For fans and the media it’s great to have a glamorous ending ti the AMA season with the exciting SMX Playoffs but for riders and teams is it too much?
We asked Pit Beirer about the value of the SMX title and he told us the US season us simply too long and burning athletes out. Interestingly, Aaron Plessinger is currently out after his body said no more and Chase Sexton away said he needed a break after his Hangtown crash.
Pit told us: “I might not make myself super popular, but I think the season in the US is too long for the riders. So doing a full Supercross season, doing a motocross season, and then the SMX series, it’s just too much. And then we still expect them to come with the best riders to the Motocross of Nations. It’s the calendar that is for me, overloading staff and riders and just look how many riders make it from the first race in Supercross to the last race in SMX. So the riders take their break, but they have to break. They have to take the break by taking an injury.
“I think every sport season has kind of a beginning, a high and a low, and then sometime off, and then you restart again. So I feel we need to talk there to the promoters and AMA and the industry really to make a calendar which is doable for riders because we want the best guys on track. We don’t want them at home and then winning because another guy is injured. So I feel there we need to react. We cannot go on like this and just have half of the field at home and then just fill up with other riders. So I’m not satisfied. I don’t know. I don’t know about other people in the sport. And it’s not… I mean, you know, I love to see our guys on the track. Yeah, we have the team, we pay the riders, so we have marketing when they are on the track, don’t get me wrong. But we also need to make sure we don’t burn these fantastic guys out. I mean, all of them, and I feel it’s just too much.
“And also, to restart this kind of Supercross style straight after motocross, you just saw the guys last year who have been injured and not been in the season, but then preparing already kind of Supercross style for the last few races, they came out swinging. But if you do a full motocross season and you just go down, you’re not ready for Supercross. The team and the bike is not ready for Supercross. So to squeeze that in after an outdoor season, I don’t feel good.”
“I feel we should have a break and restart the season in January. That’s where we all want to be. Anaheim 1 is the first Supercross. So that’s where we all want to be and that’s where we all want to be with healthy riders, but also with the recovered staff and bikes and things. But yeah, I don’t want to make it too big of a story, but it’s my personal opinion. And if I get asked, I will tell you.
Off the back of that, Lewis Phillips then asked Ian Harrison his thoughts at Ironman and he said: “I think we have to take a good long hard look at it. I’m not sure what the best solution is because riders, I feel like, do need a break.But then they end up getting, you know, contracted to go race these other Supercross racers all over the world. And I get that those racers are not as intense. They’re not riding for their contract.It doesn’t have all this money on the line. You know, so I get that part of it. But to find the balance, I don’t know how we do that exactly.
“I remember, you know, back in the 90s, I mean, we would do a bunch of Supercrosses in the offseason. And even in Europe, when we’re doing the World Championship, we would do four or five races in Europe and then a couple in Japan. So it’s for sure, we need to take a good hard look at it and see what’s best for the teams, for longevity, you know, for riders, for mechanics, for the crew, you know, yeah, we need to figure that out.Because pretty much in December, you start up again”
Then KTM grouo trainer, Aldon Baker, said on the PulpMX show this week: “It’s too long, you know to be blatantly honest. I think it needs to be addressed. Otherwise we are just gonna burn through shoe riders and if you just take this season alone, the only guys that are hanging in that have done both series Is actually of all people my boy Malcolm, you know, but he is really good at pacing himself.
“You know, AP everything was going good and then he got a sinus infection and to me You should have actually probably not gone in race But then they committed they go and race then they bury themselves a bit and then they come back.They have to recover That’s less time on the motorcycle and then they go back out onto the motorcycle but it hits them like a ton of bricks because it’s hotter than you know in Florida and it’s s just a vicious cycle and and to the point where, just an AP’s case, he he had to try and get healthy and when you try to do that you got it back off the riding but then to me that’s fine. But to go back racing and especially at the intensity that the races are at at the moment, it’s no joke.”
