Reply To: A personal apology to Vinnie Mannino and CJBMX

[bmiddaugh]

Hi again Karen, lol..
I’d just like to say that the original apology was from me, not about the jump, but the joke I made to Rich about giving Vinnie “ether” to let us play with some nasty racer parents, which just grates on us older guys who do race. Whenever we see a racer getting yelled at by a parent it drives us crazy because BMX is one of the few sports where a parent can get on a bike right next to their kid and have at it. The funny thing is that joke would never apply to you or Vinnie or any of the people I personally know, but there are a few I’ve seen in the pits that just got under my skin over the past year..blah blah whine whine… I just wanted to clarify that, so no one feels responsible for my stupid joke!
I saw your other post in the other forum and you are a great “Race Mom” and Bill is like one of the best dudes I’ve met at CJ!
I know when someone comes on here, not just yourself and sees some of the “postings” and seems to think “backstabbers”! It really must seem that way, but 90% of the guys here are just posting their opinions on things, it’s just that sometimes people feel ignored and they need a place to vent. I’ll admit that is my intent with this site, vent, tell ideas, opinions. I want to hear it and I hope track directors and board members want to hear it. I don’t want personal attacks, no let me rephrase that I will not tolerate personal attacks. But I can’t just let things that I and other riders see as sorta bad decisions not be made light of.
I remember being there that day with you guys and Bill was sorta bummed as no one was listening to him! I was behind him with his ideas and I applaud Bill for having the testicular fortitude to go ahead and change that one jump with no one to help, I mean what do I say to someone who has that drive when there is no reward.
I have a different view of the NBL then most of the people involved in NJBMX because I am an outside there, nats, regionals, stuff like that don’t mean a lot to me. I mean jeesh, it really seems like the NBL just hurts the local scene, they give national numbers to beginners, which immediately cuts into the local tracks bottom lines by taking those riders from you and having them go to “real” races…nationals.
Then the NBL has NINETEEN nationals before even the end of May. I would respectfully ask the NBL to release the beginners back to the local track and to have less nationals so as to have them become bigger events, and to truly make nationals mean something…But the NBL bottom line will not allow that.
I understand that the riders should be and do want to be pushed to become better but we have to stop at some point and say where are we going with this?
I wasn’t at South Park last year, but, and I hope someone will tell me if this is true, they actually had a helicopter there to take out riders who were injured and the police actually said, no more, we need this thing elsewhere…is this true?
If so, I again stress that the time has come to divide tracks between National level and local level. These ideas must come from the top, I respect you guys, you love your kids, you love BMX…It’s time for us to effect real change. People go to competition congress but no real headway is made, I do not know what goes on there, all I do know is that the same people have been running organized BMX racing for over 30+ years at the sanction level and though the top pros will be in the Olympics, where are we going with the local beginner scene.
If we continue to trend toward bigger and bigger jumps, racing will become a semi elitist “sport” like modern day freestyle vert riding.
This post is not meant as a dig on anyone because these factors are all beyond your control.
We sorta don’t know how the Olympics are going to pan out, as J-Rich said, it could be curling, ach! or if done right, it could be the 100 yard dash with mega media craziness…my bet right now….I’m CLUELESS because the NBL is giving no direction!!
Let’s say the Olympics rock, its the story of the century, Jason Richardson, Original Jersey Boy, comes back from an almost career ending injury to win the gold against the rocking chinese contingent trained by ex-racer Greg Hill…
Johnny 9 year old goes MOM DAD…RACE!!!!
They go to the track and see something that they cannot progress into.
I’m gonna say it again, I am currently working with 3 other guys on getting a demo team together that I am going to use to promote racing to the kids.
All the parents that have been into racing for awhile, if you took your kid to the track and the first thing you saw were what you see today would you be more inclined or less inclined to let them throw down.
Again, don’t read angry inflection into anything here, I’m just throwing out what I see going on.
Just a guy who loves BMX,
Brett