Again, what I was saying was that someone interested in going fast on a track to not know anything about racing surprised me. Nothing to do with Joe blow liking racing.
Motorcycle Racing Doomed on TV
- Thread starter -Maverick-
- Start date
It's all marketing and exposure.
I know a lot of people that have heard of Rossi and they don't ride or have interest in motorcycles.
People like what they like and interests vary. What they would need to do is have more exposure to the sport.
If you had a single digit jersey and you kicked the ball, you were doing burpee's until you puked.
rmemedic
Well-known member
Exposure is what is needed.
The Canadian MX nationals started this past weekend. Our top Canadian pro went out and totally destroyed all the Americans that came up to challenge and NOBODY knew. Seriously, the only reason I was aware of it was because of my circle of friends.
We have a young Canadian from Brigden Ontario that as a privateer went in to AMA supercross this year with a large bike disadvantage and kicked arse, and gave us all one hell of a show in Toronto. He is just as fast as the top few guys and this was his first year. He had plans to challenge the US national MX series again on a privateer 250. His ONE and only race bike blew up and they can't afford to build him another $20,000 motor (top teams spend way more than that per motor per weekend) so he is out a few more weeks and he will have to go race the 450 class since those bikes aren't as modified. This kid deserves support that he can't get because the racing scene in Canada is a joke. And I'm sure this also flows over in to you road race guys.
We need to get people out to these races by any means we can. Every person I take to a MX or SX race gets hooked. My gf had no clue we even had this sport in Canada, and now we can talk about and make jokes about well known riders, she is that in to it.
Advertisement sucks... Maybe you'll hear 2 radio ads on the friday before a race weekend in your area... That isn't enough. We need a couple weeks of it being out there. Posters at gas stations, places doing promotions (like sports bars and pubs for the targeted viewers) and radio ads. People have busy lives, and are more likely to attend something if they actually can plan to attend it.
As for getting riders interested... Give people a break on prices at the gates when they show up on a bike.
I can't blame for riders not knowing about racing or being interested... Some just want to put on their "cruiser face" and go hang out at Tim's. And some do it for the image and to pick up chicks.
In 2009, we got a group of guys together to do a ride down to Calabogie for the superbike race. What started out as being 6 of us snowballed in to about 20 of us just by word of mouth.
My geography teacher at high school was a Welsh international rugby referee, Taff was his name, and he more or less flat out told us we had to play rugby or suffer ***** marks. He also didn't use a cane, he used a studded rugby boot. Nobody ****ed with Taff.
Sporting events like the Grand National, Wimbeldon, Oxford Cambridge boat race have been running for over 100 + years, and are a part of the British Culture. I loathe Horse racing, but i knew who red rum and Lester Piggott were. But a large percentage of that Country who are *our* age knew who Barry Sheene and James Hunt were, i would guess 0.1% of Canadians know who Jordan Szoke is.
Fair point, and I do know who those guys are but my point was that once yearly events like the ones I listed catch more audience than a whole series of motorcycle racing. When I grew up we had 3 channels of TV (a bit later 4) so it's not like you could miss much, I really don't remember much motorcycle racing on the TV even then, there just wasn't the audience. It's always been a niche sport. There were whole afternoons of horse racing though and bloody snooker, maybe a bit of car racing at brands hatch and always the footie (before it moved to Sky....for me that was a sad day).
Edit: I also know who red rum was because he escaped from his stables once and nearly ran me over outside my house.
The main reason is because so many people are just not interested in motorcycles in North America. The large demographic are pleasure riders on Goldwings and Hogs, who have no interest in sport riding, that's fine. Then you have all of the posers on Street Bikes that again, have no interest in races. Motorcycles make up something like 3% of vehicles on the road, so that is a very small demographic you are trying to reach. If some of the people had an idea of how difficult it is to ride a motorcycle at those speeds maybe, just maybe some people would appreciate the skill involved and watch. Instead they would rather watch NASCAR take 100 left turns and draft people for 40 mins.
rmemedic
Well-known member
Most NASCAR races are over 2 hours... I love watching in person, but on TV I can't.
When I talk to people about racing MX, they laugh when I say how physically demanding it is, and the skill required. Someone at work recently took up trail riding with her husband, she used to smirk when I talked about it, but now has a respect for MX racing. I think people need just to be exposed to it.
-Maverick-
Well-known member
Used to watch a lot of F1 racing, but after watching WSBK, BSB, MotoGP, F1 is boring. It's kinda like anyone could do it. Strap you in the cockpit and you have all kinds of forgiveness to make errors and throw the car around. It takes much more skill to ride a motorcycle at 340 KPH than a car. And not many people in the world would survive one corner on the bikes. The MotoGP riders could probably figure out an F1 car rather fast, but the opposite can't be said.
Very true, even Rossi did pretty good racing cars. Like the old man always said, the only "racing" are motorcycles, everything else is just a sport.
I did motocross through highschool, and I agree. So much technical work involved, especially body positioning. If you don't know how to land properly or position yourself the right way after ramps your knees and back won't last very long at all.
N3WMAN
Well-known member
Don't kid yourself. It takes lots of skill to be at the top of F1. However, due to the technical nature of it, all the cars are too closely matched making passing nigh on impossible. I agree that it is boring, but not any old oaf can do it.
The biggest difference in my mind between car and bike racing is this: Just getting a racing bike around the track at the level of MotoGP or WSBK without crashing is impressive in it's own right. Then you have to race 20-30 other guys trying to push the envelope just a bit more than you are. You at as much risk of crashing riding by yourself as you are racing the other riders.
You are able to get away with a lot more in a car. Cock up on a bike and you're going *** over teakettle through the gravel trap breaking several bones along the way.
He raced german superbike.
[video=youtube;EGUZJVY-sHo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGUZJVY-sHo[/video]
