Kawasaki downsizing, Szoke??

[TLDeano]

Well,
Fact is that more people from Canada probably watched Brett McCormick,Kenny Reidmann and Ben Young two weeks ago in the AMA then the entire spectator draw for the whole year in Canada CSBK.
Canada would make a huge step forward if they instituted graduated licensing like Europe. You can bet it would soon hit the US. The OEM say it costs the same to bring in a 250 as a 400 or a 600. But there are really cool small bikes out there. The cool factor would go up even more if that was all you could ride at 16 was 125!
As far as racing. Racing would attract a whole new spectator crowd.
It's a simple fact the Canadian market is very small. DO the factories spend money developing a new market with the 400's etc? Or do they focus on what they know and can sell. If the government mandated graduated licensing it would fix a lot.
But again that would be a "tomorrow" fix.
You have to ask,, if the industry income is so low why did they pay stupid salariess several years back for Canadian Superbike riders like Picotte,Crevier and Szoke?
One has to agree if the industry income is so low,,why spend the wages? Now they say they have no money! Would it not make sense to spend a fixed amount each year relavant to sales and support the entire sport? But for several years the Factories spent huge money and the return was never there. Now their broke.The result is nobody gets anything.
So until we get some logic and common sense it's broke!
But it will get fixed,, or bandaided and we'll see some improvements,,,,,the question is then what?

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ive been thinking about this for very long time
If a small kid , {girls and petit women included| rode a cbr125 and enjoyed the atmosphere and competition, theres no smooth easy affordable step in bike size and class.
We were better off back in the day, {r350, fzr400,ns400)
Graduated ccs always made sense to me , and cool bikes would come ..

 

[Jia]

I suspect there maybe quite a few Japanese riders on the GP scene this coming decade.
Would be great if this was here.

[video=youtube;6bl7NPWxZv0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bl7NPWxZv0&feature=feedu[/video]

 

[mxs]

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Graduated ccs always made sense to me , and cool bikes would come ..

I am not so sure ..... of course I fully agree with graduated licensing (I wonder who wouldn't ... but that's for another debate). However, what cool bikes are you talking about? I don't see anything currently manufactured in 250-450cc range which I would call cool (light weight and power combo to get people excited) and affordable. The bikes just don't exist, or at least I have no knowledge of them.

So some people, who are not interested in any form of 600, end up running older I-4 250 or 400s. But that's not bikes you can build a new racing series on.

Hopefully, KTM will bring a powerful 350 cc single soon which should be light and powerful enough to excite many people. But I haven't heard what the Japanese manufacturers have up their sleeve (if anything). Hopefully there will be plenty of Moto3 knock-offs which will be affordable for a casual Joe.