Catch up with Martin Collins

Martin, CMR Racing, has competed in this year’s National MX Championships, both senior and junior. Obviously with your motorsport background you see it differently and hard not to make comparisons. What was your biggest observation.

In our view the Junior Nationals were run more professionally than the senior events. The administration, track preparation and general event organisation was outstanding. If the senior events could be run in the same way as this junior event was I think we would be taking the sport in the right direction.

I could go into great detail and cover things like pit allocation, pre-race dummy grid area, start gate allocation and preparation. All of these areas were handled in the most professional manner and eliminated the possibility of rules being misinterpreted or broken.

Very interesting observation.  What about the Senior Nationals ?

I/we see several problem areas. First and foremost is the allocation and timing of the National rounds. As much as I/we understand that there is always some need to ensure that National Championships are indeed shared throughout the country it must be questioned as to why we would have a round of the championship in such a remote location as Timaru. While I have nothing against Timaru the majority of competitors had to travel huge distances at huge expense to get there. The location is not conducive to good exposure to our sport as it is so remote reasonable crowds simply are not possible. That said the track is great and the event was well run.

Timing of the events must also be questioned. Why in a semi professional sport would we race at Timaru one weekend and then Patetonga the very next weekend. If you want to burn money and people, drag them from one end of the country to the other in less than a week!

Once again in my/our opinion the Championship should be run over a longer time period allowing a longer exposure period for all involved, sponsors, teams, riders etc. This would also be far more economically viable for those involved, not to mention lightening the impact time away from businesses and families has.

Agreed. In our household we had son Scott riding MX2. We did Timaru which, even with Mainstream Freight taking his and Tony Cooksley’s bikes to Christchurch and back and the use of the Elf Lubricants truck to and from Timaru, it still cost plenty.  The carpark at Auckland Airport was the equivalent of a new Pirelli.  It's also a dis-service to our sponsors to have events in remote locations.  l know one of your sponsors questioned that fact about Patetonga.  What is your next comment.

Concrete starts. We as a team feel there is no place in our sport for them. I understand they must reduce the work load for clubs and individuals but our bikes are built to run on dirt with specialist tyres. The start is possibly the most important part of the race and concrete takes away the skill set required by a motor cross rider to get the best from his ability and equipment. Concrete starts also open up the sport to huge controversy as we found at the final round of the Senior Nationals at New Plymouth. Competitors at this event were told the bikes were to start on the concrete surface with no dirt to be placed on it, one if not more were allowed to start races on a dirt mound created on top of the concrete. If concrete starts are to be continued in our sport very clear rules must be put in place which cannot be interpreted or manipulated and they must be enforced by the Stewards at the event.

They pulled them out in the USA and the Pukekohe Club won’t have them at Harrisville. At both Timaru especially the Senior Stward said there was to be no dirt ramps allowed.  Patetonga policed it well, only a broom and wire brush was allowed. Next ?

False or jumped starts. Better rules and control need to be worked for the possibility of a false start. I would suggest;

1. A false start occurs; the race is red flagged before the competitors get to the first corner. The competitor causing the false start is spoken to by the event steward and warned of an impending penalty. The competitor returns to his selected start gate.
2. A second false start by the same competitor, again the race is red flagged. The competitor returns to his start gate but does not start at the drop of the gate for the restart but with a flag drop with a delay of some form of time penalty.
3. This way the competitor is penalised for his/her indiscretion but is still allowed to compete and therefore race, round and championship wins are still possible. When sponsorship is involved, huge team expense is committed to being at events and competing for National Championships the sport must recognise the impact rules that can be interpreted by different individuals can have. The answer is to have clearer or more rules to remove interpretation.

Several years ago I witnessed Daryl Hurley being turned around to start backwards at the Auckland Champs … he didn’t do it again. Anything else you want to say?

I hope these points can be seen as constructive and not unfair criticism of our sport. Our thanks do go out to all of those involved in making our sport possible from an administrative and sporting perspective as we understand the effort many Clubs and people put in and in many cases on an unpaid basis, to allow us all to race.