This will be long. (That’s what she said. Heh, heh)
The RIGHT way to do this would be to make it a pro only series. However with only seven pros in NJ and Philly that I can think of, it would be spotty. This ain’t motocross so unfortunately we couldn’t count on guys to commit to it and show up every time. It’s BMX and even these pros do it for fun and not a living so getting them to commit probably wouldn’t happen.
The NBL has always blurred the lines between pro and am so ams can race open and make money. It would be cool to make it a pro only event and elevate pro the way it SHOULD be but that won’t happen. At least not this year. There are plenty of good ams so they should be allowed.
It should be a series for pros and 16 & over experts.
It should be held in conjunction with the state qualifiers for several reasons:
The state qualifiers don’t conflict with the NBL national schedule. I don’t care about that but everyone else would. So the pros and older experts wouldn’t have any excuse NOT to be there.
Being held at the state qualifiers would give it max exposure. State qualifiers were 35 motos whereas locals were in the teens last year.
Also, if a PA system is bought then it would be at the state qualifiers which you would want for a pro-am series.
It should be first in the moto order just like an ABA national. People know what is up first. All is quiet then the music starts. The riders are announced and by that time everyone is watching. Registration will have to be intelligent and move the older expert motos to the middle of the order so as not to conflict.
8 man gates.
The open main should be first. Unfortunately I’m thinking only one main instead of three. With so few mains at state qualifiers, open would pretty much be running three times in a row which is a ball up for the spectators to wait for and the quality of racing is diminshed. Also the ams that whine because they want to be included will whine when they have to race their class motos, open motos and then three open mains.
Since Brett rocked the Casbah this year and covered the state qualifiers and creating articles on them this gives a cool photo op. Right after the main, have pro podium right on the starting gate. (I still love the fact that these people absolutely BLASTED Brett at the September meeting for everything that was happening on Brokenspokes but njbmx.org was NEVER updated and such a joke that Brokenspokes essentially became the new njbmx.org. Even better was when they all denied looking at the site but you knew they were)
I’m thinking payout to top four. If twelve people pay $20 that’s $240 in the pot. Without significant sponsorship to add money to the pot, splitting it more than that makes the payout kind of petty. I suppose we could make it more complex than that like payout to top four with 10 signups, payout to top six with 15 signups, etc. That’s a difficult thing to architect now because it would depend on how much participation we get and how much money would be added to the pot. Basically I’m imagining the turnout wouldn’t be huge so pay only a few people to make the payout something substantial.
I’m tired. More later