Anyone make it up to Delta's AHRMA regional race this weekend?

mooch

mooch

PR Elite
I was looking forward to the this weekend to hit up the post vintage race at Delta (5/15), but the rainy, cool/windy weather sucked the enthusiasm out of making the drive up to Toledo. Anyone else go? How were track conditions and turnout?
1984 RM250 backyard 2014.jpg
 
Made it up last nite ...late. Night races were over. Low turnout due to cold weather. Saturday was somewhat wet but they started late so it wasn't too bad. Today was perfect. Only real issue was there were only 12 riders. Practice for 20 minutes. One gate one moto...break one gate one moto done!
The track used was not the same as last year. They routed around the jumps. Last year we did all the jumps except one. Still a good flow and layout.
It is amazing that track is all sand and drains well. They ran the CC after MX so for those that wanted an hour of seat time it was there. One moto one gate ...done. Home by 2 pm. The cold and rain kept everyone away i'm sure but it was the only place open and dry that I saw all weekend!
Lots of regulars...Bill 88 , 41F Ely. Babet. Colon out of Michigan. Suzuki 0 , 3-4 modern guys too. 25 riders total for Sunday.
 
Thanks for the update Mike! I figured the turnout was low as I'm FB friends with Jim Golliher and he posted a pic of himself at about 12:30pm today holding a plaque. Though the wet weather made me wuss out, I was hoping they'd still have a decent turnout. With only 12 riders, did they base the overall on one big class or did they still break it down...which I guess ould translate into a lot of 1st place trophies ? Yep, bummer to hear about the low turnout but I'm one person who contributed to that :(
 
Had to work all weekend or would have been there. I am hopeful that AHRMA is not done.

I am going to post a Huuuugggggeee Pre-Mid Ohio Post Vintage project bike liquidation sale this week or next. Well OK not Huuggeee but 4-5 bikes. Maybe I'll run a promotion that includes 2016 AHRMA dues with purchase.
 
Im not sure how many other tracks had riders there in our area with the weather...RAIN , COLD ...How was the draw for Western Reserve ? Beans ? East Fork? We need some real MX riders not keyboard jockeys!
sturd said:
AHRMA. Put a fork in it. It's done.
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So AHRMA is alive and well, we will see the Great Lakes Regional series develop over a few years and give us a really nice opportunity to ride closer to home.

Firstly the facts surrounding this weekend are important. As many vintage guys know I am a big supporter of AHRMA / AMA or anybody else gives us opportunities to race our old bikes on fun tracks. There were a number of issues that made the Delta regional challenging.

Firstly the promoter Barry Mayo was a complete and total As@hole, he refused to schedule PV motocross until last Friday, and he wanted to run cross county at 9am Sunday and planned to tell the PV guys to ride CC or go to hell. After Dave, myself and other called and email he relented and decided that there would in fact be (short & quick) PV race on Sunday. However, scheduling a race less than 48 hours before it starts is stupid. At which time most riders had made other plans. In hindsight he only agreed to hold the event to try and shove a few more bucks in his pocket, and has no interest in promoting Vintage racing.

Secondly the Lake Sugar Tree AHRMA race was a late addition to the National schedule, released a month or more after Dave scheduled Delta, so that impacted the turnout. There were at least a dozen of us at LST that would have been at Delta by first choice.

And then of course the wild card was the local weather, I think I heard rain, snow, cold, mud etc. I made my decision Friday evening based on the DELTA vs. LST (70, sunny, blue sky’s) forecasts. And boy did I make the right decision.
 
beenridin said:
Im not sure how many other tracks had riders there in our area with the weather...RAIN , COLD ...How was the draw for Western Reserve ? Beans ? East Fork? We need some real MX riders not keyboard jockeys!
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Western Reserve had 147 entries

Beans was closed

East fork was cancelled/closed
 
They say history repeats itself....I just didn't think it would repeat so soon.

This is basically the same exact scenario I experienced when I was heavy into AHRMA back in 2009/10. The Ohio Regional races would conflict with the Nationals, or they would be scheduled in a way that you'd have to do 3 weekends in a row (national, regional, national). I went to one Regional AHRMA race back then at Western Reserve and it had like 20 racers.

Here's the problem --- 90% of us won't support a series of races at our age. Having all these extra races all over the place simply thins out the herd of potential racers even more then it already is.

Vintage racing would be much better served by having a selection of one-off "must do" events. There are already some, Unadilla, Mid Ohio, Diamond Don's. If there was a single race "Ohio Vet and Vintage Championship" weekend it would grow into what we all want to see. At one point I had that event worked up....but I'm long past the motivation for that now.
 
Again, given the age group and potential turnout, one day regionals should be adequate.
They have fallen on GP weekends for me. The GP races have provided old guy classes for me for many years. I can ride old bikes too and I want to continue to support the GP promoters. At the first GP we had about the same number of 58+ class riders as the entire Delta AHRMA turnout. Plenty to race with along with all the other age groups on the track at the same time and lots of track/racing time in a short race day.
 
Well the next AHRMA regional is at RT62 in Martinsburg Oh on 6/25 - 6/26...sure hope the weather cooperates and no major conflicts with other events as this will be RT62s first stab at a vintage race. That one is only a half hour from my house so I'll definitely be there unless it monsoons.
 
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Mike said:
View attachment 52220 So AHRMA is alive and well, we will see the Great Lakes Regional series develop over a few years and give us a really nice opportunity to ride closer to home.

Firstly the facts surrounding this weekend are important. As many vintage guys know I am a big supporter of AHRMA / AMA or anybody else gives us opportunities to race our old bikes on fun tracks. There were a number of issues that made the Delta regional challenging.

Firstly the promoter Barry Mayo was a complete and total As@hole, he refused to schedule PV motocross until last Friday, and he wanted to run cross county at 9am Sunday and planned to tell the PV guys to ride CC or go to hell. After Dave, myself and other called and email he relented and decided that there would in fact be (short & quick) PV race on Sunday. However, scheduling a race less than 48 hours before it starts is stupid. At which time most riders had made other plans. In hindsight he only agreed to hold the event to try and shove a few more bucks in his pocket, and has no interest in promoting Vintage racing.

Secondly the Lake Sugar Tree AHRMA race was a late addition to the National schedule, released a month or more after Dave scheduled Delta, so that impacted the turnout. There were at least a dozen of us at LST that would have been at Delta by first choice.

And then of course the wild card was the local weather, I think I heard rain, snow, cold, mud etc. I made my decision Friday evening based on the DELTA vs. LST (70, sunny, blue sky’s) forecasts. And boy did I make the right decision.
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Barry did spam the crap out of every Michigan vintage mx facebook group last week. I could not find any info about PVMX motocross in his post. I thought that was pretty weird. Michigan has it's own local series so I doubt more than a handful of guys could ever make the regional races. I would have to agree that a one day PVMX/VMX regional would be better until grows into something bigger. Maybe the track owner could have practice on a Saturday and AHRMA regional race on a Sunday.
 
mooch said:
Well the next AHRMA regional is at RT62 in Martinsburg Oh on 6/25 - 6/26...sure hope the weather cooperates and no major conflicts with other events as this will be RT62s first stab at a vintage race. That one is only a half hour from my house so I'll definitely be there unless it monsoons.
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You had better go and only turn back if the gate is locked!:)

I want to try this one.
 
The event at Delta was not ideal, but they did try to make the situation at the track workable given the weather. I don't know if confusion over the AHRMA rules contributed to the promotional problem for the event. But it is a significant issue in my opinion, in general. Most of the other vintage clubs run classes for bikes from the 60s to the 90s on a single day at regional/local races. Vintage (regardless of what it is called is typically pre 75), AHRMA rules sub-divide this further into several classes. In AHRMA, Vintage is a separate series from Post Vintage (PV is 75-83ish bikes and any later bikes do not actually qualify for official AHRMA series points currently, so they fall into an optional "pre-modern promoter" class), that might work at AHRMA Nationals, but the distinction is problematic at the scale of the regional, local level. Keeping the series separate and having a handful of bikes show up each day is not good for anyone, track owners, promoters, or riders.


While interest in regional AHRMA racing is growing it is never going to be huge. The bikes are scarce and are a challenge to keep running in race-worthy shape. Still, I love riding my "vintage" bikes and look for opportunities to race them as much as possible. In order to be successful the clubs running / sanctioning vintage/PV racing must work to increase entries, if that means running combined with modern, expanding class offerings, compressing the race schedule to one day, etc, then all options should be considered. D-14 Vintage is progressive in that regard and the AHRMA Mid-Atlantic region is as well.


My 2 cents: For standalone AHRMA GL regional weekends I'd like to see the VMX and PVMX day combined with the possibility to run the full schedule on both days, Saturday and Sunday. Or, keep VMX / PVMX racing on Sundays and have a practice Saturday AM with non-current 2 strokes on Saturday PM. AHRMA has some new classes in the works and that would support the direction National MX is going. With combined race days, track layout becomes the bigger problem. A low pipe, short travel vintage bike is a blast to flat track around corners, but not so fun on double jumps, whoops, and deep ruts. The challenge is safely accommodating a huge variation in bike technology. It is possible. Lake Sugar Tree was fun to ride on both a Sportsman class vintage bike and a GP/Ultima bike. I am sure there are a lot more folks here with knowledge of track design and construction that could speak to this issue in a more informed way than I can.
 
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