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250 class is stacked with guys that should be on a 450.. Osborne won one GP here, possibly two, but he is now the big dog in 250 along with a bunch of guys doing their damndest to not point out of SX , to the point where they all bleated till the rules got changed. Charbonneu ran top 10 in AMA and he cant get out of EMX qualification half the time , let alone get in a GP.
Im sure Reed could battle Henry Miller for 30+2 , the 450 class is fast becoming irrelevant , with the number of SX only and Canadian dropouts.
MXGP is stacked, properly, 30 riders worthy of a place, when they are all fit.
The Shop
McDavid
Matthews
Laine
Marner
Nylander
Eichel.
All under 22 i believe and taking over the league
In the 70s thru 90s most of the training was self motivated where now you have parents spending $30k a year so their kid can live at a training facility. My son beat a couple local kids all the time and after a year of training he couldn't touch them.
MX has become an elitist sport and though talent and hard work goes a long way you are only as fast as you can afford to be.
5+ years ago, was it normal for top riders to go down early in a moto and then be able to work their way all the way back up to 2nd or 4th place like Baggett and Anderson did recently?
Pit Row
The talent pool cant be deeper with less riders, that is just pure maths.. if you have 1000 riders, the top 10 will be faster than the top 10 of 100 riders.
So as the standard drops, kids who would have never made it , are numerically nearer the front.. making Loretta's when maybe they wouldnt, mummy and daddy living the dream, and the ones with dollar get little jimmy into MTF or any of the other myriad of places, to go home schooled, because they are top 20 .. when 5 years ago they wouldn't have been top 40 and 5 years before that , maybe even not top 100.
And then there are the tracks.. all fresh prepped , and watered to perfection, the same as kids ride on all week, and then only do a handful of big races, because if they did local races and got smoked it doesnt look good on their resume.
Back in the day the tracks were brutal, and no matter how fast your bike was, if you couldnt ride it , you got smoked .
The bar may have been raised in terms of overall performance,as it has in every other sport , but talent will still win over, no matter how fit you are , if you cant cut it when the gate drops,its all for nought... Pourcel is proof, the speed and technique he has in unreal , and in his prime in the US he could barely train because of his long term injuries.
The costs today stifle talent , kids cant get anywhere without a huge amount of money, and pay to ride is killing the sport . Here in the UK, the amount of proper teams is dwindling, there are maybe 5 or 6 proper Pro's the rest are all part timers, trying to eke out a living between races. People are paying to get a place on a team, just to get in the races, and as a result is that quality drops because the proper guys dont get the rides.
Both classes here....are stacked! And to even mention what Zach was doing 5 years ago is fucking hilarious. He isn't anything like he was 5 years ago.
Waaay more depth in the nationals right now compared to the GP's. You got 10 guys in each class here that can possibly win a moto.
Over there...2 - 4 guys each class. Ferrandis was one of the only guys to beat or even sniff Herlings over there....and most races here...4th - 10th. He has the speed to win too....but again...depth!!
Not trying to start an argument but the GP's pretty much have AC and Herlings winning everything right now in mxgp. Same with MX2 with Jonas and Sewer...with an occasional Covingtion. I very much doubt any of those MX2 guys would crack a top 10 here.
Mxgp....has quite a few fast guys , but most are just not riding well this season or dealing with an injury. That....is a weak class if I've ever seen one. And I'm speaking " right now ".....as round 1 was great , but the field has thinned down to nothing.
4 X the depth here in the states right now. And weather that ruffles feathers or not...I don't really care.
(I don't know the answer.)
If thats stacked then i cant help you, really... there are 3 MXGP champions in the class, plus Herlings, and 10 guys who can win races , i think we have had 5 winners over 12 rounds, and even more moto winners, and there will be more. Gajser got injured, and was on a roll till then, Paulin took an overall, Febvre is finding form after a pre season knock, all these guys are contenders. Desalle won 2 on the spin, and Cairoli took till mid season to do that .
Charbonneau had top 10's in 250 , and yet he cant get through timed training in EMX most of the time.
And no Osborne isnt anything like he was 5 years ago, he is older than Dungey and still racing the feeder class, while paying to be at the Bakers factory , with a factory contract. Webb smoked him and look how he is going in 450.
Ferrandis did ok in SX, and is doing OK in 250, on tracks he has never seen, if he gets a start he is there.
Unless you watch all the races, you cant have an accurate understanding of what is going on.
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