I started racing NBL in 1979 by 1980 I was sold on ABA.
Has anything changed since then?
In 1979 I raced mostly NBL. I was new to BMX but couldnt tell you where I finished in the points. In 1980 I was split and racing both NBL and ABA.
In 1979 I was ABA #1 all year but in NBL my points were sent to both PA and sperately to NJ/ HUH wtf. Well How did I finish in NBL that year?
Have no clue, the lame NBL only published the top 50, thats for the entire state of NJ. I probably was 51 lol, ill never know. Then again I got points in PA so I finished out of the top 50 in two states lol.
The ABA meanwhile was dialed. I finished #6 in 79 (actually #1 lol but ABA cheated me to get a track to switch sanctions) and #185 in 80. (I crashed at the NBL Flemington national in 80 and missed all of the summer of 80). One sanction let all the riders know where they finished in points (ABA) the other sanction (NBL) didnt care.
ABA points and newspaper dialed, NBL beginner. That was then.
ABA points today (dialed if you can read them without a magnifying glass), newspaper and website all dialed in. NBL? lol look at their site, Brokenspokes.Net is more dialed.
Look at who is sponsoring the NBL nationals. They cant even get MCS who basically started the NBL or Profile from their own strongest state of Florida.
Both sanctions are killing the sport with their greed of 1 gazillion nationals, no importance anymore to the local scene, no promotion outside the sport and making tracks to please the top riders and not tracks that a beginner can race (or veteran butcasual racer like me). yeah the top riders have gotten insanely fast and great but are riders who have never set foot on a BMX track before any better today???????? Everyone says that beginners and new riders are the backbone to BMX yet they kiss ass to all the fastest racers to hear them say after a track rebuild, OMG dude thats so awesome! Wow howd we get enough dirt for 100 jumps? O yeah get rid of backside and make the jumps lippy let you use less dirt. Good Job man. this will really seperate the technical riders from the posers”
good job making a track the new kids look at and go no way man, but outloud when asked what they think say, “man this is awesome, looks really cool” then he never comes back.
Both sanctions are killing the sport, but at least with the ABA your doing it dialed in.