Too many classes at National Championship?

[fossil]

my personal opinion is that along with the MX nationals and the Sx nationals, is as long as they are run by a committee they will continue to be average, until a series organinser, or a dreaded "promoter" is put in charge, and allowed to have a go at improving the series, and given the leeway to make some drastic changes then we will be destined to continue to have average series,

I thought you had indicated that you wouldn't be a promoter again after 2 goes at SX and it costing you money?
Wasn't the last one outside MNZ and their committee type structure?

[scott411]

I thought you had indicated that you wouldn't be a promoter again after 2 goes at SX and it costing you money?
Wasn't the last one outside MNZ and their committee type structure?

did't say it would be me i think a organiser away from the rule makers would be a start, i agree with the comment above that no promotor would take it, esp at this time

and also it was only outside MNZ because they still would not tell me the rules of being a promotor after 5 months of asking what they wanted from me, i could have just run it under an agreement with a club but tried to be straight up with my position after some fall out from the last one.

the final act of it was that i was told by a high ranking MNZ official it would be easier for both me and them if i did not run it under MNZ, so i took his wishes and ran it under my own insurance,

btw, i said it after the first one as well, seem's i am a slow learner aye

seems like this is the wrong thread to discuss this tho, seeing its about the road race nationals, you know how to get hold of me if you want to discuss it further,

[RideLife]

Province Racing.
Cut the North Is. in four – South Is. in three.
Each area enters 3 riders in each class. (from Superbike through to Streetstock on whichever track)
Throughout the day, race points are added to the Province tally to find the Best Motorcycling Road Racing Province in NZ.
Why? To give the spectator someone to follow in all races.
They don't know Joe Blow. But if they know ‘Joe Blow’ is from their province....Then they have someone to get behind.
"Joe Blow. That's our Man! GO JOE BLOW!!!!

[ellipsis]

Province Racing.
Cut the North Is. in four – South Is. in three.
Each area enters 3 riders in each class. (from Superbike through to Streetstock on whichever track)
Throughout the day, race points are added to the Province tally to find the Best Motorcycling Road Racing Province in NZ.
Why? To give the spectator someone to follow in all races.
They don't know Joe Blow. But if they know ‘Joe Blow’ is from their province....Then they have someone to get behind.
"Joe Blow. That's our Man! GO JOE BLOW!!!!

....thats the kind of stuff that will grow the sport out there in joe publicville..

[prettybillie]

Shaun, you are 100% right, the main reason we have issues is because the majority of the riders simply do not give a fuck enough to do anything about it, this goes for dirt racers, and road racers,

the proof of this is the lack of votes that are received for the officers of MNZ officals, from memory it has never reached 10% of the liceinced members

On top of this though - those riders who are out there and want to be out there and are committed to making it work get shit on by so many other people that they get to a point where they just don't bother anymore.

There only so much politics and bollocks a person can handle before they think FUCK this hobby is just too hard and take up something else. I'm one of those people!

[TLR luva]

Some of you are mentioning the amount of rounds per Nationals Campaign.......
I said it before and i say it again, Give me feedback.
North Island champs series over 3 tracks , all classes
South Island champs over 3 tracks , all classes
New Zealand champs over 1 track for 2 days once a year.
Alternating every year between the NI and SI with a diff track every turn.
That way the cost would be less and if you only wanted to do the NZ champs the classes would be structured in a way the so called premier classes can have a domminant slice of the track time.
So called minor classes could get all the time they already do in the present format and there is still a NZ or NI or SI champ every year in every class.

Would it work and would it address the topic of this post thread ?????
I see it as the exact way the bloody rugby is presently run and that has worked for a while aye.

Paul.

Awesome idea, just like speedway champs. Adding to the way it is now why doesnt the premier class have 3 races per round, one on saturday and 2 on sunday like BNTV8 races. That gives more track time,more interesting for spectators and riders.

[lostinflyz]

if you wanna bitch and moan about the officials ect at the meet, you better have the right attitude yourself. Theres been a number of seriously cunty exchanges intiated by riders with a piss poor attitude this year, and thats always going to end in conflict. Unfortunately it just breeds an us vs them attitude that helps no one. If we, the riders, want to be stuck up pricks at the officials, expect the same back.

As for too many classes, you may have a point biggles, especially with clubmans as i think it discourages people from proper classes. And sidecars need to go back and get the following going at club racing, to develop a proper field and not try cobble something together just for nats.

Having additional races for the 'premier' classes, how would you guys survive with less practice, considering the amount of bitching on the weekend when practice was a bit shorter. You lot should be racing on saturday.

As for everyone bitching about the rounds and costs, look pretty much everywhere else in the world, and if you find somewhere where its going to be easier/cheaper to be a national rider, ill swallow all the fuel in my vespa. Guys sell up houses and livelyhoods, quit jobs, work 80 hour weeks, go without all round the world for this silly hobby, and very few dont dig seriously into their pockets (and time) to do it, the same as here.

Our meets are not perfect, but they ain't terrible either. You either get a kick from it and the money, time and sacrifices don't matter. Your either in or your out, its not for everyone, it never will be.

Rant over

[oyster]

World wide youth development classes such as our Streetstock ARE run at major events (Red Bull Rookies at MotGP, the EX 350 Kawa's at Supers etc.)
For 5 years now the (now called Mc Leary cup) has run over the 3 SI nat rounds for the young ones ,(19 and under)
They certainly pay their way and still have a pretty good crowd watching a large feild of wheel to wheel production racing The key factor is youth and AMBITION. This is developed by INCLUSION in the "big event" where it would falter if limited to club level activity. If you don't believe it, ask the riders, and check the stats. Get your current Nat feilds for 125GP, Pro Twin and now up to 600's and put a line through the names that have at been developed by South Island Streetstock at the Nat rounds. It would be a very large number missing. And the beauty of this is that most of them are still in their teens, with a big career ahead of them, unlike the bulk of the "senior feilds" being over 25

I accept some of the critics of SS at nats are from the north, where SS remains a porridge like club class for older riders with little ambition. The South has completely the reverse demographic

[scracha]

NI, SI cup with National champs alternating between islands on an annual basis is a great idea.

Can someone enlighten me as to what they do in OZ? Surely they're not travelling over to Perth etc? It's a population vs cost thing. The minority of riders in the remote south can't reasonably expect the majority of racers from the north to travel to Teretonga* on an annual basis?

Biggles...I can see where you're coming from, but in previous years it's been the premier class that's been pathetic. For many, watching 30 posties bikes race may be a bigger draw than 9 superbikes. Unless you're happy for F1/F2 to be support classes to car racing then you're asking the majority of racers to essentially, fuck off.

Buckets....quite frankly their lack of straightline speed makes em a spectator yawnfest at some of the tracks. 3 or 4 laps max or limit them to Saturday.

Sidecars...I still can't fathom how novice riders can be racing at a Nats meeting?

Motards......they ain't "super" unless there's dirt and jumps. Big crowd pleaser at street circuits but motards at Pukekohe....gimmie a break.

However, most of our problems could be fixed if we changed our focus from spectators at the track to spectators watching on TV/Internet.
There's roughly 4,000,000 kiwi's
There's roughly 6,996,000,000 non-kiwi's.

Who's our target audience? Who would sponsors rather target? The (cough) 500 spectators on the stands? We all pay a transponder fee (regardless of whether we actually own one) so why not a video camera fee? Shit, cameras should be compulsory at the nats. Can't fork out 400 on one.....tough. We've got to promote ourselves. SkyTV aren't going to magically come along with a camera crew and video editing suite any-time soon. BetandWin/RedBull/Tisso and even (gasp) motorocycle manufacturers aren't going to throw sponsorship money at us in our present state.

Otherwise we can all carry on bitching on KB about working stupid hours to (under) fund race bikes. We can keep pissing off our families by travelling long distances to put on a show risking serious injury (or worse) for a handful of spectators. We can keep racing against the same few racers for the next decade or two. We can keep limiting our enjoyment by ensuring rewards are law and costs high.


*and common bloody sense would have it tie in with the Burt Munro Challenge.

[lostinflyz]

actually my friend your wrong, the aussies not only go to perth, but to darwin and tasmania, albeit only select classes at certain rounds (they are often only a support class to V8's)

just imagine america going from coast to coast,

also there are not a majority of racers from the north heading to teratonga. There are almost the same number of fulltime riders from both island. Therefore there are almost the same number of racers from the south expected to head to puke or HD each year are there not???

[Kickaha]

Sidecars...I still can't fathom how novice riders can be racing at a Nats meeting?

They actually had a fair amount of race experience just not on sidecars, the reality is I can race my bucket and nothing else for ten years then buy a Superbike and race at the nationals

We all pay a transponder fee (regardless of whether we actually own one)

No we don't if you have your own transponder you don't pay a transponder fee

just imagine america going from coast to coast,

I was talking to a American sidecar rider Monday night he said he has a 2200 mile drive to get to one of their rounds

The minority of riders in the remote south can't reasonably expect the majority of racers from the north to travel to Teretonga* on an annual basis?

Got the numbers to back that statement up?

[slowpoke]

Interesting, some of the clubmans werent to far off your time mate, so if you are in the premium class and some clubmans riders are only marginally slower why should they get dropped from competing, they can still get round ok. Personally I like all classes as long as the competition is close and exciting to watch. Having premium class riders getting lapped is not very interesting to me.

Clubman's at the Nationals meets is a totally different beast to the club level Clubman's you are thinking of. Quite often you'll see National level riders (Brad Selfe, Peter Tanner etc) stretch their legs in Clubman's rather than make the commitment to the Nationals entry. They're fuckin' quick in any company, and would expect to be circulating at Nationals speed.

But you've missed the point: while the Clubman guys may be plenty quick enough their level of commitment is nothing like the racers who are prepared to forego income/holidays/time/money on a full Nationals campaign. The Return On Investment (be it time, money or sweat) is pathetically low for the folks who do the full campaign, hence so few racers can be bothered.

Shaun, you are 100% right, the main reason we have issues is because the majority of the riders simply do not give a fuck enough to do anything about it, this goes for dirt racers, and road racers,

the proof of this is the lack of votes that are received for the officers of MNZ officals, from memory it has never reached 10% of the liceinced members

I disagree. Lots of folks would like to do something but have no idea of what to do or how to do it. As with normal poilitics I reckon most folks feel totally powerless and alienated by the governing body.

What is someones avenue for effecting any meaningful change in the immediate future? Basically there isn't one, hence we just suck it up, have a bit of fun, get frustrated and fuck off to something else.

The lack of votes thing is neither here nor there: how are people s'posed to vote when they've no information on what or who they are voting for? I have no idea who those people are or what they stand for.

Personally, I reckon we need some outside objectivity. Get a few non racers to roll up and check things out from a punters perspective and tell us what we need more or less of.

But if it was me at Nationals meetings I'd do away with all the non-Championship classes except for a Clubman's type class. If any club is gonna assume the risk of putting on a Nationals event I think it's only fair that most Club members get the chance to get on track at some stage. I'd have three races for all classes, with qualifying and one race Saturday and 2 on Sunday. Spreading the racing mitigates the risk of a total washout and gets more people through the gate on Saturday. At the moment no Supers racing on Saturday is just stoopid.

I don't think the one weekend championship is such a good idea. This isn't club buggery, I mean rugby, we're talking about with a standardised track in every town. To race at just HD or Ruapuna for a weekend and declare it a National championship is a bit of a nonsense. A National Championship is about finding the best rider in the country......not just at one track.

[Maido]

Awesome thread biggles! what a great read.

[brads]

Clubman's at the Nationals meets is a totally different beast to the club level Clubman's you are thinking of. Quite often you'll see National level riders (Brad Selfe, Peter Tanner etc) stretch their legs in Clubman's rather than make the commitment to the Nationals entry. They're fuckin' quick in any company, and would expect to be circulating at Nationals speed.

Ive NEVER entered Clubmans at any level (RR or MX),was riding a motard which was run seperate to clubmans at levels

[Biggles08]

Interesting, some of the clubmans werent to far off your time mate, so if you are in the premium class and some clubmans riders are only marginally slower why should they get dropped from competing, they can still get round ok. Personally I like all classes as long as the competition is close and exciting to watch. Having premium class riders getting lapped is not very interesting to me.

Then they should be competing in the correct class...not clubmans. Clubmans is designed for those who want to race 'what they bring'. Its to dip their toes in the race scene and then move on to a proper race class...its not a career class and if they are within the 115% lap times of the leaders in 600SS then they should be racing in that class.