companies stating how we all appreciate their efforts or buying parts from the series sponsors.

Continue to DVR the shows & support sponsors.

[woodsman250r]

Quad racing and riding around my area is slowly fading out. It seems like the economy killed it for most people I ride with, or used to ride with. Most guys can't afford to go out and spend $8000 on a new quad, build it up to race, and then pay the gas money and fees to race. Especially when this is just a hobby for a lot of people, and not a way of making a living. When people have mortgages, families, bills, food, and other expenses, racing gets put on the back burner. I for one gave up racing and just switched to trail riding on bikes due to cost. Seems like most guys I ride with now gave up quads for bikes as well. I can ride all year on my bike for a fraction of what it costs to do it on a sport quad. And lets face it, a bone stock bike is a lot better to trail ride than a bone stock quad. Unless they make more quads ready to race out of the box, and lower cost, I see a lot of guys dropping out of racing. I know a lot of quad guys already who aren't coming back to GNCC's after the summer break. The sport has just grown too expensive for the everyday working man. I work at Crow Canyon on saturdays, and we only get people showing up on stock quads to trail ride, and maybe 2-3 guys coming to ride MX on quads. The rest are all bikes. Having the latest and greatest technology on quads and bikes is great, but all of that comes with a price tag. The reality is that most people can't swing that extra chunk of money, and the sport is suffering because of it.

[Tommy Warren]

Originally posted by trailrider894
You guys keep saying that the pro's are leaving, well thats a good thing... It opens up the field for guys like me and my buddies to advance up in the classes and allows the younger guys to step up and take there places... Wimmer, Byrd, Wienen, etc... they are all gettin older and how can you keep on keepin on in ATV MX... Let the new kids on the block have there moment of fame and lets get the dirt slingin!!

so you want the pros to leave because you can't beat them....if they are getting older it should be easier for you to beat them or at least get on their level. I understand that your not factiry sponsored but I don't want them to leave just so people who can't ride as well can be in the spot light....thats stupid

[trailrider894]

Originally posted by Tommy Warren
so you want the pros to leave because you can't beat them....if they are getting older it should be easier for you to beat them or at least get on their level. I understand that your not factiry sponsored but I don't want them to leave just so people who can't ride as well can be in the spot light....thats stupid

No, of course i don't want the factory guys to leave. I am not anywhere near the pro level, but the issue is that to many people are pro level racers hanging out in our A Class races and they are impossible to beat, because they are way beyond the A Class level. I am just saying that maybe a change of face is needed... Maybe its time for the factory riders to retire and give up there factory positions to other guys. I'm out of racing right now, because of college and the military, but all the same.

[axellmusic19]

Originally posted by turdboy
Minnesota quad racing is falling apart as well. Back in 05' I think we broke away from the bikes and developed our own series which was great and we had good numbers. Well rumor has it that we may not have a series next year and going back with the bikes is not an option either. So racing in MN may soon be over. Another thing I don't like is 450's have zero value. Lately I have been seeing Honda and Yamaha 450's selling on Craigslist in the low 2's. I think 06 was the best year, racing here was booming, all the new 450's were coming out, nationals were buzzing, and just a lot of activity online. Hopefully that day comes back...

:( I was hoping to be able race MX next season. I already left XC for D23 cause it lost all the land. I had to go to WIXC to race at all but now MX? Nooooo. You're right about the price of things though. People can't keep losing that much money and justify racing though...

[Kovatch]

Originally posted by trailrider894
No, of course i don't want the factory guys to leave. I am not anywhere near the pro level, but the issue is that to many people are pro level racers hanging out in our A Class races and they are impossible to beat, because they are way beyond the A Class level. I am just saying that maybe a change of face is needed... Maybe its time for the factory riders to retire and give up there factory positions to other guys. I'm out of racing right now, because of college and the military, but all the same.

First off, let me say I respect your opinion/point. I understand there may be a few in A class that need to move up, but re-read what you said. My assumption is you are referring to all of the BIG racing series: ATVA, GNCC, WORCS, etc.

You want "factory riders to retire and give up there factory positions to other guys." That's insane. If you have made it to the pro level, you are obviously good at what you do for many reasons. You/they are damn good at it. If anyone wants to take on those top A riders (older pros), then get better. Devote more time/effort to "your" training program and beat them. That's competition at it's finest. I wouldn't want any rider to lay down so I can beat them. If I wanted to win, I will/would try harder.

The people that shine in our industry are "freaks of nature." Just like any other pro. If a guy is 40+ years old, holding his own in the pro class, then be my guest to race him and beat him. If you can, you will EARN your spot at the top.

Maybe the race series you speak of needs a pro class or more involvement to move those "pro" A riders to a higher level class?

I am not trying to create a pissing contest.

[Kovatch]

Double Post.