When McGoo went off on his critique of the state of BMX affairs in the October issue of Snap, he pissed off a lot of riders. I don’t think Snap is going to hear the end of it for a long time. Most of my friends are part of the demographic he’s bitching about—you know, the guys that have never turned pro for one reason or another.

Maybe they’re like me and came back to the BMX game after 10 plus years away. I quit BMX when cars entered my life and went on to race cars, but that’s another story. So when I came back to BMX, it took a long time to get some skills back. I love BMX and I don’t give a damn if I’m moto filler. I just love to ride my bikes.

A lot of guys I know never had the opportunity to race BMX when they were young. Maybe it was living in some podunk town or their parents wouldn’t buy them a bike. Whatever, it doesn’t really matter. My pal, Raoul, picked up a BMX bike and raced for the first time this year at age 24 and he flies. If he wanted to dedicate himself to training, he could run with the single-As.

Maybe Harold’s whining is completely self-serving, with his upcoming ESPN series. One thing for sure is that the guy is dead nuts on about nationals being too big. Pick your sanction-specific terminology, but rookies, novices and intermediates don’t belong at nationals. Right now, anybody can race at a national, as long as you’ve got a bike and a licence. Sure a lot of you guys reading this are going to be incensed by this statement, but I love BMX and want to see it grow. The way that’s going to happen is by creating excitement outside of the sport itself. It’s gotta become a spectator sport. That’s the key. And it’s not going to happen when you’ve got squirrelly newbies front-casing their way around nationals.

I want to see BMX being an alternative to other professional sports. Sure, I don’t imagine Christophe Leveque getting paid b-ball money, but maybe, just maybe, before his BMX career is over he’ll be earning motocross money. He can only hope.

McGoo’s ESPN series may be the extreme, being pro only, but it’s definitely going to make the sport exciting to the non-BMXers out there. The best thing that can come from this is more riders getting involved at the local level. Hopefully, that will build some solid local and regional programs to fuel the big time nationals. And if we ditch the non-experts, racing at a national is going to mean something.

Any commentary can be sent to makspeed@hotmail.com

Copyright 1999. All rights reserved.