There should be a shit ton of experts. MX was the same way we had full gates, some times they would stager start 80 guys off the gate in novice but expert would only have 5
Not entirely true. It all depends on your definition of "competitive". Last year I only did 2-3 weekends because of that bad crash due to the throttle issue at the season opener. Then this year I bit the bullet and decided to have those 4 surgeries on my left arm. I didn't race all year until Tally about 4 weeks ago. Then I did CMP and Road Atlanta. Obviously I would be good bit faster if I had been racing all year, but I did ok in those races. I am having some good battles and getting faster every weekend. Yeah, it will kinda suck going into the GNF having only done 3 weekends, but I plan on being competitive. You don't have to run a full season to be competitive. There are different versions of "competitive". I would rather battle for top 5's and maybe squeak out a podium every now and then as an Expert, than battle for wins as a Novice. Hell I'd take battling for top 10's as an Expert over battling for Novice podiums and wins. But as always, that is just my opinion. Not everyone feels the same.
well shit maybe a laptime cutoff might be a good thing at least just for contigency grid requirements in expert. If a novice is consistantly within 5% of the fastest experts (and doing so without crashing) at 3 different events, they get a mid-year bump. or at least a post-season bump.
Yes shit will not change, because "they" got to make the money. Soon as "Ricky the Novice Rossi" gets the bump he will quit.... Cause it was finally "his year" lol. I got Mad respect for "Peanut" I met him at Roebling this year and he is racing Expert and finishing near the lower half of the grid, But he is out there trying, and learning. Hat's off to him.
The truth is it's just as much fun to fight for 15th place if you have three or four guys on the same level as it is to fight for a podium. It's just that some folks' ego can't handle the reality that former little Timmy isn't as good as daddy used to say and can't win at everything. Some people also have reputations to maintain away from the racetrack and will go race elementary school kids without hesitation if that's what it takes to bring back trophies to show the homies.
If i made it up to mid-pack, i considered that a success. Never had delusions of grandeur that I would ever be up front in a race...well unless it was to Dairy Queen then watch out bitches
I think part of it is where you are in life. When I road raced for a couple years, 25 years ago, I was going for wins. My friends teased me because I often won or crashed, which really means I didn't know what the heck I was doing back then. Way before I even knew there were clickers on bikes. I just rode it the way I bought it, because it was "setup". It wallowed in corners, but there weren't suspension guys back then, I just put on one set of Dunlop K591's each race month and had fun. If I were to race a bike now, I think I could be okay battling in the mid to back pack. I don't think I could run expert level winning times at my age and skill level in the A, B, C classes.
I'm clearly in the minority here, but since when does time served make you an Expert? I thought the Expert and Novice divisions were to differentiate the different skill levels on the race track. Just because you've done something for a long time doesn't make you an expert if the level of your abilities is still that of a novice. Being competent around the race track doesn't make you an expert. What happened to the bump up to expert meaning something? Did that go away with the 'everyone gets an invite to the GNF?' measures that were taken years ago? Granted my situation isn't the same as most, I started in late 06 riding in V7, did 3 seasons as a novice (and so desperately wanted to be an expert after season 2/3 when I was starting to podium occasionally) and then finances took me out of the game for a couple of years. When I came back, still in vintage, I was a little bit slower pace. Then I bought a modern bike for my 5th novice season and it was a learning curve. I remembered when a guy had left the V7 class to get on a 600RR (exactly like I did) how he went from almost never putting a foot wrong to crashing himself out of the sport. He said things on the F3 happened fast, things on the RR happened at warp speed. Another thing the modern bike did was eat tires. No longer was I squeezing 3 weekends out of a set of tires, I was lucky to end the weekend with tires I could use for practice the next race. So that 5th season I only did 3 weekends, and then coming back for the 6th I only did 1 as it just cost too much for me. I thought I just needed a modern bike to challenge the front of the novice modern grid as I had ridden the F3 at the back of the 600SB class fighting my tail off for last with the HP deficit for 2 or 3 seasons. Getting the modern bike just meant I got to turn 1 faster but would fade mid pack. Going into this year, when I had planned on running my supermoto at one or two races in F2 and D-superbike or clubman, I asked to move up to expert for time served (as many have suggested). I asked for one reason and one reason alone. Those 4 race weekends I did on the modern bike, I was terrified of someone behind me doing stupid going into turn 1. Especially that last weekend when on the front row of the grid I had the rider to my left stall on the 2 board, and the rider on my right on the rev limiter from the 3 board til the flag dropped... I'm sure one of them beat me in the race but I just thought going into that first turn "God I hope no one hits me" not because I was in a podium spot for the first time, but because I had a 5 hour drive home and had to be at work on monday... Ive raced my first year of motocross now, and while I agree you can get faster by tagging onto someone faster than you and learning, it can also make you ride over your head. And if they're that much faster than you, you've only got a couple of corners to learn and then you're trying to ride over your head to keep up without the benefit of watching what they're doing. It comes down to this, 98% of us are doing this because its fun for us. We're not making a career out of this, and we're not making it to the pros. If you're having fun fighting with the novices, then fight with the novices. If you want to bump up and try to compete with the experts, then bump up to the experts. If you want to do trackdays because you get more tracktime for the dollar and you can "be a star," then do trackdays. Don't bump up to expert, or move from trackdays to racing or vice versa because someone tells you thats what you should do. Do it because you want to have fun. The people that wash out of the sport are the ones not having fun anymore for the amount of money they are spending. No one should rag on someone for that, longevity in this sport isnt for everyone. And the guys that rag on people who stay novice for too long in their eyes or that quit because they moved to expert & weren't successful & leave racing, you're doing harm to the sport by alienating people. Stop it because you're setting a bad example for those coming into the sport.
I have never seen anybody rag on someone for staying Novice, when they fully need to be in Novice. I know of people who have been in the Nov or Int track day groups for years, more power to them. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. If they need to be there (skill wise), then by all means stay there and work on your stuff at your own pace. The people who get ragged on are the people who are fully capable and fast enough to be an Expert, have been offered/earned the Expert bump, but turned it down so they can be the big fish in the little pond. THOSE are the people who are hurting the Expert grids and also hurting the Novice grids by deterring newer, true Novices from starting to race. I'm not talking about the guys struggling to stay mid-pack in Novice. I'm talking about returning Novices with multiple Podiums under their belt who turn down the bump so they can "get theirs".
Has everyone forgotten the only bump that has any real meaning in the motorcycle world?!!!????? The NESBA bump. You gots to earn that shit!
Yeah, you can run advanced in N2 as an expert without getting evaluated before by a control rider ... What might not happen all day, because the cr who promised the bump (to get out of the cluster duck called I-group) can't find it's back protector ... And ask Metalhead - an expert license might get you laid more often if you "accidentally" drop it at the register at TARGET
