Old School

By Dave Porter
Photos by Susan Guadagnino

I know I know, you’ve been wondering where I’ve been. Well, I have no excuses, things got out of control busy for me. Like I said though no excuses, I should have found enough time to put something down and sent it in, or at least describe some of Susan’s great pictures with my less than intelligent take on things. Anyway, late or not, below is an overview of the last few rounds of the AMA ATV Nationals from my old school point of view…

The National Champ
I’ll start first with the end. I have to give a major thumbs up to my chop-busting buddy Josh Creamer. Josh and I can get pretty brutal when we really get busting on each other. It can get to the point where we can make the people around us uncomfortable. Well there’s no chop-busting now. I have to give Josh all the props in the world. This kid is young, but as old school as it gets as far as I’m concerned. From the way he trains to the way this young man lives his life, he’s old school. He’s not what most of you think he would be like. It would be pretty safe to say that most of you think that Josh lives the prototypical factory rider lifestyle. You know what I mean – all he has to worry about is riding, training and eating, right? Well you would be wrong. I talked to him the Monday before Loretta Lynn’s. Guess what he was doing six days before the biggest race of his life. He was working for a guy that builds cement foundation for new homes. He was out there doing concrete form work, not because he wanted to but because he had to. Josh is not a salary paid factory rider. His pay for 2010 was a practice bike, a race bike, (not to keep mind you) and some win bonus money. I think it would be safe to say that Josh is the most under-paid factory rider to win a national championship ever.

Not getting the lucrative big bucks didn’t detour him from his goal on bit. Actually it did quite the opposite, it fueled him to go out and work harder than the next guy and made his desire to win bigger than if he was paid salary wages. And he never once cried and complained about his situation, he simply played the cards he was dealt. He’s the type of young man that most all of us can relate to; hard-working, goal-oriented and driven to win. Old school all the way and I love it. We should all be very proud of him, I sure am, and I think he’ll represent us all as a fantastic National Champion in 2011.

 

Pleasure Valley National
I’m not sure what it is about that place. Maybe it’s in the water or something. I don’t know, maybe the land the track is on is an ancient fighting ground for Indians that once battled settlers there. Whatever it is it seems to spark violent emotions from ATV Pro and Pro-Am riders alike. In 2009 Joe Byrd and Josh Creamer had it out on the last lap on the last corner of the last Pro moto. This year a couple Pro-Am ranked boys by the name of Billy Cottage and Chase Snapp got into a little WWC throw-down. Like last year, the battle came down to the end of the race, but this one ended in a fist-throwing contest. There’s never a dull moment at an ATV National, that’s for sure.

One thing Pleasure Valley does for me is bring a big smile to my face. The reason for that is this is the place that Casey Martin, Rath Racing and myself made a bit of ATV racing history. It was the first time Polaris and/or any American made ATV won a Pro or Pro-Am motocross event. It was something I’ll never forget as long as I live. Probably the biggest thing that stands out to me about that monumental day was just how many people were pulling for us. My back was a little sore and my eyes a little red that day. It was awesome.

No TV Coverage, No Factory Backed ATV Race Teams
If you have not heard the bad news yet, Suzuki has told their factory ATV race team employees that they no longer have a job at the end of the 2010 season. Also it’s rumored that Suzuki is stopping the production of their LTR450. This news is weeks to a month old, and as usual, our ATV media is scared to mention it for some reason. Anyway, if Suzuki actually goes through with dismantling its race team and their made-to-race QuadRacer LTR450 is indeed no longer available, it would be one of the worst things to ever happen to our sport. Besides the dose of economic reality, the message it would send is horrible for the growth of our sport. Guys, I hate to be the doom and gloom dude here, but our sport is in trouble, real trouble. If Suzuki pulls out Can-Am Motoworks will probably be next. Then we will be completely without any factory-backed ATV motocross race teams, and this sure isn’t good for the morale if you know what I mean.

What has happened here? What went wrong? What has caused this downward spiral of our sport? Lets face it, the biggest one is the economy. People aren’t buying new sport quads. Actually the fact is very few people are buying anything in the powersport market. But besides the poor economy, I think another disappointing reasons for the downward trend in ATV racing is the mismanagement of our sport. I’m not smart enough to know how to manage it, nor do I know exactly who the managers running it even are, but I do pay attention to things that have worked well for the sport over the years and what went wrong in the dark days. With that said, if you take a look at some of the best years in our sport’s entire history you’ll see that they were the years that ATV racing was televised.

As big of a fan as I am of the AMA ATV National Series, I don’t think it is as big as it could be by now, and I think the success it has had in recent years is basically inherited from the now debunked WPSA Series, and their well done ESPN 2 television coverage. Every factory ATV race manager will tell you that television is the biggest reason that the manufactures get involved in racing and go through the time and effort to put together big deal race teams. So I have to ask why don’t we have any mainstream television coverage. My God it’s 2010, exciting action-packed ATV racing shouldn’t be such a secret any longer. I can flip on the television and there seems to be 24/7 coverage of Texas Holdem. And if watching people play cards doesn’t do it for you how about lawn mower racing? Yep that seems to still get televised on the Speed channel for some reason. Man, I get pissed when I see that kind of boring crap on TV and not the ATV Nationals.

So what’s the problem? Look, I’m not pretending to know all the answers, but I’m a guy that’s been in this sport since day one. When I say day one – I mean day one. I’ve raced against factory backed three wheeled riders. That doesn’t put me in a category that makes me smarter than the next guy, but I do see history repeating itself here, and I don’t want to see another decade of non supportive manufacturers, so can someone please have a meeting with the decision making manufacturers and figure out a way to pool some adver
tising money together and get the sport back on television already?

Amateur and Pro-Am Success
For sure, MX Sports, the AMA and the entire industry has to be happy with the participation in the Amateur and Pro-Am classes in 2010. Personally I was amazed at the turn out this year. With the economic situation in our country, I, along with many, thought entries were going to be very lean at the Nationals this year. I was way off, there is no doubt that the prestige of wining an AMA National Championship is still real strong despite the economy. I’m not saying there were record entries or anything, but I am saying that amateur level attendance shows that there’s still a lot of potential for this sport. The AMA should be proud of what they’ve built, and all of you racers and enthusiasts out there should be proud of yourself for all the support you’ve given to this sport.

Well that’s all for now. Thanks to Susan Guadagnino below are a few fantastic parting shots from the last few rounds of this year’s ATV Nationals….

 

 

 

 

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