Yeah it seems to be the prevailing theme in all sports, when I was boxing and thinking about going pro, I looked around and realized all the top fighters started at 10-12 years old...some even younger(floyd) by the time they were 18, they were already good fighters and at the pro level, winning olympic gold medals, golden gloves etc etc etc.
I think this is the same for all sports these days. I spent 30 years in hockey development programs, most of the kids that move into pro levels spent their youth training and practicing -- it's typical for a kid today to spend 40 hours a week on development and competition activities. Rarely is their a substitute for time when it comes to mastering anything.
I love to ride at the intermediate level or compete as Grand Vet if sections are crazy or I'm banged up from crashing in practice. Privileged to ride with the top riders in Ontario either building sections and events or minding/catching. Wife and I host a CMA national event about every 3 or 4 years and lots of other regional events plus non-formal practice rides between those. CMA life member which means I've been doing it for 25+ years consecutive now.
No speed, observed motorcycle trials is all about skilful riding over terrain that the other guy didn't manage to do.
and you have to be able to finish the entire event of 4 or 5 loops on time.
... oh and I have a kick a** property for riding trials bikes.
and yes, most memorable was the two day national I won up in Quebec, Mecaglisse I think was the name of the track area. Poured rain for the entire 2 days, I took first place both days and even cleaned one section that no other rider cleaned all day including the experts, that section and finishing with no time penalty points probably won me both days .
At that level, 5 seconds a lap is an eternity. It was also mentioned that they were 0.5 seconds per lap off the leader (this would have been Bautista on the Ducati V4 at that time - that was before the others caught up to the Ducati and before Bautista started falling off it when pressured). In a 20-ish lap race, that means finishing 10 seconds behind. That's an eternity. And relative to that ... my 20 seconds per lap off that pace at the same track (Phillip Island, Australia) is comical, I would be lapped every 5 laps. (That's why I'm staying where I am on my little bike in a local regional series.) And relative to that ... lots of track day participants at that day were 20 seconds off my pace.
My "good year" was 2000 at the RACE series at Shannonville. That was towards the end of Lightweight Superbike being a big class (~ 20 bikes on the grid) and it was after some really fast riders like Linnley Clarke and Jeff Williams (who is still in CSBK as of last year) had already passed through and gone on to bigger things, thus leaving a potential opportunity for someone perhaps not *quite* at that pace. I bought a spare bike for that year just in case, and went for it. As it turned out, in the 6-race series, there was one other rider that I could not touch, Frank Silva. If memory serves, he won 4 and fell off the other two times ("win or crash"), and I won those two. He won the championship, I was second, and having taken a win and with enough entries in the class at the time, that was enough to earn black numbers (in our region, amateurs carry red numbers on white background, expert/pro carry black numbers on white background).
In 2004 I won the Lightweight Superbike championship although entry numbers in that class were starting to dwindle. I was thirtysomething back then. Now I'm fiftysomething, and when the young kids go at it, I don't have an answer for them.
Go to the motorcycle show at the International Centre this coming weekend. SOAR, RACE, and VRRA will all be there. Probably I'll be hanging around the SOAR booth a lot on Saturday.
It appears that race procedures for regional Italian championships are much closer to those used in MotoGP and WorldSBK than ours are, and even the small regional tracks have garages for the teams to work out of. Locally, only Mosport has that, and nowhere near enough of them.
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