Monday, November 24, 2008

2008 AMA Congress remains ineffectual according to participant

There is a very disturbing letter in the upcoming (November 26, 2008, Issue #47) edition of Cycle News from AMA member Jerry Fouts. Jerry is the ATV Congressman for District 36 and attended the 2008 Congress.

I have long wondered just how effective the AMA Congress really is at effecting change in the organization. Here's what I wrote in August of last year:

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Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Omnibus Land Act of 2008 - your government at work

Whatever else you may think about the recent election, one thing is certainly going to change — public policy about the public's right to use public lands. Specifically, our right to ride and responsibly use public trails and land will be under even greater assault.

The latest major assault on our rights as American off-road enthusiasts is the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2008. Please visit the AMA Rapid Response Center or Save the Trails to let your representatives know you want them to kill this bill.

This bill is bad by it's very nature. There are more than 140 separate parts in it, and you can bet your last dollar that no one voting on it knows what they all are. Any bill in Congress with the word omnibus in its title is bad. Period. No exceptions.

The word omnibus means dealing with many items at once, and it's the straight path to hell for decent legislation. Omnibus bills are expressly designed to obfuscate their contents, create hidy-holes for pet projects, and get things passed that would never pass on their own if they had to survive the harsh light of open debate. They are a favorite tool of corrupt, lazy politicians and special interests, who use them to hide things for which there is no public support. Half the time there are no, or very few, specifics in the bill at all when it is passed. Most of the specifics get written later by useless bureaucrats. Great, huh?

The only sure thing about this bill is that, as off-road enthusiasts, we will be worse off if it passes. It's possible (but very difficult) to get good land use legislation. But it requires open debate, consideration, participation by the public, and lots of hard work. The Omnibus Bill got none of those things. It's a shortcut, half-ass, slap-and-go, piece of lame duck legislation. Let your Representative know that we've had enough of their stupid legislating and they should just go home.

Friday, August 8, 2008

FIM vs DMG - the battle for world domination

Two things of note this past week in the world of motocross (three, I guess, but I'm not all that interested in who hired Chad Reed — it was obvious someone would) – Youthstream opens U.S. office in southern California, and CycleNews publishes an interview with FIM president Vito Ippolito confirming the FIM's intentions to grow a Supercross World championship (Cycle News Issue #32, Aug. 13, 2008, pg 7.)

Neither of these things is unexpected, but together they are an important warning — nature abhors a vacuum, particularly the vacuum created when the AMA sold off professional racing.

Under the AMA pro racing in every discipline except road race and SX was a goat rodeo and a national embarrassment. Getting out of the racing business was overwhelmingly the right thing to do. Selling most everything to Daytona Motorsports Group was the right choice. But that doesn't mean we didn't get some new and different problems in the bargain.

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Sunday, July 27, 2008

Smart money says new AMA Pro Racing will get it right

The entire professional road racing community has been up in arms since DMG (now officially AMA Pro Racing) began making their presence felt. The complaints have been long, loud, and many. A person less magnanimous than me might even call it incessant whining. But I won't do that. I understand what all the furor is about. The road racers were, more or less, happy with the status quo, and DMG have begun shaking that up — not always in a positive direction. But in MX and Flat Track the situation is different.

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Mike Kidd chosen to lead AMA Pro Flat Track

AMA Pro Racing (the new AMA Pro Racing) announced Thursday that long-time, old school flat track racer, former AMA Grand National Champion, race promoter, Motorcycle Hall of Fame member, and Texan Mike Kidd has been chosen to head the redevelopment of the national flat track program. This is good news. Kidd has been around the block more than once and knows the flat track business. He's also seen the ups and downs of race promoting, being one of the first to bring racing to the small arenas in the mid-'80s.

I love flat track — watching those big Harley XR750s pitched completely sideways at 100mph in a mile race is awesome. The old AMA's apathy toward flat track was exceeded only by their apathy toward outdoor MX. Flat track is a genuinely American form of competition and deserves much better. I've read that AMA Pro Racing's Roger Edmondson is a big flat track fan, and this move to bring in Kidd is encouraging.

Kidd has done some very innovative things in his promotional career, but it seemed he never really had the big bucks behind him that he needed - even though he had the backing of Clear Channel for a while. It just didn't work. But now that he's got the backing of a group with both money and a love of the sport things could be very different. I hope so.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Long live the two-stroke Part Deux: FUD in the marketplace

Two-stroke technology is not banned. Never was. Yet this myth continues to run rampant over the internet. Two-stroke technology is changing, getting cleaner, but this is a story about how purposeful misdirection and a campaign of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt created a myth, killed development of a promising technology for over a decade, and changed the face of a sport.

Let's assume that a large, multi-national corporation (for simplicity we'll use a fictitious entity called Company H) manufactures everything from inexpensive lawn mowers and power generators to motorcycles and $40,000 SUVs. Every item in their massive product line is powered by a four-stroke motor. Every item, that is, except a small group of dirt bikes. The company has enormous investments and intellectual property in the development, marketing, and sales of four-stroke-driven products.

Company H is aware that certain proprietary methods, techniques, or technologies for lowering two-stroke emissions are either available or under development, some by their primary competitors. But Company H doesn't own any of the intellectual property (patents) associated with this improvement. Further, two-stroke engines do not fit the company's financial model — costing extra for development (since they can't leverage their vast institutional knowledge of four-strokes) — while generating lower margins in sales and service parts.

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Thursday, July 10, 2008

AMA approves sale to Daytona Motorsports Group

Here's the press release from the AMA regarding final approval of the Pro Racing/DMG deal. I'm sure the road race community is up in arms over this, and I feel for them. The changes underway there have created a lot of friction with the riders, factories, and race track owners. There's a lot of bluster going on now between all sides. As Dave Despain said in his Wind Tunnel editorial a couple of Sundays ago, a lot of this is posturing for negotiation, so let's get to negotiating guys and get it worked out.

But the NPG have been busting their butts in a way that has not been seen since...

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Friday, May 30, 2008

Residents and Greenies fight new track in Seattle

This Seattle Times news story tells the tale of another local battle to prevent legal riding areas. MXGP of Kirkland, WA have a 467-acre tract in rural Washington state, about an hour from Seattle. The promoters want to use 75 acres to build a multi-track MX facility and have gone to great lengths to address noise and environmental issues. Of course, there is no such thing as addressing all the issues where EcoNazis are concerned.

No doubt, this is the future all all riding facilities - new or old - and we had better get our act together on the federal, state, and local levels and begin a coordinated effort across the country to keep our right to ride intact. [Found via Blogandt]

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Finally! D.C. says we'll get our answer this week.

In this week's Racer Head Davey Coombs said the Big News we've all been waiting for - what's going to happen to the AMA Toyota Motocross Championshps - will likely be announced before Hangtown next weekend. To quote DC:

Needless to say, there are going to be a few confused people out there, but the vast majority of motocross fans and industry folks will just be glad to put this all behind them and start focusing on the racing and the future.

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Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Dan Kleen, President of NOHVCC on PitPass Radio

Tonight's PitPass Radio featured Dan Kleen, president of NOHVCC - the National Off-Highway Vehicle Conservation Council. Dan did a good job of explaining some of the organization's functions. Specifically, he was on to discuss a legislative victory in Iowa that got the State to return ATV fees that the legislature had confiscated for the past six years. It's a good segment. It's a small victory but an important one that shows we can be successful if we just organize ourselves and take the time to be heard. He's the first guest starting at about the 15-minute mark.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Washington State Gov Vetoes New Trail Ban

According to this press release from the AMA Washington State governor Christine Gregoire vetoed a portion of the state's annual budget that included a last-minute rider to ban all new ORV trail construction until 2009.

The AMA today praised Washington State Gov. Christine Gregoire's line-item veto of a measure that would have banned all construction of new trails or facilities for off-road motorized recreation for at least a year.

The measure, which had been inserted in the state budget in a last-minute maneuver, without the opportunity for public debate, would have prohibited the state’s Department of Natural Resources from building or expanding trails or facilities for off-road recreational vehicles until July, 2009. It was one of seven sections of the proposed capital budget that Gov. Gregoire vetoed.

The AMA attributes the veto to activist participation, and credits the 500 members who used the AMA's Rapid Response Center with having an impact on the outcome.

Maybe so. But 500 people - just 500 people - using this simple, easy tool from the AMA is pathetic. There are thousands (maybe tens of thousands) of off-road motorcyclists in Washington State. And only 500 used the system. This is wrong on so many levels. It speaks to the incredibly poor job the AMA has done in serving the off road community. It speaks to the weak nature of the AMA's media reach. And it speaks to a certain amount of apathy on the part of off road riders in Washington.

No doubt many riders used some other method for contacting their state representatives, or the bill would not have been defeated. Then again, maybe it was the snowmobilers and 4x4 guys who did all the work. I don't know. But in any case you would think the AMA should muster more than a measly 500. Maybe it's just me, but we have to do better than this if we're ever going to have a prayer of beating the eco-Nazis at their own game.