Any Of Ya'all Survey "Normal" People About 200 Coverage?

Wonder if that new DMG model is working at generating that new fan base I've heard a little bit about...Too early to tell probably...

It's not worth getting your guys opinions, you're all jaded adrenaline freaks, we need a control group of normality...

Is Josh Hayes the next Dale Jr.? Is Miggy our Mark Martin? Have we been saved from ourselves?

 

not that it matters much, but my wife is not a huge fan of road racing, though she supports my addiction...

anyway, she was sitting with me last night watching the race (first whole race she's ever really watched) and kept going WTF???? why are they doing that? whats up with the pace car? ect...

it was just wierd seeing someone who knows very little about the sport saying WTF to the same stuff i was....

my .02

 

You did better than I did, mine remarked on sideburns and fell asleep...

 

My wife was asleep before they got through the pre-race.

 

Normal people were either on the strip in Daytona, in bars throughout the US or doing dishes and putting the kids to bed. Only idiots like us were either at the track or watching on tv.

 

The crowd must have changed a great deal since I was last down there...

 

I've talked to thousands of people who said that they would most certainly have enjoyed it if they had known it was on Fri night instead of Sat or Sun like it used to be........before. Those same people said that they would be sure to check out the "highlights" show on the 21st. I hope DMG and Speed continue to give us this kind of challenging scheduling cause it is soo much more gratifying when you have to hunt on the internet to find videos of the races cause the Speed coverage is a week or two away. It makes it doubly sweet when the races do air on Speed. DMG will prevail with RE at the helm.

 

Thousands? How do you do that? Are you God, or Rush Limbaugh? Or Dave Despain? Only God, Rush Limbaugh, or Dave Despain could talk to thousands of people that quickly...

 

I'm not sure when you were there last, but it's been a few years for me. Hasn't a dwindling attendence been an issue for the past few years, like 5-10 yrs?

 

Ok, maybe not thousands.......um more like 1. My brother who is a racer (well used to be with WERA) and a motorcycle racing fan.....didn't know it was even on and shall be punished for his disobedience. I realize that it will take patience for our sport to grow but I believe, with the model DMG has set forth that growth will be rapid and sure.

 

DMGfan is Puch's cousin.

 

I thought I told you to keep him away from the Kool-Aid...

 

The Austrian industrialist?

 

OK, point of order....One is not thousands and a former roadracer that can't read a TV guide hardly qualifies as, "normal." DMG didn't revamp a business model to appeal to illiterate former roadracers...

 

Nope they went for the illiterate NASCAR fans.

 

Did you hear a 'whooshing' sound right before you posted this?

 

My dad called me last night around the yellow flag debacle at the end and said, 'this looks like a damned Nascar race." He knows nothing of the DMG takeover

 

Yeah, the crew I was watching it with last night who are all motorcyclists thought it was pretty hard to figure shit out. Spent the first hour explaining the differences of this year's v. last year's. Of course, almost every answer given to them was followed up with the same question; Why are they [dmg] doing that? I can't answer questions RE won't answer, so it was mostly dismissed as just a NASCAR retardation move for marketing. Here's one little interesting tid bit of insight that came out of it, that I'll give RE for free;

One of the women there has a husband who is a NASCAR fan, so by default she watches some car racing. When the discussion moved towards comparing the two more closely she chirped in with..." but who is it that's running the cameras? SPEED people? The camera works are just plain shitty compared to NASCAR." There's a nugget for ya Rog, I mean DMGFAN. I hope somebody can pull their head out of their ass before you completely fuck up the AMA brand.

 

Funny how my family reacted. My wife has supported me on different levels for the last 15 years. My son has grown up around the track since he was abour 2 and is now 9-1/2.

Comments that were heard from friends and my family:

"Why the pace car? That's pretty stupid. I like the old format."

"I like the lights when they are coming in."

"Night race is pretty cool. Looks neat."

In the end, though a few things my wife thought were dumb - the numbers. She thinks it is stupid to have the teams own numbers. She said "When someone asks who is #46 in GP Racing, they know it is Rossi. If you ask them who #17 is here, they know it is Migeul. #155 is Ben, etc. Why did they mess the numbering system up?" I am on her side. The fans we have are as passionate as NASCAR fans to their sports. I know NASCAR teams own the numbers, but numbers are like names in sports. #23 is Jordan, etc... It's how the fans relate...

My son thinks the bikes are still cool looking, but asked why they weren't racing the big bikes. He knows them as big bikes (Superbikes) and 600s. He likes the big bikes due to the guys in the series like Yates, Mladin, Hayden, etc... It's how he relates things...

Overall, I was left worried about the future. I liked the race itself and thought it was neat to a degree. I personally like it in the day as it seems more open and less like they are in a fish bowl with lights around it. I bet in person it was awesome - on TV it looked small and not as grand.

I think the TV deal is the killing blow. Where they feel they can show it so late and on a night we all are doing things, is beyond me. People know Sunday as race day. They are even fine with having to wait until late on Sunday, but know it is still race day. Whether it is NASCAR, NHRA, motorcycles (MX and road), Indycar, etc. Not two weeks later on a Saturday night in the Summer...

Sponsors and how fragile the economy is - especially in the motorcycle industry - one would tend to think that if DMG wants to survive and keep this rolling, they need to think about what the riders want and what the fans want. The whole flagging deal as expressed in Rider's Meeting and such is something that needs to be thought about.

Overall, I think the people on the ground for DMG are great people. Same close knit feel with people in tech, on the grids, in the registration areas, etc are still there and maybe even better. But, the top rung guys need to start looking at what they are doing and taking in some suggestions or critiques and forgetting about pride and doing the right thing - or at least what makes sense...

Rules? Not sure how that really is an issue. There's still the 1000 class with a lot of the same guys there and close racing. There's some confusion even by myself on the 600 classes and I think the MotoST is a bore fest that will result in the same things that happened at the tracks as when the 883 classes were there - time for a break and to get some food...

BUT, I think the fans are the ones that drive the series. If they have to wait two weeks for viewing the races, if they have to spend more time at the track reading a program to find their favorite riders and see what classes are running, etc., I think it is going to be tough.

I just hope the racing isn't going to take a big step back. I hate to feel the way I do now - I feel racing here (motorcycle road racing) in the States is going to suffer greatly. I think what was working in terms of TV time was working and actually getting better. I think losing that is a serious blow as sponsors are more likely to look at say SX for sending dollars than to road race. I mean, look at Supermoto and the struggles it has had and poor structure. Great close racing and some cool names, but the TV sucks and the schedule is crap and unstable... Then, look at SX. It's HUGE and it is something that seems to have a good formula in terms of TV and event scheduling...

Sorry for the rant, but this is a time where DMG needs to get feedback and make some changes...