Exclusion of Motards from F1, F2 & F3: Good or bad?

[Suzi Q]

I am not a racer, a potential racer but not one yet. I am a spectator, pit bitch and amateur photographer. I love to watch the Motards, they are certainly fun and different - I love it when they wheelie (my guilty pleasure!). After the debacle of Nelson street races I believe they should have their own class and stick with that. I understand 1 rider complained about not having enough races and that he had come all this way!!! They gave them 2 races in the round - why is that? Are they extra special? No other class got an extra race. After reading this thread I think they should count themselves lucky they get to ride street races as it seems a motard is a combination road and dirt bike and they have special races with road and dirt - I haven't seen it in CHCH though.

[sugilite:Me]

This is an interesting thread for me. I race 3 bikes in 3 classes, Super Bike, Post Classic Senior and Motard. The Motard is a kx500. It's waiting for $$$ for bits before I race it again. There seems to be a lot of mis-information from both sides of the fence in this thread. (I'm sitting in a motel in Invercargill on a slow connection and cannot be bothered going through so many posts again to quote them all)

Heres some of my impressions.
Motards when ridden at their best still take road bike lines.
You can use the knee down style. I have the motard lap record for the manfield short circuit, a 1:18 flat, and that was using my slow motor. I found sticking my foot out slows me down, at lap record pace anyways.

When motards back it in big time, I simply stuff it up the inside and take their line, did it to Barry Briggs plenty at Mt Wellington kart track...I took the silver ware...again, using knee down style

As they are to have their own class and are banned from racing in other classes, it is a moot point discussing that side of things.

If they are allowed in other classes at club level racing, then give preference to the deicated class bikes and cap the numbers and make up the rest with motard bikes. I think 50 is to many idleidolidyll, 40 sounds good to me, just my opinion...

When I've raced against motards on my roadrace bikes, it has not worried me about their foot out, I outbrake them stuff it up the inside just the same, does not seem to make them wider to me.

Anyways, I think you will soon see motard specialist tracks popping up soon and that will drain significant numbers from the road race meets.

[Titanium]

But the first thing that I saw was the very different lines of the motards and road bikes. Having the back of a bike step out on purpose to the extent that it does on most but not all corners could be quite un-nerving.

I like the suggestion about letting the side cars and motards run together ..... would be a blast, wonder who the first to complain would be?

I guess they are all racers at the end of the day and should be able to handle what is thrown at them.

The poll question seems to be one of "are they greedy" rather than are they compatible with the sports bikes, letting them run in 1 class and motard, if they pay for 6 classes (6 x entry fee) then let them run in as many as they pay for.

If it is a safety issue ... they should only run in motard ... oh yeah and with the side cars .... haha

Do they pay more to enter additional classes?, same amount per class? if so there is a commercial benefit to allow them to do it, for the organisers, I guess money talks.

The moment safety is compromised on the race track it becomes a liabilty issue for the organisers.

Just my 10 cents worth.

P/s Sugilite is right ..... if enough get discontented with racing with sports bikes or political reasons for not getting the racing they want, then there will be a natural split to motard only events.

[Kickaha]

I like the suggestion about letting the side cars and motards run together ..... would be a blast, wonder who the first to complain would be?

wouldn't be the sidecars, you'd probably find the swingers would take stuff with them to throw at the motards

[gav]

Hmmm, interesting.
OK, lets take Port Nelson Street Races for a start. If it wasnt for the MXers out there, there would never have been a Port Street race, fact!
The street circuits tend to highlight the differences in the bikes more than a proper built circuit, but also you have guys from two different backgrounds, the guys with a dirt background who race the occasional street race will ride as they know how, ie as a dirt bike, backing it in and squaring off the corners. The guys from a road race background tend to race them more as a road bike, ie faster corner speeds, more sweeping lines. Nelson has a more dirt bike based crowd so you tend to get them surfacing more.
MX bikes have been around for ages usually in F3, the fact that the road bikes eligible for F3 havent advanced while the dirt bikes have (you seen the V twin Aprilia 550? ) tend to make it a hard class to judge. If you kick them out, youre left with maybe 10 bikes. A good point though, was why have a Bears class? If you race a modern Bears bike, you should go OK in the Formula classes. If its old, race it in the Classics. I think we tend to have too many classes at some races.
If you have some odd ball bike, either run a clubmans class, or take it club racing, don't expect to have a class just for your bike.
Maybe the whole Street racing needs a bit of an overhaul, how about a max of 5 classes, if you dont get 20 entries for a class you lose that class. 5 classes 3-4 races per class. If youre able to cross enter, either one bike in two classes or race two different bikes, cool, but its up to you to be ready to go when needed and required, If you're late to the gate, bad luck.
Alot of those Motard bikes are bloody expensive and are a fair old investment, way more than a bucket and/or post classic or even F3 bike.
I think if they suit the rules in place they should be eligible to race.

[dangerous]

OK, lets take Port Nelson Street Races for a start. If it wasnt for the MXers out there, there would never have been a Port Street race, fact!

Crap not a fact at all Gav
Ill say this one last time... Motards have not been excluded from racing... but put in a class of their own.
as far as your 'Nelson' comment... the Motards had two races to all other classes one race, another words they were well catered for... to the point were F4 had one race all day to there 5-6.

[gav]

Crap not a fact at all Gav

errr, yes it is actually.....

To get the very first Port Nelson Street race off the ground it was essential that we got the MXers on to the track. The committee needed the local club (Motorcycling Nelson) backing to get a permit, and also had to have the approval of the local steward etc. It was only the approach of "lets see how good you boys are on tarmac" that got any interest. This took a fair bit of lobbying and promoting to convince the club that it could work. The Nelson club was pro dirt and werent really interested in it happening at all. It was only being able to some of the top local MX guys interested that got the Nelson club interested enough to be prepared to back it. Think we gave them there own class to start with as they were a little err "loose" to start with!


Ill say this one last time... Motards have not been excluded from racing... but put in a class of their own.
as far as your 'Nelson' comment... the Motards had two races to all other classes one race, another words they were well catered for... to the point were F4 had one race all day to there 5-6.

I guess the organisers were catering to the numbers entered?
It is inexcusable that some missed out though, one of the problems is, is lack of experience from the organisers, they only run one race a year, and often get a bunch of newbies who think they are helping. Those guys that have helped in previous years are often more than willing to let others have a go.
But still, if you exclude Motards from other classes, do you exclude 600's from running in F1. The other "problem" is most of those Motards are probably the most expensive bikes on the grid, do they get a bigger say because of this?
I'm not behind the times, D. Do you know how much some of those bikes are worth? Theres some fairly committed guys out there, not sure you should be pissing them off. If they are riding dangerously wave the black flag and exclude them from that race, they'll soon learn!
The other thing is pay extra per class entered, not let people cross enter for no extra fee. If you miss races, you get a refund for your entry fee for that class, might work?

[gav]

Can anyone actually point to proof that Motards have been excluded from future Formula classes? Nothing on the MNZ website to suggest this? Was it in fact, just at the Port Nelson race where the organisers kicked them out?

[Kickaha]

Alot of those Motard bikes are bloody expensive and are a fair old investment, way more than a bucket and/or post classic or even F3 bike.

The other "problem" is most of those Motards are probably the most expensive bikes

Do you know how much some of those bikes are worth?

The price of the bike is irrelevant, the F1 guys pay even more and can only enter in one class

Theres some fairly committed guys out there, not sure you should be pissing them off.

there's faily committted guys in every class, are you saying commitment is measured by the price you pay for yuor bike?

[gav]

It does show some form of committment doesnt it? Especially if you've got 30 or so riders looking at racing.
Buckets at times, has struggled to be taken seriously, due to the appearance of the bikes and term "buckets", even though alot of the guys racing are pulling the same strings etc to get out on the track. After all travel, accomodation, entry fees etc are all the same regardless what bike you are racing.
TonyB made a comment about a $20K race bike and only getting 1 race, alot of those Supermotards would be nudging that figure too.

[DEATH_INC.]

Man, you really took that in a negetive way.

I do like motards, and i do love watching them race, In thier own class.

Also to do with feet on pegs or not,

It seems this guy doesnt have an issue. He must have magical legs

here two guys racing motards.

Guess who was winning

Have a look again at the pics in this post, then look at a pic of an F1 bike at full lean and tell me which is wider? Foot out makes no real difference to the width......and a motard going sideways is no wider than a sprotbike going sideways.(look at the pic of hayden in gavs avatar for example)
The only real issue is the different lines.....

[TonyB]

In mid 2005 I spoke to an F1 rider who had taken out a second mortgage for the 04/05 season, and had just about lost his house. He managed to hold it all together and keep racing. The point being that he is heavily financially committed to racing, to a degree most of us can't even appreciate. He gets to race in the F1 class only, and if he turned up at Nelson, from what Sparkybills said, he'd have some cheeky bugger on a Motard trying to get out in his class too.

Maybe the real issue is that times have moved on, and the capacity restrictions in each class need looking at? F3 rules were made at a time when you could, for instance, buy a new FZR400 or RGV250, (do they even make a modern equivalent of those bikes anymore?), and a fast Motard didn't even exist.

[NordieBoy]

In theory Motards should be rapped they're getting excluded

It means there's enough numbers and recognition for their very own class.

[TonyB]

The only real issue is the different lines.....

Different or 'erratic' lines would mean more cases of bikes and riders bouncing off eachother- maybe thats the real issue, that and perhaps when a tyre rubs against a knee thats touching the ground, the pysical size of a knee means that the tyre will only rub against the knee. Whereas with a foot the tyre will just run the foot over... which can't be good

[DEATH_INC.]

Different or 'erratic' lines would mean more cases of bikes and riders bouncing off eachother- maybe thats the real issue, that and perhaps when a tyre rubs against a knee thats touching the ground, the pysical size of a knee means that the tyre will only rub against the knee. Whereas with a foot the tyre will just run the foot over... which can't be good

Yeh.....but when yer racing do you worry about running over someone's foot? And, I really doubt you'll be going up the inside of a motard on a sprotbike.....