This past weekend was the Ponca City qualifier out at Sand Mountain. I could go on about how the top racers dominated the day, but I think it more important to write about the track. The night before the event Alabama got some rain. It held off all day Saturday, but couldn’t quite make it through the night and sometime around 3:30 am it started to dump. Rain in the South is pretty thick. It doesn’t just come down for a few minuets like it does back home in San Diego. It comes down for at least an hour at a time. So, you get the piucture and if you have ever been to Sand Mtn you know it’s a challenging track and doesn’t need any help being more technical. For the most part Sand Mtn is an outdoor style Mx track. The dirt proceeds it’s name and is a good mxture of sand and loam. The lay out is a bit technical, but safe. Sand Mtn probably has one of the safest starts your going to see in Mx. Too many tracks have a short start a right hand turn and then some crazy double. Not the case at Sand Mtn. The start allows plenty of time to thin the field before it get technical. The track has some rythem section and is jumpy for an outdoor style track. What makes Sand Mtn a safe place to race is their attention to detail with their track preporation. With a track soaked to the bone and some technical sections thrown in you would think that this race would have been an accident waiting to happen, but this was not the case. The track preporation was so well thought out that the races they we’re able to run went off as planned. Sand Mtn MX put the racer’s saftey first. They even pushed the schedule back so they could take an extra hour and half to drain the track. Sand Mtn is a challenging track that makes for some great racing. The track crew did a great job of making the track safe in what normaly would be unsafe conditions. Even more impressive is that the rain got pretty bad after the first moto and they cancled the races. I know that was probably not the ending you were looking for, but in a sport that needs more heads up thinking and a saftey first attitude this ended up being a good day. All went home in one piece and will be out again next weekend.

A Tale of Two Weekends
By Andrew Malak

199 Lives

Travis Pastrana has done for motocross what Lance Armstrong did for cycling. He has brought deserved attention to a sport that requires determination and commitment. From his days as a young racer to the beginning of what looks to be a promising Rally career, Travis has done it all when it comes to being a larger than life comic book type hero. If I can remember, I believe his own father said he was a bit of a fictional character come to life for the world to see some of the amazing things you can do when you commit. Having said all that, now comes a reality check.

While leaving the theater I was thinking of the message presented to me in the 2 hr autobiography of the Nitro Circus king. Travis Pastrana is a calculated risk taker. Calculated, but a risk taker none the less. Some of the comments on his own mortality concerns me for our sport. As perhaps the greatest ambassador for our sport at this time I feel that Travis Pastrana has a responsibility to present himself in a way that inspires kids to push their limits, not “the” limit. The whole go big because you only live once attitude never settled with me. It has nothing to do with running scared from a track that has a huge center jump, but rather the conversations I have had with parents that have lost their kids to our sport or that one time customer who now sits in a wheel chair. The image as great as Travis Pastrana is that is portrayed is not what our sport needs. It’s not just Travis. I was disappointed to see RC at a step up competition at some X Games ESPN presentation launching his bike some 38ft straight up and ultimately ending up in stitches. I found it ironic that he ends his career of racing motocross, which made him who he is today, in good health and less torn up then the champions before him with stitches in his jaw from trying to jump over a pole.

I am not saying that Travis is bad for the sport. I am saying that with all the injuries that are causing many to leave the sport or worse lose their lives we need to do more to make the sport safer and not glorify it’s dangers. I am not a Travis “hater”. I am trying to make racing motocross on the weekends fun again. I know that broken bones are a regular part of the sport. I can accept that, but unless we are ready to accept death as a regular part of our sport we need to have ambassadors that promote hard work, determination and good judgment. It might be good judgment for a guy like Travis to do a back flip off the Grand Canyon or jump out of a plane without a parachute, but I think for most of us aspiring to be better racers or keep our kids safe as they get faster and push their limits the Nitro Circus attitude coming from a bigger than life TP could be a bad gate pick for all. As an alternative I think it would be good to see all of Travis Pastarana accomplishments and go for broke attitude backed up with more of the preparation and precautions that it takes to compete in his arena. I also think it might be beneficial for a role model like Travis Pastrana to push the limits of promoting safer riding and racing. Think what you want, but our sport needs safer tracks and responsibile riding and racing before it needs another video of a back flip.

I know this might be a little hard for some of you die hard southerner’s to take, but I think we can learn something from those guys out in California. I started riding motocross late in life. I did not get my first bike until I was 34. I had just come off a fifteen year cycling career and I still had great fitness and I was looking for something to do. I bought a KXF250 and headed to El Cajon. That first year I learned the hard way. I didn’t break anything, but I was a hazard to myself and other riders around me. That was in 2004 and that year was a tough year to start Motocross. In 2004 there were 36 permanent/ fatal injuries in a 200 mile radius. That means between San Diego county and Valencia California there was an average of 3 life changing injuries per month. That really got my attention. Not only my attention, but the rest of the industry as well. These accidents hurt the industry. People stop riding and racing, which has an obvious affect on the motorcycle market. Something needed to be done in a hurry. It started with exactly where it should start; the local tracks. Most tracks in So California were supercross style. Each had it’s main attraction like an amusement park. Elsinore has Quadzilla, which was a 140ft monster hit that would send you some 30ft in the air. Perris and El Cajon both had huge center jumps a 100ft plus. That was all about to change. From Glen Helen down to Barona Oaks tracks started to get face lifts and if they didn’t people stopped supporting them. El Cajon closed for various reasons, but when it came time not too many people put up a fight. Cahuilla Creek Mx, which was and still is a true outdoor style track had full gates. Natural terrain took over. Perris took on new owners and resigned their track. Perris is the oldest track in So California and has seen many changes, but not like this. Tracks were rebuilt in Southern California for safety in mind and the number of fatal injuries declined. So what is my point?

I am now living across the country following an industry that I love. I have been following the amateur race scene and in the last 30 days there has been 1 death, 2 parallelizations and one uncertain at this point. All with in a 200 mile radius. Our tracks need to change. There is no reason that a public track should have a 100ft plus step up, step down or doubles. The largest jump in Supercross is usually no more than 75ft. Why do public tracks have a professional grade layout? Do they think they are grooming our sport’s future kings? I don’t think so. Are the track owners afraid that nobody will come unless the track is the most technical in the county? Maybe, but the tracks on the other side of the rock are doing better than ever with less accidents and on any given day you can see the top pro’s in our sport turning laps on these tracks. I Don’t think it’s just the weather either. If you want a 100ft double build a private track or create multiple tracks on the premises for different levels. If some of the athletes are grabbing a can of Monster and “Unleashing the Beast” maybe, think for them. Motocross racer’s are usually the last to put safety as a priority when compared to winning races. As a racer if your worried about not learning the skills to race without that huge triple, just remember “Jump for show, but corner for dough”. Lastly, if a track does not separate practice based on ability or bike size do not support the track. There is no reason why an 85 should be on the track with a 450. I don’t care how fast little Timmy is the statistics for a potentially life changing injury increases with higher powered, bigger bikes on the track with that of the lesser.

If you agree with what I say, great let us know and we’ll get the word out there. If not, then let us know how we can make our sport safer and we’ll post that too.

Ride safe,

Otto