I NEED HELP!

Don't forget to reference the guy that created cross fit telling tmz that the most physically fit athletes are motocross racers.

tyler simply rely on your experience of being a racer all these years. No magical process in this place, you have a long history of racing and knowledge. Explain what you did, and how you did it.

that alone is plenty of stuff to explain why motocross is a sport.

I would be sure to include points about skills vs athleticism in other sports. People get these confused, and it will help your argument.

Take bowling for example. You can be really out of shape and be a good bowler based on the fact that its a skill, same with golf. Designated hitters in baseball fall into this category as well. They can be really out of shape but still have success since hitting is a skill. There are specific minimum conditioning requirements for longevity, and for improving the skills but they are very sport specific whereas general athleticism is very sports general (think running, jumping, and moving). Make the argument that bowling and golf are considered sports.

Running a fast 40 yard dash in football, jumping to get rebounds in basketball...those are feats of athleticism.

Make sure to include uncle Ronnie

Well according to everyone else I know they just tell me you just sit on the bike and twist it so I guess your outta luck if it’s that easy

Here was a study done a few years ago by York university in Ontario (Canada). These were just regular normal people pleasure riding and it showed health benefits. Put that in to a more extreme environment with racers and the fitness benefits would be even greater.

https://www.oftr.ca/fitness-study.php

This link has other links to the study including the official study by the university:
http://blog.tarafrost.com/post/43921804423/dirt-bike-fitness-odyssey-sc…

First you have to define 'sport'. Then it's a lot easier...

sport
spɔːt/Submit
noun
1.
an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.

On Any Sunday makes reference to some sort of "study" that was done in the 70's that determined motocross racers were some of the most physically fit athletes in the world, along with soccer players. Try to find that "study" or one like it, perhaps one that is more recent. There's been a lot of focus lately on heart rate as a proxy for how demanding motocross is.

Your hypothesis really isn't "motocross is a sport" but rather "Motocross Athletes Are Some of the Fittest Athletes in the World." I would suggest using the latter as the basis for your paper. A lot more compelling statement.

Its absolutely a sport. I can't give NASCAR the same credit as motocross. The man who trains physically and mentally is generally the best. Most of all, its an "alternative lifestyle". I know at my prime I dreamed more about racing than my girlfriend. I knew in a seconds time that I could end up in a wheel chair like many, and the love was to strong to turn away. That's fucken insane!

this is an older interview with bad brad, BobbyM a couple of years ago....bad brad was baaad.

Bobby Myers gets this fascinating first hand account of the famous 1980 fitness test in an interview with Brad Lackey.

Racer X: Okay, Brad, let’s hear it from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. From the top, what went down that day when all you guys went to the NSHI [National Sport Health Institute] and participated in this fitness test?
Brad: Cycle Magazine sponsored it, I believe, and they wanted to determine if motocross was really the second most demanding sport in the world behind soccer. So they picked seven or eight of the top riders and sent them to Southern California in Englewood in 1980. Their [Cycle‘s] original plan was to determine if a privateer didn’t win races due to the equipment, or was it a lack of conditioning on the privateers’ part. So they selected about seven top racers and one privateer, who I believe was the top privateer, but I can’t recall the guy’s name. Chris somebody. I have the original article back home somewhere, and I’ll send you a copy if you’d like, Bobby.

Okay, Brad, sure.
Anyway, it was Mike Bell, Danny Laporte, Jeff Ward, myself, Kent Howerton, and a couple other guys. I can’t remember who it was, but anyway, the deal was, we went down there and we were going to show them what motocross racers were all about. This is the place where they test the top athletes from almost every sport.

What sports?
Well, pretty much everything there is … every sport known: soccer, football, baseball, basketball, wrestling, ice skating, gymnastics, track and field, marathon runners … you name it, they tested them. And they tested the top guys in their field. They gathered all this data and information on these guys, and then they could compare who had the strongest muscles and best endurance and that kind of stuff.

What time of year was this? Because I always heard you were fat and out of racing-shape when this went down.
I think it was in November, and it was the off-season for me, since I was finished with the GPs in August and I had been lying around since then, getting fat and stuff, so I wasn’t really in the best shape. The other guys were still in riding shape, due to the winter series and stuff like that. One thing I remember is that they didn’t tell us what we were going to do, what kind of tests we were going to take, so nobody could get a leg up on any of the tests. It really wasn’t a competition between us racers, but more of a gauge of where the top racers were in relation to the top privateer guy. So there wasn’t any practicing for anything or any certain type of test. They had about 15 different things they tested us on. They weighed us in water to test for body fat, and I think Howerton had seven percent or less in body fat and I had around 22 percent since I’d been enjoying my off-season. Stuff like that. I was the oldest guy and the fattest guy, for sure. They did that, and they did a leg-press deal to see who had the strongest legs and just more stuff like that

When they started testing you guys on this stuff and were checking you out, what was going through their minds, these experts on fitness?
Well, they’re looking at us, and none of us are real big and we’re not football players or cut like basketball players or gymnasts, and they’re thinking that this was a joke of some sort. Motocross guys aren’t really defined and ripped and stuff like that. Back then the muscles were endurance muscles, and they’re really strong, but you can’t really see that. When you’re doing 45-minute motos, you’re not big and bulky … the body just doesn’t show how good physically you are. Those “experts” kind of shined us on and really blew us off, pretty much. So they’re going through all these tests with Wardy and Laporte and stuff, and with each test, they are starting to take notice, because we’re all putting in some good numbers, even the privateer guy. They did stuff like that, and then for the final test to measure endurance, they put us on the treadmill. This is funny, because with me, they told me to give them the high sign when I was ready to collapse. When I wanted to give up, I should raise my hand and signal. They needed about 30 seconds to “run down” the test and to gather the last bit of data and stuff. So at the 25-minute mark I’m getting my second wind and the treadmill is at its steepest and hardest setting, and all of a sudden I see these guys looking and pointing at stuff, and the main guy reaches over and basically turns off the treadmill! I say, “What the hell are you doing, man? I’m just getting my second wind here, damn it!” And the guys say, “Your heart rate’s 210! You’re gonna die, man! You’re gonna die!” [laughs].

For people like me that don’t know what that means … what does that mean?
Well, for my age, it was … a little too high. Howerton was probably in the 190s or so. I mean, I was 26, and these guys don’t know what motocross racers’ heart rates are in general, you know? They just think we’re a bunch a yahoos at this point, and when they stopped me, they pretty much had me gauged at or near the top for all the athletes that had come through there before us. I definitely beat all the other motocrossers, and by the time we were all done, I think won the bench-press, too. I benched 305 lbs. and I only weighed 160 lbs. I think Wardy had the best leg-press numbers, but we all did pretty well. When we all were leaving, they were all shaking our hands and I asked a few of the men in white coats where we stood among the other athletes. And they said, “Well, we didn’t really know how good the motocross guys were, and we didn’t give it much thought before today, but you guys are in great shape.” So I asked them how we compared to the other athletes. Well, one guy says, “You know, the strongest guys that we have ever tested are the gymnasts, and you guys appear to be just as strong as them. And the most physically conditioned guys are the marathon runners, and you guys appear to be as fit as them for cardiovascular fitness”. One guys said, “Man, let’s face it: you’re the baddest guys around.” So overall, they ranked all of us at or near the top of any sports athlete in the world. We had the endurance of a marathon runner and the strength of a gymnast! Soccer players are still at the top, but we were right there.

Cool story, Brad. I always wanted to ask you this, because it always comes up, and it seems it’s always a point of contention every so often on the motocross boards. Who was the best guy and stuff … was Wardy in the best shape and were you really fat and other things like that, just motocross fitness in general. Anyway, thanks again, Brad, and when Racer X wants “The Brad Lackey Story,” I’m going to ask DC to send me up to your place and we’ll capture the true Bad Brad story!
[Laughs] No problem, Bobby. Let me know and I’ll get my old mechanic and my wife and we’ll sit down and get it recorded. I can’t remember half the stuff, so we need those other people there, too [laughs]! Thanks, Bobby.
Note: RacerX